SEO and content marketing are key elements of a digital marketing strategy. Here’s a quick recap of what each one is:
SEO includes all the activities that help put your website and content in front of an audience that’s looking for your product/service on Google. It brings visibility to your brand and helps increase website traffic.
Content marketing includes creating and sharing relevant, useful and valuable content to attract and engage your audience. High-quality content can build trust and relationships with your customers and community, start the conversation and drive conversion.
A successful digital marketing strategy needs both SEO and content marketing to work synergistically. One may not be as effective without the other. That’s why it’s always a good idea to combine SEO and content marketing activities for optimal results. Here’s how.
1. Keyword research
This is a vital part of SEO planning and is also the starting point of building relevant content for your website and blog. Researching keywords gives a good indication of what your audience is searching for online, and by extension, what content you need to build to cater to your audience and answer their questions.
Ensure that you use the keyword – which can be a word or phrase – judiciously and strategically throughout your content. This helps Google match your content with user queries on the search engine and help it rank well.
Pro tip: Use your keyword in the opening and concluding paragraphs and a few through the body. Don’t forget to add it to your URL, SEO Title and Meta Description as well as image name.
2. Consistency
SEO is an ongoing activity. Updating keywords and content is quintessential, to give your readers current and valuable information through your website and blog. Remember, fresh, valuable content will get indexed in the long run and rank higher than outdated content.
Also, creating a consistent content strategy – one that is relevant and shares your message on a consistent basis – helps to successfully engage people.
Pro tip: Always stay aware of what your audience wants and searches for online. Periodic analysis of your keywords and related keywords will help you create fresh user-oriented content – make available the content they’re really looking for.
3. Quality over quantity
The frequency of publishing new content is one of the factors for search engines to determine the value of a website. However, this doesn’t mean publishing for the sake of it and creating a large volume of content on your blog. Instead, create content that inspires, helps, informs and educates. This brings value to your audience, establishes you as an authority in your field and attracts traffic.
Pro tip: Use a keyword research tool to discover topic ideas that people are searching for on search engines and write blogs around such topics. You need to be of service and so also, your content.
4. Plan your content in advance
A successful online presence depends on planning ahead and executing while keeping your strategy in mind. If you don’t plan, you quickly lose track of what to say and when.
An editorial content calendar helps provide a framework to plan your content and gives you a bird’s eye view of your messaging on your blog and social media. It also helps you brainstorm ideas, arrange your posts methodically, stay consistent with your messaging and be content-ready for a few weeks in advance.
Pro tip: Once you are ready with your posts on your content calendar, use a scheduling tool like CoSchedule to schedule your posts on your social media to save you time.
5. Build links
Backlinks continue to be an important Google ranking factor. A backlink is a great endorsement of your content by another website and the best way to attract backlinks from other websites of authority is through quality content. The result is an increase in traffic and authority.
Pro tip: Research your competitors’ websites and check who is linking to their sites. You can approach them to link to your content, making sure your content provides value.
These are a few ways in which you can effectively combine SEO and content marketing to market your product or services online. Of course, with great content comes great responsibility to distribute it effectively. Share your blog posts, repurpose your content for social media, and send newsletters that showcase some of your best pieces of content.
Also, periodically measure the performance of your content by measuring the KPIs you had assigned for it, such as your website’s organic search rankings, the number and quality of inbound links, the number of unique visits and engagement. This will give you insights that you need to tweak your strategy if needed.
At Them You & Me Digital, we help you integrate both SEO and content marketing into your digital strategy to give your website that distinctive edge and boost traffic to quality leads. Get in touch with us to learn how we can help you.
To know about what we do and the digital marketing and 1:1 coaching services we offer, please visit our website.
*Please consider our content as recommendations and not concepts to apply as is, without questioning it. Every business is unique, so find the solution and strategy that works especially for you. You may keep what you need and disregard what you don’t.
