A local site had traffic but no leads, so I started looking beyond rankings

MoMarketing

MoMarketing

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I came across a local site that had decent rankings and was getting traffic but the leads were still pretty weak.

The problem wasnt really rankings. Some of the pages were targeting searches that didnt have much buying intent and the main service pages were not doing a great job of pushing people to take the next step.

After fixing the page structure and making the main services clearer, the traffic started making more sense.

Ranking higher is nice but if the traffic isnt turning into calls or enquiries I dont see much point.
 
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MoMarketing said:
I came across a local site that had decent rankings and was getting traffic but the leads were still pretty weak.

The problem wasnt really rankings. Some of the pages were targeting searches that didnt have much buying intent and the main service pages were not doing a great job of pushing people to take the next step.

After fixing the page structure and making the main services clearer, the traffic started making more sense.

Ranking higher is nice but if the traffic isnt turning into calls or enquiries I dont see much point.
Click to expand...


It always makes sense, when doing keyword research, to understand the intent of the keyword. You want to know if it's a commercial keyword, a transactional keyword, or a comparison keyword. The intent tells you what you have to spend your effort and money on first.

If it's a commercial keyword then you want to spend more money to rank for those keywords compared to information keywords. Information keywords are also good because:
1. The competition seems to be lower.
2. You can use information keywords to sell your main product.


For example if you're trying to rank for a black leather shoe, you can ideally talk about black shoes and hyperlink or insert your product on those pages
 
Topiano said:
It always makes sense, when doing keyword research, to understand the intent of the keyword.
Click to expand...
Yes, intent is key. I have had several IM sites failing to see that.
 
Exactly, but don't just move informational pages to the blog, use them as funnel. Add "call to action" at the end linking to your service page, that is where leads come from.
 
informational page still bring leads if you use them properly.add a clear call to action that guides readers toward relevant service page instead of letting them leave after reading.
 
this is interesting, when you fix the intent and the CTAs how do you actually show the client the lead count went up? track calls with a separate number or just form fills? asking because i want to start selling leads to local businesses and proof seems like the hard part
 
arontg asked how you prove the lead count went up. Track both.

Forms: fire a conversion event on the actual submission, not the button click, and count it in GA4.

Calls: a tracking number that swaps in for organic visitors, another one in the ads, and the real number everywhere else so the citations stay clean.

Then the monthly report is just form submissions and tracked calls next to the previous months. Clients trust that more than any rank chart, and when the count is zero you know to go look for a broken tag.
 
Adding the contractor side, since a lot of "no leads" problems happen after the click. From the owner's chair the usual culprits are boring: calls hitting voicemail while the crew is on a job, a contact form that emails someone who reads it at night, and a page with nothing that proves the company is real.

The fixes are cheap. Answer every call live or with an answering agent, text form leads back within a few minutes, and put real job photos, the service area and the license number on the service page. In Washington the registration number has to be in the ad anyway, and plenty of homeowners look it up before they call. I'd check all of that before chasing another ranking.
 
Adding one to WebProfitLab's after-the-click list: look at what your form is rejecting.

A real visitor from organic search tried a client's contact form six times and got rejected every time. The hidden honeypot field was named "company", so Chrome autofilled it and the form took them for a bot. Setting autocomplete off didn't stop it.

Give honeypots a nonsense name, never company, website, url or address, and check the spam folder before you believe a low lead count. Not everything caught there is real, so read the messages. Several other sites I manage had the same kind of field.
 
Good catch on the honeypot. Same family of problem on our side: last month Microsoft started blocking mail from our web server, so anything sent to Outlook addresses just never arrived. The fix was sending through a relay service, but the bigger lesson was that one broken email path can quietly eat leads without anyone noticing.

I'd have every form submission also send a text to whoever answers the phone, and once a month submit a test lead from a phone on cellular data, start to finish. Two minutes, and it catches more than any ranking report.
 
That's true. More traffic doesn't always mean more customers. I think understanding what people are actually looking for is just as important as getting good rankings.
 
In my opinion, you should update your content, use effective keywords, and—most importantly—identify where the majority of your service's traffic originates, then try to secure links from those sources.
 
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