“Gating” content has been an effective form of lead generation for many marketers. It is the process of provisionally restricting access to certain content or “gating” it. A lead generation form is typically placed in the way and users are allowed access only after they fill out the form, providing information about themselves in the process.

Many marketers often find themselves struggling to make a choice that would fit their marketing and lead generation needs the best. For content marketers, especially, the dilemma remains strong because it feels like making a choice between higher SEO ranking or generating better (high quality) leads.

To gate or not to gate is never a simple decision. However, one way to arrive at a definitive choice is to consider the SEO implications of gating.

Gating and SEO – the cons

Perhaps the biggest drawback of gating stems from the way it blocks content off from search robots. The form placed before the content prevents both humans and search robots from accessing it freely. 

Guess which group out of the two has a name, an email address, and a contact number? The former. Now guess who can have access to gated content? Yes, the former. While humans can fill their details in and view gated content eventually, search robots get walled off the content completely.

Gated content assets thus suffer from low SEO rankings and their implications – fewer inbound links, lower site traffic, and poor exposure. As opposed to gated content assets, form-free content pieces are consumed by online audiences in larger numbers and at faster rates.

A study by David Meerman Scott, reveals that non-gated content pieces get downloaded up to 50 times more than gated content assets. If your goal is inbound marketing, or you want to position yourself as a thought leader in the industry; you’ll be counting on free consumption of your content and gating it will only do the contrary.

Gating and SEO – the pros

Generation of better quality leads is perhaps the bigger benefit that makes the case for gating. People who eventually make it to your content are the ones who passed a higher barrier to reach it. They took time to fill out your form and are likely to be qualified leads. This takes us to the age-old debate of which is more valuable – a contact or a view.

Again, the answer lies with you and your business, in particular. If your firm runs on leads, some 100 qualified leads will be more valuable to you than a 1000 views and gating will pay off.

Further, gating allows for you to have higher lead intelligence. Each time a form is filled, you get the opportunity to add/update and confirm information on the person filling the form. Forms also let you cookie the anonymous activity of the lead that converted, and append it to the customer record you have.

When you gate and when you don’t

Ideally, hosting a combination of gated and non-gated content works well for most businesses. Depending upon the value of a content piece, you can choose which assets to gate and which to not. A good rule of thumb is to gate content of high value. The results of a paid research, a white paper, an ebook – any content asset that is rich with relevant information and is in your eyes, worthy of being paid for, gate it. Let the others remain form free.

Let’s consider a blog post for example. Now blogs are maintained to increase site traffic, improve SEO and establish thought leadership. A blog post should therefore, not be gated. Similarly, content pieces that could inform the audience about your products and services should be available free as well. Examples include FAQs, data sheets, case studies, and so on.

There exist companies like Dropbox, who have been able to get qualified leads without gating their content. The company let interested prospects register for a free trial, download the product and then choose to buy it after expiration of the trial.

Considerations when gating

When gating content assets that are valuable, the most important thing to remember is that gating is the promise of information exchange, and you must keep your side of it. Ensure that you provide a useful, information-rich content on the other side of the form.

Further, give special thought to the length of your lead generation form. A lengthy form will, indeed, help you gather additional information about the lead, but it may also drive some leads away.

Since you’ll need to know the full name of the lead, his/her email address, and the name of the company, to be able to incorporate the information in your email marketing campaign, include the three in the lead generation form as a rule. If your operations span multiple countries, the name of the country must be included too.

To get the best of both SEO and gating, you can use summary pages or page previews. This approach will help you provide snippets of information to users before they are presented with the form. What’s great is that search robots will read and rank the summary and preview pages, giving you additional SEO benefits. Another approach is to present the form on Javascript pop-overs. However, it is possible that you get penalized for showing different pages to search engine robots and humans. So plan your approach properly.

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