How I Use Inbound Marketing to Drive 60k Monthly Visitors (Without Paid Ads)

Most marketers are disappointment correct now.

You’re sending acold emails, posting endlessly connected societal media, and grinding retired articles. Paid channels are expensive, outreach feels forced, and leads aren’t coming, astatine slightest not consistently. 

The ROI conscionable isn’t there. 

Yet, my agency, Orbit Media, attracts complete 60,000 monthly visits pinch a 100% inbound strategy and nary paid ads.

In this post, I’ll break down really to build an inbound postulation instrumentality that generates predictable leads without paid ads aliases acold outreach.

Most marketers attraction connected getting much traffic, reasoning it will lick their lead procreation problem. But postulation unsocial doesn’t thrust revenue. You request the correct assemblage to onshore connected the correct pages and return action.

At its core, inbound occurrence comes down to a elemental equation:

Traffic x conversion = Leads

While galore factors are involved, this elemental look explains why immoderate businesses make accordant inbound leads while others struggle to create demand. 

It’s ever a postulation problem, conversion problem, aliases both.

Meanwhile, postulation comes successful 2 flavors: advertizing and contented marketing. These aren’t conscionable different channels; they are complete opposites.

I’ve ever focused connected inbound for the pursuing reasons:

• Inbound is much durable than ads: Well-optimized contented attracts visitors agelong aft publication.
• Inbound engages prospects early: You tin gradually go top-of-mind complete time
• Inbound creates community, loyalty, and gratitude: Nobody shares ads, and nary 1 wants acold emails.
• Inbound is cost-effective: When your work pages rank, they make leads without ongoing advertisement spend.

Intent is everything. Understanding why group hunt is the cardinal to attracting the correct assemblage and converting them into leads.

Some marketers make the correction of focusing connected commercialized intent queries. While those visitors are the astir valuable, the reality is that 80% of searches are informational. 

If you disregard informational intent phrases and contented trading topics, your website is simply a well-optimized income brochure. That is insufficient. 

To support your marque apical of mind, you request a content strategy that aligns pinch accusation and commercialized intent phrases. Add navigational queries to the mix, and you person 3 types of intent:

• Know (informational) – Informational searches are research-based. Someone searching “Paid societal champion practices?” isn’t fresh to bargain but needs education. If you supply that knowledge, they’ll apt move to you erstwhile fresh to return action.
• Do (commercial) – Commercial searches bespeak intent to act. A visitant searching “paid societal media agency” is evaluating options. Optimize your work pages for these queries to seizure high-intent traffic.
• Go (navigational) – Navigational searches are brand-specific searches like “WebWave.” Visitors already cognize your institution and conscionable request to find you. Ensuring your tract ranks for these searches prevents competitors from intercepting your traffic.

I americium a Moz user, and I usage the instrumentality each day. It is simply a fantastic keyword investigation tool, and 1 of the features is the intent filters. Go to Keyword Suggestions, participate your target keyword, and select by intent. 

See each those informational queries? Use them to thrust traffic, summation marque awareness, and enactment apical of mind erstwhile visitors request help.

Key things to remember: 

• A blog station that answers an early-stage mobility should people lead to the adjacent step, whether that’s downloading a resource, signing up for a newsletter, aliases exploring a work page. 
• Use internal links and clear calls to action to move visitors from investigation to decision-making. 
• A elemental measurement to instrumentality this is to audit your existing content. Do you person pages that lucifer each search intent? If not, commencement filling those gaps pinch the hunt intent you’ve identified successful Keyword Explorer or Moz Keyword Gap Analysis. The champion contented strategy ensures that nary matter wherever a visitant is successful their journey, they find precisely what they need.

To beryllium clear, you don’t request a page for each building you target because galore of those phrases will person similar keyword intent. If you hunt for 2 keyphrases successful Google and the hunt results pages overlap, you tin target some phrases pinch 1 URL.

For example, return a look astatine the hunt results for triple glazed window in Moz’s Explore by Keyword feature. The apical websites see Home Depot, Andersen, Pella and Reddit.

While I don’t judge in keyword cannibalization, creating 2 intimately related pages is simply a missed opportunity erstwhile you tin make 1 awesome page that ranks for galore related phrases. 

Meanwhile, a much communal problem is creating generic pages. The worst illustration is the “What we do” page. It lists everything a institution does but doesn’t attraction connected a azygous service.

Instead of creating bladed contented that’s a discarded of time, create 1 of the champion pages connected the net for your topic. 

A well-planned website strategically targets aggregate keyphrases. However, not each page is optimized for search. Some keywords are excessively competitory (like "SEO services"), immoderate pages aren't perfect for keywords (such arsenic "About us"), and sometimes, hunt optimization isn’t the main priority.

But to springiness yourself a chance of being discovered by prospects who request your services aliases visitors looking for advice, map keywords erstwhile building your sitemap. 

Here’s an illustration of a tract building optimized for search

• Home page: Your location page usually has the highest Page Authority, truthful it targets your astir competitive, commercial-intent queries (e.g., "paid societal strategy agency"). It’s besides the page that ranks for the navigational keyphrase (your marque name).
   
• Service pages: Create 1 dedicated page per service, optimized for commercial-intent searches (e.g., "LinkedIn advertizing services") alternatively than lumping everything into 1 generic page.
   
• Blog pages: This is wherever you target informational-intent searches that pull early-stage visitors (e.g., "How to tally a LinkedIn advertisement campaign"). These are the URLs that pull links and build your Domain Authority. They besides turn your email database and springiness you thing to stock connected societal media. 

Instead of creating thin, single-keyword pages, use semantic SEO to create contented that accomplishes the following:

• Cover each related subtopics: Expand connected cardinal concepts associated pinch your work page keywords. For example, if we person a work page around website optimization services, it makes consciousness to target keywords like how to optimize a website for SEO and benefits of website optimization. 
• Include keyword variations: Use synonyms, manufacture terms, and natural language that group hunt for.
• Answer related questions: Do this successful the travel of the article aliases add FAQ sections that reside searchers' concerns, like "How overmuch do website optimization services cost?"
• Structure your contented strategically: Organize pinch subheadings (H2s, H3s) that reflector hunt behavior, making it easy for some Google and users to navigate.

Again, Moz tin help. The Similar SERPs characteristic successful Moz Keyword Explorer makes it easy to find related position for a page. 

Discover keywords driving gross for your competitors pinch Keyword Gap

The page targets commercialized intent and is optimized to person visitors into leads. Hence, it drives a dependable watercourse of request because it useful arsenic food and mousetrap.

Also, 7% of visitors from the work page person connected the landing page.

I’ve ne'er done accepted nexus building successful my life; instead, I for illustration nexus attraction. My link building strategy is to create content, truthful valuable group spontaneously nexus to it. 

These links don’t conscionable thief the blog station rank; they make each URL connected my domain much apt to rank.

What benignant of contented people earns backlinks?

Long ago, I recovered immoderate investigation by Buzzsumo and Moz that changed my contented strategy forever. It showed that 75% of contented doesn’t get immoderate links. While it’s a sad number, location are 2 types of contented that consistently pull links. 

They include:

• Strong sentiment content
• Original research

To quote  Steve Rayson, co-founder of BuzzSumo:

"If you want to create contented that achieves a precocious level of shares and links, ore connected opinion-forming, charismatic contented aliases well-researched and evidenced content."

Search measurement underestimates the existent request for a taxable because it only shows request for a circumstantial cardinal phrase. In reality, a page that ranks for that building will besides rank for dozens of related phrases, assuming we did bully semantic SEO backmost successful measurement four.

Take a look astatine the illustration below:

Read that condemnation again and past reply the pursuing questions:

• Have you ever published caller original research? 
• Is your website the superior root of information aliases statistic for a topic? 
• Do you people immoderate strong, counternarrative opinions? 
• Have you taken a guidelines connected immoderate topics?

If you reply nary to these questions, you should infuse these formats into your contented strategy.

Original investigation crushes each different contented formats successful its expertise to pull links 

That’s because it supports the assertions of others. Writers and editors nexus to it because it makes their contented much credible. In fact, I person linked to 2 investigation studies successful this station already. 

Take immoderate website and plug it into a backlink checker, and you’ll spot that the astir linked pages usually person original research. If a tract has immoderate research, it’s almost ever astatine the top. Since I already person it open, here’s the study successful Google Search Console for our website:

Find an manufacture declare that lacks data

Every manufacture has repeated statements that are seldom backed up pinch existent data. I telephone these "missing stats." Finding and publishing the missing stat is 1 of the easiest ways to create contented that attracts links.

For example, marketers person ever said, “Blogging takes a batch of time.” But really overmuch time? Where was the data? It didn’t exist. 

So, I reached retired to 1,000 bloggers (it was a long, slow, manual process) and asked them nicely to return a survey. Then I did it again and again for 11 years. I people the reply each twelvemonth successful a bully small chart.

Did you spot the GSC screenshot above? Maybe you noticed. 2,200 websites person linked to that URL. 

Those links build our Domain Authority→which powers our rankings for commercialized intent phrases→and pull qualified visitors to our cardinal work pages → wherever we person them into leads.

Don’t hide to make investigation easy to cite

If I want my contented to gain links, I person to make it easy for group to reference. Here’s the building I follow:

• Clear, bold statistic guidelines out, like "blogging wave is down"
• Charts and graphs make information visually engaging
• Headlines framework insights successful a compelling way, like "The mean website lifespan is 2 years and 7 months."

Make the occupation easy for journalists and editors, and they’ll apt mention your research. 

Many marketers dismiss guest posting arsenic outdated, but that’s a mistake. In the early days of executing my contented program, I published astir of my contented connected high-authority websites.  

Guest posting helped maine successful the pursuing ways:

• Gain credibility by publishing connected respected manufacture platforms
• Reach caller audiences who are already willing successful my expertise
• Improve SEO done high-quality, contextual backlinks
• Connect pinch manufacture leaders and grow my web (it’s really I met the awesome folks astatine Moz)

Guest posting isn’t astir speedy wins. The effect builds complete time. Commit to publishing 1 impermanent station monthly to create a dependable watercourse of high-quality referral postulation and links, strengthening your authority.

To get the astir impact, attraction connected 3 things:

• Find the correct platforms: Identify manufacture blogs your prospects publication that judge impermanent contributions.
• Write data-backed insights: Use original investigation aliases beardown opinions to create contented that stands out.
• Link strategically: When possible, nexus to your best-performing research-based contented to increase Domain Authority.

Some SEOs are often truthful focused connected rankings and postulation that they neglect to attraction connected the post-click acquisition and miss opportunities to person visitors. They don’t build a lead-generating instrumentality because their bounce rates are high, and their conversion rates are low.

This type of SEO is each food and nary mousetrap.

Our last extremity is to grow your skills and go an master successful persuasion, not conscionable attraction.

Years ago, Rand Fishkin published a station astir becoming a T-shaped marketer. The thought is simple:

Go broad: Develop a moving knowledge of galore trading disciplines while avoiding awesome accomplishment gaps that could limit your expertise to execute an integrated strategy.

Go deep: Next, take 1 area of specialization and maestro it truthful you person heavy expertise successful a circumstantial discipline.

But if the extremity is to thrust a continuous travel of qualified leads, you request a 2nd captious skill: conversion complaint optimization (CRO). 

Through CRO, you’ll learn: 

• How to trigger cognitive biases
• What wins the income conversation 
• How to grip objections and leverage evidence 

The bully news is that galore of the conversion-related skills will look familiar. 

• Do you understand EEAT? Then, you cognize really to capable your pages pinch testimonials, customer logos, and spot seals. 
• Do you understand keyword research? Then you already person insights into your audience. 
• Do you cognize really to measurement postulation performance? Then, you’re not acold from reporting connected CTRs and cardinal arena rates. 

Many pages connected Orbit Media are examples of conversion-focused contented and design. A bully illustration is this industry-focused page connected slope web design. Did you announcement the spot seals, data, and testimonials? It converts for illustration a champ.

The beauty of conversion optimization is that it improves lead gen capacity sloppy of the postulation source. Even if integrated postulation declines, lead travel whitethorn amended because you person different postulation sources. 

Discover your money keywords pinch Keyword Explorer

A coagulated inbound strategy attracts the correct assemblage and ensures they onshore connected pages designed to convert. To make this work, optimize for hunt intent, create dedicated pages for cardinal hunt queries, and prioritize original investigation to pull topical backlinks. As your authority grows, adopt a T-shaped attack to deepen your expertise and standard your impact. 

However, while SEO is simply a powerful root of attracting qualified visitors, you request a decent conversion complaint to thrust a dependable travel of leads, and that’s what I’ll screen successful my adjacent blog station for Moz.

Stay tuned!