Five ways a CRM system improves SEO results

30-second summary:

• When you look at what all a CRM system does for you, it lines up perfectly with the goals of an effective SEO strategy. The two should go hand-in-hand, working together to make each other more successful.
• Right from initiating surveys to getting insights from customer data for hyper-targeted content creation, there’s a lot that a CRM can offer that will add value to your SEO strategy.
• Customer experience too is intricately linked to the heart of how SEO works. When people search for keywords or phrases, they’re trying to find answers to questions and other information to satisfy a need.
• Don’t underestimate the impact a CRM system can have on your SEO. Five ways your CRM can help you get better results with SEO.

The beauty and bane of SEO is that it’s a richly diverse topic. There are so many avenues to explore and angles to consider. In a previous article, we looked at how different inter-organizational collaborations can boost your SEO implementation and improve your results. Part of this article was dedicated to collaborations with customer relationship management (CRM) systems.

Although we touched on some of the benefits of CRM systems for SEO teams, it’s worth diving a bit deeper. When you look at what all a CRM system does for you, it lines up perfectly with the goals of an effective SEO strategy. The two should go hand-in-hand, working together to make each other more successful.

Here are five ways your CRM system can help you get better results with SEO.

1. Getting on the same page

When you’re using a CRM system, you have the opportunity to continuously learn from your customers. You can use this opportunity to find out more about their pain points, what they’re searching for, and what they’re purchasing. This information can then be passed over to the relevant part of your company to deal with it.

Through a CRM system, you can issue surveys, ask questions, and record information given by your existing customers and leads. With a more complete picture of customer data you can create localized content, adjust the timing of certain SEO campaigns to match buying habits, and highlight features of your products or services with keywords that address customer pain points.

Here is what Daniel Liddle – SEO Growth Strategist at Green Park Content says,

“Getting that crucial customer behaviour information from CRM systems is the best way to refine the intent and behaviour of your leads. With more and more CRMs incorporating machine learning into their software such as Microsoft’s Dynamic365 and Salesforce, sentiment analysis and forecasting is becoming a lot easier to report on and also making that data actionable in order to drive sales. And, that’s the key point, there’s elements of information that’s more ‘nice to know’ but you really want to be looking and building on actionable data which a lot of software companies are driving towards doing this autonomously.”

2. Nurturing SEO leads

SEO gets people to your content, but what happens next? If you don’t get enough engagement on your pages or response from your calls to action (CTAs), even your SEO will suffer over time. You have to follow up with leads generated by your SEO efforts so that you can turn them from page visitors to conversions.

CRM can help you guide your overall SEO strategy. If you integrate SEO efforts into your CRM system, you’ll get an idea of whether your SEO is bringing the right types of people to your pages, how many conversions you’re generating, and what brought people there in the first place. All of this means better SEO with measurable results that matter to your bottom line. Traffic and page views are great, but it’s better to get less general traffic if that means more conversions.

3. Providing consistency

Using a CRM system, you can ensure that your whole organization is on the same page. No matter how small or large your operation is, consistency in marketing and customer-facing strategies matters. CRM helps you stay organized to present the same central message across all platforms.

The more you talk about a certain subject, the more your authority on the subject increases. Building authority on a topic is great for SEO, as your content will have an advantage in the rankings if your focus stays consistent. You’ll be able to build a stronger link profile, get more social media mentions, and post more relevant content that your audience loves.

Growing that authority requires company-wide efforts to produce a consistently good experience that’s relevant to your audience and fulfils their needs. CRM helps you stay on track and get everyone on board from different parts of the organization.

For instance, Mario Peshev, CEO of DevriX, relies on their in-house CRM tool for gathering case studies in a consistent manner:

“Our retainer contracts are long-term and we revise our accomplishments two to four times per year. Having our customer portfolio in one place enables us to review the progress to date, leverage a case study template, and prepare drafts for new PR opportunities or updating existing success stories delivered for our clients.”

4. SEO and customer experience

The entire point of a CRM system is to improve the customer experience your company offers, from the beginning of the sales funnel to after-sales services and everything in between. By improving your customer experience, you can also boost your SEO.

Customer experience is intricately linked to the heart of how SEO works. When people search for keywords or phrases, they’re trying to find answers to questions and other information to satisfy a need. If you know what your customers want and need, you can better tailor your content and keywords to address those needs.

To give a good customer experience you first have to know your customers. Take that information and apply it to SEO. Using the data about your existing customers, you can target your SEO efforts on a more realistic market of people that share the needs and wants of your existing customer base. Since you know these types of people already use your products or services, it’s a good idea to market to similar people as well.

Better, more targeted content means lower bounce rates, more organic traffic, and higher engagement with your CTA. Your SEO efforts can only benefit from relevant content that addresses what people really want to know.

5. Improving third-party reviews

Speaking of customer experience, SEO is also partially impacted by outside mentions of your company. Specifically, third-party review sites like Google My Business, Yelp, and Travel Advisor hold a lot of weight. If you are listed on these sites with a solid number of reviews (most of which are positive), you’ll do better in SEO than if you’re unlisted with fake reviews, no reviews, or poor reviews.

If you’re doing your CRM work right, you should end up with more satisfied customers. These are the guys who are going to be leaving the reviews for you. It’s a long-term strategy, but by focusing more on a great customer experience that leaves more people satisfied with what you provide, you will naturally end up with more positive reviews. You can even prompt people to leave reviews if you’re confident that more people will be happy rather than disappointed.

CRMs do a lot for your business if you use it right. If you’re using one already or considering adopting the use of one, think about the bigger picture of everything you can do with it. Don’t underestimate the impact a CRM system can have on your SEO. Get ahead of your competition in the ranking using every tool at your disposal.

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