SEO and content marketing are two vastly different marketing techniques.
However, by implementing content marketing into your SEO strategy, you can avoid over-optimizing your website and instead focus on increasing value for your customers. A well-executed SEO and content marketing plan can increase organic traffic, establish brand loyalty, and lead to more sales.
To better understand how SEO and content marketing work together, let’s first explore what they mean individually.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of using various on and off-page techniques to help a website rank higher in search engines results. SEO focuses on attracting organic, unpaid traffic to different pages of your website, and rankings matter when targeting new consumers. The higher your website displays in search engine results, the more likely it is for a customer to click on your site. According to optimizely.com, the number one search result receives 40-60% of the total traffic for that query, while the second and third results receive dramatically less.
Keywords, backlinks, and meta descriptions are all elements that contribute to a successful SEO strategy. However, no amount of highly targeted keywords alone will ever be enough to give your site that ‘First Page’ status.
Search engines, like Google and Bing, crawl your website for quality content and information to provide its searchers with the most accurate search results. The algorithms used by these search engines are extremely complex, and it takes more than keyword stuffing and trusted backlinks to help a website rank higher.
Creating quality content is crucial to helping your website succeed in the ranks, and SEO offers analytical support to complement that content.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing involves creating and distributing quality content to attract and engage an audience. Content marketing insists on unique, valuable content that makes your brand stand out against competitors. Your website content should be written in a way that makes your targeted audience want to consume the information. It should offer solutions and ways to obtain that solution. Your audience should leave feeling satisfied and confident in their decision to trust what your brand has to offer.
When used correctly, content marketing is a tool for growth. Brand awareness, consumer relationships, and measurable ROI result from creating a trusted presence in the online world. You don’t want to just be another brand pushing out a promotional advertisement; you want to be a brand that offers value and a sense of gratification. Consumers crave authenticity, and content marketing is designed to attract these consumers to the information they’re actually interested in.
By creating useful and personalized content, brands also have the ability to attract customers at every stage of their buying process. Content marketing uses long-term strategies to understand what an audience needs and then consistently delivers content specifically created to fit those needs. From start to finish, consumers are provided with information that guides them from learning about the product to being satisfied with their decision to purchase the product. Content marketing is powerful, and when used correctly, it can help your brand stand out against even the biggest competitors.
Why SEO Is Actually All About Content Marketing
Now that you have a better understanding of how SEO and content marketing work separately, it’s time to explore their mutual relationship.
Paired together, SEO and content marketing complement each other’s strongest points. Strong, valuable content is developed through content marketing to captivate the audience, and SEO ensures the audience is able to easily find that content.
SEO should also be considered when developing a content marketing plan. First, you should know your audience and the language they’d use to search for services or products your brand has to offer. Including keywords within valuable content equips search engines with relevant information to provide their searchers.
Second, posting consistent content on a variety of related topics can help increase page authority and trust in your site.
Thirdly, more trust in your site means better quality backlinks. Established content creators will see that your content is valuable and trustworthy, and then will want to provide their own viewers with a link to your site.
Finally, SEO helps to break up lengthy content and allows for a more convenient reading experience. Web pages with multiple topics and keywords make it harder for search engines to pull a specific piece of information for viewers to read. Keep your individual pages focused on only one or two topics at a time.
It is important to remember that successful SEO and content marketing strategies take time. Do your research, establish specific goals, and develop a clear plan for your strategy. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
Don’t get overwhelmed
We know it can be overwhelming to think of SEO and content marketing as a marathon event. Let Vervocity in Quincy, IL help you simplify the process by creating a custom-designed SEO content strategy for your business. Contact us today to get started.
