Generating better SEO leads in 2019 is definitely a challenge, with heightened competition and the ever-changing search landscape.

SEO companies have to hunker down and start implementing strategies that work, or lose out to companies who are two steps ahead with touching base with customers. Here are updated, useful tips for your lead gen efforts this year.

1. Start beefing up your email marketing efforts.

Statistics show that email is still converting, despite people’s reliance on search engines and social media. Despite being a legacy technology, sending out emails still provides a personal space where you can communicate directly with customers through personalized messages.

This ‘closeness,’ if you will, cannot be found on other platforms or other forms of advertising. Why? Because the message isn’t found in your customers’ inboxes. There’s a world of difference between the experience of reading a personal message and reading something off the Web that’s on display for the public to see.

2. Try marketing with Facebook Messenger.

When people click on the like or follow button of a Facebook page, page owners now have the option of sending messages directly to people who follow their page.

This is called Facebook Messenger Marketing and it rocks because it has one clear advantage over traditional email marketing: it doesn’t require the collection of private information before potential leads can be contacted.

And people who like your page are more likely to be more responsive than people who receive emails out of the blue. Think of the possibilities of being able to contact potentially warm leads on Facebook, where people feel the most comfortable and dynamic with communicating with others.

3. Utilize exit-intent pop-ups.

Pop-ups used to be an unfortunate experience for Web users because they are associated with advertising.

There was even a time back in the day when pop-up killer apps and extensions for browsers became a huge thing because pop-ups became such a problem.

However, with improved layout and more nuanced use, pop-ups can actually help you generate more SEO leads should your target market land on your website.

Here’s how it works: instead of just generally promoting your website or business, you can use exit-intent pop-ups to provide time-bound offers to your traffic. Say you want to give them a free download or an exclusive phone consultation: this is one of the best ways to advance that kind of promotion.

4. Establish your knowledge of the industry.

This is an indirect but powerful way to increase the trustworthiness of your website, and most importantly, your brand. Start by reaching out with known industry experts.

Interact with them, ask them questions about their latest knowledge of the market, the strategies they use, how they’re staying afloat. With this raw material you can begin creating content that will show your customers just how inclined you are with your business and the industry that you belong to.

5. Try the FOMO strategy.

The FOMO (“fear of missing out”) is actually an simple but amazingly effective technique to get people to respond to your marketing message.

Basically, you will be creating a value-laden concept that will definitely respond to your customers’ needs and through the creation of this concept, your customers will feel that they are ‘missing out’ on something by not partaking of the concept.

Behind the concept of course, are your services and expertise. The big question now is how you are going to ‘package’ your SEO services in such a way that people would want to have it. Appropriately, this is the FOMO challenge for companies.

6. Tap into YouTube’s vast treasure trove of users.

Did you know that the average YouTube session lasts a whopping 40 minutes long? That’s a huge span of time, considering that people can bounce from a well-designed Web page in a matter of seconds.

Video definitely has the retention power that we cannot simply duplicate with mere images or text on the Web. So how can you tap the immense power of YouTube? Basically, people go on YouTube because they have problems, and they need solutions.

When they click on a video about SEO, they expect to get information that they need, and in return, they just might pick up an offer you have on the description area of the video. Think of user intent and you wouldn’t go wrong with designing awesome YouTube videos for your business.

7. Create lead magnets.

Lead magnets are typically offers that emerge when someone downloads a white paper, report, or any other piece of free content on the Web. Through the principle of reciprocity, people are more likely to respond to an offer when they already have something of value.

That’s why these things are called lead magnets and they can work extremely well especially when you offer material that is of high quality.

The simplest template for a lead magnet is signing up on a website before downloading something off the site. There are no payments involved, just a sign-up, and people usually find that there’s nothing wrong with signing up especially if they are really interested in what they are about to download.

8. Utilize heat maps.

Heat maps tell you when users usually drop off or lose interest while browsing your pages. Heat maps can be used to identify the points where you can add offers and other media that will help sustain interest in the page, or at least encourage the users to perform a desired action. Usually, pull-back offers are placed somewhere around the midpoint of a page. There can be several pull-back offers or links if the page is extremely long (as is the case of evergreen content that is frequently updated; think “150 tips for growing better garden plants.”)

9. Add quizzes to your website.

Offering a freebie or reward for answering quizzes is an excellent way to encourage sign-ups and collect vital information from your customers. Just make sure that the reward is equal in value to what you want them to provide (in terms of information).