How SEO & Sales Teams Can Work Together for Business Growth

In most businesses, seeing the marketing and sales team work separately is quite a common sight. However, there are not many factors that distinguish sales apart from marketing, mainly since they’re both producing tasks that benefit the company’s growth.

However, have you ever wondered what it’d be like if both teams were to collaborate with one another?

The harmonious mix of the SEO and Sales team

There are several ways for both the marketing and sales team to work together. However, this article aims to shed light on one digital marketing tactic: SEO in Singapore.

Now that we’ve established the caveat of this article, let’s proceed with the ways SEO consultants can collaborate with the sales team based on a common goal: to generate business growth.

No matter if you’re from a digital marketing agency or working in-house, the following methods are sure to enhance your marketing strategy!

1. Targeting the right audiences

An excellent SEO strategy goes beyond boosting your website traffic. It’s also about connecting your website to the right group of people. So, instead of letting your targeted audience search for you, you’re making your website easily discoverable to the right group of people!

To achieve this objective, both the SEO and sales team must work hand-in-hand to help increase business growth.

In any SEO strategy, keyword research is an integral part of forming a solid foundation. Even though one can dedicate long hours to conduct extensive research, getting feedback directly from the sales team can make a world of difference.

Get their feedback to double-check keyword priorities and mitigate any potential risks in your SEO plan. The sales team work in the frontline of the business by communicating directly with potential and existing customers. As such, they are more in tune with customers’ best interests. For example, you can learn on the preferred type of language to use, the kind of information customers seek and the challenges they face. As such, this can influence the direction of your SEO strategy positively.

2. Familiarise yourself with the sales process

Though you may be focusing on SEO, it’s essential to have a deeper understanding of what goes on in sales. Take the time to communicate with the sales team and make sure that you have a good knowledge on various sales aspects such as demographics, motivations, challenges, interests and so forth.

However, this shouldn’t be a one-time thing.

Like how the world is continuously evolving, so are customers. Their purchasing behaviour, needs and the like, are continually changing. Take the COVID-19 pandemic as an example – since the economic downturn, consumers are more mindful with their spending habits!

In hindsight, those in the sales team should also stay in the know about the type of digital marketing campaigns that are successful in attracting leads. This way, they can make more informed follow-ups to prospects.

Back to the SEO team, look through logistics and materials from the sales team, such as product brochures and demos. These materials can be used as inspiration for collaterals when working on SEO – which brings us to the next point.

3. Come up with content that benefits both parties

By keeping up with the happenings of the sales team, you can synchronise your content ideas based on a trio of factors:

• Feedback received
• Questions asked by customers and prospects
• Information customers are seeking

This can help broaden your perspective when working on the SEO side of the business, especially since we can get too fixed on data. Working with sales helps to humanise the charts, graphs and statistics you’re so used to seeing! In turn, you can get valuable insights that you might struggle with finding through digital means.

After tweaking and developing content based on feedback from sales,

• Those in sales can have a more in-depth insight, which is useful when nurturing prospects and customers, or to maintain goodwill.
• The SEO team can curate meaningful content that resonates with customers to rank in Google.

The SEO research you conduct stands to benefit not only the SEO team but those in sales too. Based on key search trends, user behaviour and branded queries, you can uncover a deeper understanding of what prospects what to find out more of.

4. Keep an eye on trials and be open to changes

The leads generated from your website can only tell you so much. Beyond numbers and views, do you know if your users are converting?

Depending on what your business offers, conversions can vary. In this article, we’re focusing on whether or not the website visitors are taking action. To illustrate, retail or e-commerce websites can track conversions based on purchases made.

Hence, it’s crucial to establish your goals in Google Analytics, and if you want, Google Tag Manager as well. As you analyse the data, you can make changes to your strategies if the situation calls for it.

You might see a boost in traffic to a landing page without taking any action. In this case, here are some questions to guide you:

• Are you targeting the right group of audiences?
• Does this page have the potential to be further optimised?
• Is the amount of information provided sufficient enough?
• Do your competitors own a similar page? If yes, what are they doing differently?

When SEO and sales work together in sync, the most vital aspect is making sure that you have the information needed to update your team on the progress. Then, you can make informed decisions and any necessary changes to an ongoing campaign. And before you commit to a budget for your enhanced set of SEO strategies, work on analysing and monitoring the data and report the results to both teams. 

How to start?

As established in this article, collaborating with the sales team regularly can take your SEO and marketing tactics on a whole new level. If this is not a common practice, then it’s time to make a change now and schedule a meeting with your sales team as soon as possible.

Having a functioning collaboration starts with open and clear communication on the expectations from both teams, and the benefits that the company stands to gain. With each team’s expertise, they can work together to drive growth and success for the company.