Unlocking the Power of SEO: A Guide for MSPs

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a powerful but often underutilized marketing technique for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). In this blog post, we will explore the significance of SEO for MSPs and how using an online marketing tool like SEMrush can help you conduct in-depth keyword research to optimize your websites for driving more business.

This blog is NOT endorsed by SEMrush, it is just the preferred online marketing tool of the presenter. There are other tools out there that will enable you to do the same job.

What is SEO and Why Does it Matters for MSPs

SEO is the process of improving your website to increase visibility in the most popular search engines and, ultimately, to help you generate leads. Many MSPs overlook the potential of SEO in growing their businesses. However, SEO can be a game-changer, increasing website traffic and generating qualified leads quickly. This is done by including specific Keywords or phrases in the content across your website that people would search for when looking for your services.

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Tap into Local Search Volume

Each month, there are thousands of searches for IT terms like «managed service provider» and related keywords. This data highlights the substantial demand for MSP services. According to SEMRush the term «managed service provider» is searched for nearly 20,000 times every month.

While it can be difficult to optimise your website to take advantage of highly searched terms like this, you can improve your chances of ranking highly in Google by adding target location specific keywords. For example, by using terms like “Managed Service Provider Tampa”, you can tap into your local audience who may be searching for services like yours.

Check Your Website

The ultimate goal of SEO is to make your website stand out and not be merely a digital brochure. Your website should offer valuable content that attracts the right audience, which is something that is often passed over in favour of just driving volume of web traffic. Imagine spending vast amounts of time and energy driving website traffic only to find nothing is converting to leads because you’re not attracting the right people to your website through your SEO strategy. Some simple preparation can help you avoid that.

Understanding these four things that can help you make the most of your SEO:

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1. Keyword Research

Keyword research is a fundamental aspect of SEO and your content creation strategy, and tools like SEMrush are invaluable in this process. SEMrush allows you to uncover high-potential keywords, assess how difficult they are to rank for, and then target specific local markets effectively.

The campaigns and content available in MarketBuilder have been created with SEO in mind and are loaded with keywords and phrases. And each campaign in MarketBuilder has keywords highlighted that you can use in your own keyword program.

2. Keyword Types

SEMrush can also help you understand the nature of different keywords and target people that are actively searching for your services; not just those looking for answer to questions. SEMrush does this by breaking keywords down into two categories of intent:  

• Informational Intent: These are keywords are predominantly used by people seeking answers to specific questions.
• Commercial Intent: These keywords indicate that users are closer to making a purchase decision, and they’re actively investigating brands. For example, «data backup and disaster recovery services in London» is a keyword phrase that indicates the user is actively seeking those services.

3. Keyword Difficulty

Referring to the start of this blog, we talked about how some terms with higher search volumes are harder to rank for. Understanding keyword difficulty is vital, as it can indicate how challenging it is to rank for a specific keyword on Google. SEMrush provides a KD figure, so look for keywords with a lower KD as they are easier to rank for, making them more attractive for smaller companies. For example, «data backup,» had a difficulty of 80 according to SEMrush when it was accessed for Raj’s presentation, making it challenging to rank for. Lower KD keywords present better opportunities for MSPs to achieve higher rankings.

4. Expand Your Scope

You should consider adding variations and long-tail keywords to your content. Long-tail keywords are keywords or phrases that are much more specific. They are usually quote long and get less search traffic, but will usually have a higher conversion as they are very specific to what the user is looking for. For example, «disaster recovery solutions for small business» can attract niche audiences. Leveraging these terms increases your chances of ranking high in search results.

Conclusion

This is only scratching the surface of SEO but will get you started. By conducting comprehensive keyword research, focusing on commercial intent, and optimizing for local markets, MSPs can establish themselves as trusted brands. In our next blog, we will delve into creating content that aligns with the insights gathered here, helping MSPs effectively connect with their target audience and drive more business. In the next blog we’ll take a look at how to create your SEO focused content.

This content is based on a recent MarketBuilder Office Hours presentation with marketing coach Raj Khera, managing partner of MoreBusiness.com, entitled MSP SEO Secrets: Getting Google to Send You Qualified Leads. You can listen to the full presentation by logging into your MarketBuilder account, scrolling down to the Sales and Marketing Resources link, clicking on this and then scrolling to the MarketBuilder Office Hours recordings.

MarketBuilder is a resource that is included as part of your N‑able product subscription and contains thousands of ready-made campaigns on hundreds of different themes that can help you target and bring in new customers. 

If you’re an N‑able customer, you can sign up for MarketBuilder now.

Tracy Trottier is marketing manager and heads up the MarketBuilder program at N‑able