How SEO Supports a Winning MSP Marketing Strategy

A winning MSP marketing strategy

A 2022 survey conducted by MSP 360 showed that over 50% of MSP firms regard lead generation as their top business challenge. If you’re among that 50%, don’t worry: good SEO can help you.

As a Managed Services Provider, you may have avoided SEO because of previous bad experiences with SEO professionals or because it seems like a bad investment of your resources. However, when executed properly, SEO provides tremendous benefits to all aspects of your marketing strategy, from branding to lead generation.

Seota has 3 distinct packages for MSP Marketing; MSP Marketing Jumpstart, MSP Market Leader and SEO Only Package.

Using PPC and SEO together overcomes unique limitations

When faced with the decision of whether to invest in SEO or PPC, you’ve likely chosen PPC because it offers a faster and clearer path to ROI. Like many business leaders, you may have dismissed SEO as unrealistic or too much of a long-term strategy to bring any short-term benefits.

But, it doesn’t have to be an either-or game. SEO and PPC can work together to drive powerful results for your firm. Here are several ways you can carry momentum from your PPC activities into an effective SEO strategy:

• Keyword data: SEO and PPC campaigns both rely on extensive keyword research. If you’re already researching keywords for PPC ads, you can increase the value of those keywords by targeting them in SEO campaigns.
• Retargeting: Unless you’re in a market with very little competition, an SEO campaign can take months to generate substantial results. When someone lands on your content, they may not instantly convert, which is when search retargeting comes in handy.
• Smarter ad spend: When you improve and monitor your organic rank positions, you can stop wasting ad spend on keywords for which you hold the top rank positions.

Good SEO content supports an inbound MSP marketing strategy

While many types of marketing involve reaching out to the right people, inbound marketing is all about getting the right people to come to you. When done well, inbound MSP marketing attracts high-quality leads and proactively addresses the objections of sales prospects.

Traditionally, marketers have illustrated the buyer journey with a funnel, categorizing activities as either TOFU (top of funnel), MOFU (middle of funnel), or BOFU (bottom of funnel). Here is how SEO content can support your MSP marketing efforts at each stage:

• TOFU: At the top of the funnel, your goal is to increase awareness about the problems you solve for your target audience. With strategic keyword research, you can create SEO content to recommend solutions to your target audience’s problems.
• MOFU: Once people understand why their problem is occurring, they start researching solutions. You can create and optimize content that helps your target audience resolve or prevent their problem — ideally, you can position your firm within this content.
• BOFU: Once people have narrowed down their solutions and are ready to pick an MSP firm, you can optimize case studies, press releases, and other content to show up organically in SEO and build your firm’s expertise and credibility in the minds of buyers.

Good technical SEO ensures a pleasant user experience

Technical SEO is the invisible yet indispensable part of your SEO campaign. When it’s done well, your website climbs in rank positions. When done wrong, your website will drop past the first page of Google, regardless of how much SEO content you cram onto your website.

Beyond your rank position, however, technical SEO also helps you create a pleasant user experience that improves people’s perception of your brand. For example, a website with an SSL certificate is ranked higher than one without it. On the user side of things, however, a website with an SSL certificate subtly instills more trust than an unsecured website.

Similarly, reducing redirects on your website will make it easier for search engine bots to crawl your website — one of the primary aims of technical SEO. But, reducing redirects also makes your audience’s site experience more enjoyable since they don’t have to watch the URL change five times between pages.

Local SEO and Google Business Profiles

Most IT consulting companies and MSP firms are tied to a local market, and there is no stronger marketing tool for local businesses than Google Business Profiles (GBP). Most of us old SEO people have trouble not saying Google My Business, but the name is officially changed, so we are making an effort. An MSP marketing plan is incomplete without a clear-cut strategy to use SEO to dominate the local GBP landscape. Being top 3 on GMP for one of the phrases your clients search for can be life-changing.

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How SEO improves the results of other marketing tactics

If you’re investing in good SEO, people hearing your radio ads or seeing your print or TV ads will be able to find you. Once they’ve engaged with your content, they may – if they’re ready to buy – contact you. If not, you’ve still won because you’ve made a favorable impression on that lead and — if you’ve played your cards well — build affinity with them.

Even cold email outreach can benefit from SEO. We’ve all received poorly written DMs or emails that try to win our trust and convince us to buy in one desperate attempt. Consumers today aren’t as quick to trust a random message, regardless of how credible and accomplished you are.

When they receive an email or ad from you, they’ll first decide whether you’re worth further exploration. Then, if they’re interested, they’ll Google your name or company name to confirm you’re legitimate and capable of helping them.

For example, if you were to receive a cold email from Kevin Mandia and have never heard of him before, a quick Google search would show a knowledge panel that describes him as the CEO of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant and quite well-known in the industry. Since Google’s answer boxes are generated using information from guest posts (an off-page SEO tactic), podcast appearances and social media content (another off-page SEO tactic), a knowledge panel appearance is both a branding win and an SEO win.

Contact SEOTA for superior SEO guidance and MSP marketing services

Online, all roads should lead to your website. On your website, you control your target audience’s experience and attention. This isn’t like social media, where they may see your ad but get distracted by a message or notification from a friend.

Good SEO involves building a great website that looks great, works well, and is easy-to-use for your target audience. Your website comprises a significant piece of your owned media, and SEO directly increases the ROI you receive from it.

If you’re ready to work with professionals with decades of experience running successful MSP marketing and SEO campaigns, check out our client portfolio, then contact us for a free consultation.