Conversion and SEO: two complementary strategies

In digital marketing, conversion and organic search work hand in hand. SEO aims to attract a large, relevant audience to your website by achieving strong positions in the search results. When this is done well, your chances of converting visitors increase significantly, which in turn improves the return on investment of your campaigns and ongoing optimisations.

What is a conversion?

Put simply, a conversion is the action you want your website visitor to take. For an e-commerce site, this is usually a purchase. However, depending on your business, sector or audience (B2B or B2C), a conversion can take many forms:

• Requesting a quote
• Asking to be contacted by your company; booking or arranging an appointment
• Subscribing to a newsletter
• Submitting a form
• Watching a video
• Installing an app
• Following your brand on social media

The conversion rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a desired action compared to the total number of website visitors. This key performance indicator is usually expressed as a percentage. Here’s a practical example:

Suppose you sell online SEO training. Over a given period, 1,000 people visit your website and you sell 50 courses. In this case, your conversion rate is 50/1000 = 0.05, or 5%.

To help you optimise and monitor your seo conversion rate, Incremys offers several innovative modules. With personalised AI, you receive tailored recommendations to enhance user experience and maximise conversions. The content production module enables you to create optimised, relevant pages that turn visitors into customers. Finally, the performance reporting module provides detailed, ongoing analysis of your results, making it easier to adjust your SEO strategy and generate more qualified conversions.

Conversions and organic search

Website traffic comes from a variety of sources, with organic and paid channels being the most significant. These are commonly referred to as SEO and SEA. SEO conversion refers to users who arrive via organic search and complete your desired action. SEA conversion, meanwhile, relates to traffic generated by paid campaigns such as Google Ads or other advertising platforms.

SEO or SEA?

Segmenting your traffic by channel allows you to analyse each one separately. SEO and SEA require different strategies, and their conversion rates also differ. It’s important to separate your data accordingly. Each channel should be assessed with a focus on return on investment. This is straightforward for SEA, where results can be measured daily. SEO, which takes longer to deliver results, needs to be analysed over a longer period. When you stop paid advertising, traffic drops off immediately. With SEO, once your strategies are in place, you benefit from ongoing traffic, although this can fluctuate due to seasonality, competition, content freshness and other factors that influence organic search performance.

Generally, organic search delivers better conversion rates than paid advertising: users tend to trust high-quality content more than adverts. For reference, the average seo conversion rate across all sectors is around 5%. For SEA on search engine results, it’s about 2%, and just 0.4% on the Display network.

One of the main advantages of SEO is its lasting impact. Once your strategy is implemented, your website can perform well for years to come.

Conversions and SEO: two closely linked concepts

Many SEO improvements also have a positive effect on conversion rates. However, some businesses have more room to grow by focusing specifically on conversion rate optimisation (CRO). Deciding whether to prioritise SEO or CRO should be based on data analysis. Comparing your results to the median rates in your sector is a good starting point for evaluating your performance.

Effective SEO has a direct, positive impact on conversions. This creates a virtuous circle: as qualified traffic to your site increases, so do conversions (especially with an optimised seo conversion funnel).

• Site architecture is crucial for both users and search engines. A well-structured site increases your chances of ranking highly in search results and also improves conversion rates.
• Intuitive design and usability are also important factors for Google. Keeping your bounce rate low benefits both SEO and your seo conversion rate, as it means users are enjoying a better experience.
• Finally, producing high-quality content based on carefully chosen keywords is essential for SEO. When visitors find relevant content that matches their needs, it builds trust in your brand and greatly increases the likelihood of conversion.

In conclusion

Improving your website’s conversion rate and SEO are both essential for increasing traffic and revenue. It’s not only possible but highly recommended to work on both simultaneously. The quality of your offer, editorial content and user experience are the main factors that benefit both SEO and CRO. To identify areas for improvement, using dedicated tools such as Google Analytics and Incremys will save you valuable time.

SEO and digital marketing knowledge base