How to make SEO and content marketing work together
This is branded content.
Over seven million blogs are published daily. And perhaps an even more staggering number of images and videos are uploaded by the hour.
With such impressive volumes of data exchanged every second, how can you ensure your audience gets hold of your content and site easily? As a business owner, it's imperative to use search engine optimisation (SEO) and content marketing tactics to give you a competitive edge.
Rather than fight crimes, this dynamic duo seeks to provide your business with optimal online exposure, build authority and nurture customer relationships amid the changing SEO and content marketing trends. One can't prosper without the other.
This article will describe the relationship between content marketing and SEO and provide actionable insights for an effective integration of these two tactics. Let's start by learning about their basics.
SEO and content marketing fundamentals
SEO and content marketing are two distinct yet complementary approaches to promoting a brand's online presence. SEO encompasses techniques that increase a site's ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). It involves technical strategies such as keyword research, on-page optimisation and link building to improve visibility and drive organic traffic.
Meanwhile, content marketing includes creating valuable and compelling content to engage and resonate with your target audience and spreading them to multiple channels. Its primary goal is to build brand authority, foster trust and nurture lasting relationships with customers. Ideally, the more visible your site is, the higher the chances of conversion and ranking.
While they share the common goal of attracting more visitors and increasing conversions, they require different approaches. Understanding the nuances of each strategy helps unlock their potential in boosting a brand's online marketing strategy.
Steps for SEO and content marketing integration
Despite their differences, SEO and content marketing can be integrated to develop a successful marketing strategy. Search engine optimisation by Pursuit Digital and similar experts goes beyond making your pages visible to search engines and readers. It also seeks to understand your audience's challenges, preferences and behaviour, letting you know which search terms and platforms they use and how they react to your offers.
A thoughtful SEO and marketing integration makes your campaigns more effective, especially when performing these activities:
1. Creating a keyword-driven content strategy
Start by performing keyword research, an SEO pillar activity, to identify relevant topics and phrases that align with your business and target audience's search intent.
Use the keyword list to create a content calendar and write blog posts, articles and other types of content around your targeted keywords. Besides creating topics that matter to your audience and industry, for instance, an updated syllabus for New South Wales learners, your targeted keywords can be used to optimise on-page elements such as title tags, meta descriptions and headers.
By aligning content creation with keyword-driven insights, you can ensure that your content resonates with your target audience while optimising search engine visibility.
However, SEO demands numerous testing procedures to determine the most effective approach. One of the most common methods is A/B or split testing, which involves testing different optimisation elements like keywords, meta descriptions, titles, images and calls to action (CTAs), and seeing how your clients respond to them.
Depending on the purpose of your content and the audience segment you want to target, a few or some of these elements may be more effective than others. Knowing which appeals to your audiences ensures you get your strategy right before finalising it.
2. Optimising content for better marketing wins
Besides boosting online presence, content marketers can use SEO-generated insights to produce different types of content that their audiences love to consume.
Blogs and other written content
Analysing consumer response and behaviour is one of the core SEO tasks, allowing site owners to know that blogs are still an effective marketing tool today. Marketers still use them for various purposes, including promoting brand awareness, boosting digital presence, generating leads and establishing trust and authority.
With thousands of content published daily, marketers can rely on insightful SEO data to identify relevant topics, measure audience engagement and implement the best content creation practices in crafting well-performing content.
Videos
According to a 2023 survey by HubSpot, 91 per cent of marketers use video marketing to promote a brand, boost audience engagement and increase sales. Most of those surveyed also think uploading videos has directly impacted their revenues.
Social media content
With almost five billion users as of the latest count, social media platforms have become a goldmine for marketers looking to increase their audience base. Using the primary elements of SEO, they can enhance business profiles to draw in more customers or optimise media and content to increase brand awareness.
Gated content
This aims to obtain high-quality leads by offering specific content in exchange for a user's email or contact details. Offering such valuable resources increases your chances of acquiring customers ready to convert or purchase. Before doing so, you must determine the relevant topics by studying SEO data and optimising your landing page using compelling words.
Thanks to SEO, content marketers can create high-quality content about topics and keywords their audiences are actively searching for. They can then use these elements to improve site visibility using descriptive and keyword-rich uniform resource locators (URLs) and internal linking to develop a cohesive website structure that enhances user experience and search engine crawls.
Well-optimised pages make it easier to distribute content across different websites and channels.
3. Content mapping for targeted audiences
SEO practitioners understand the importance of audience segmentation and content mapping. They collaborate with content creators to identify target audiences and their unique pain points. By categorising content topics based on the interests and preferences of these people, the content calendar becomes a strategic tool to deliver tailored content that speaks directly to the needs of each segment.
Understanding your audience's main challenges is key to providing helpful solutions to their problems. This approach not only enhances user engagement but also reinforces your website's authority and relevance in the eyes of search engines and humans.
4. Leveraging content for off-page SEO
Your content can be a powerful tool for off-page SEO and link building. Creating valuable, shareable and link-worthy resources, which is at the heart of content marketing, naturally attracts backlinks from authoritative websites.
Reaching out to industry influencers and relevant websites amplifies your content's reach and improves your website's overall authority.
5. Optimising content distribution
SEO's contribution to content calendar planning goes beyond just creating content. SEO practitioners play a crucial role in optimising content distribution across various channels. They strategise how and when to promote content on social media platforms, promotional emails and other distribution channels.
Effective SEO and content marketing tactics work in optimising content use and nailing user intent. When used together, they help identify which words to use and channels to tap to ensure optimal exposure and consumption. As such, your content reaches a broader audience, leading to increased brand awareness and improved SEO performance.
6. Seasonal and trend analysis
SEO practitioners analyse seasonal and trend data to identify relevant topics that align with current events and user interests. Integrating these insights into the content calendar and strategy allows businesses and marketers to craft timely, engaging content that resonates with audiences during peak periods.
By staying ahead of industry trends and capitalising on seasonal opportunities, your content can attract more visitors and generate higher levels of organic traffic.
For instance, voice search is an emerging trend, and this early, business owners must work with SEO practitioners to clinch the top spot in this particular realm.
On the one hand, if you're an eCommerce or retail store, prepare for the Black Friday sales by creating promotional content before they happen. These events happen before the holiday season, which gives you another reason to amp up your campaigns.
Additionally, get SEO data on the most popular products being searched with these yearly events to prepare your inventory.
7. Maintaining consistency and quality
Consistency and quality are paramount in SEO and content marketing. Users expect you to regularly publish high-quality content that addresses their needs while maintaining a consistent brand voice. Every new content you upload provides opportunities for ranking on certain topics and keywords. The same holds for updating previously published resources.
8. Performance analysis and iteration
While the pillars of a marketing strategy should stay static, the methods and implementation processes should remain dynamic. Tactics must evolve based on performance analysis and iteration.
SEO practitioners collaborate with content creators to track the performance of each content piece, measuring its impact on organic traffic, engagement metrics and conversions. Marketers can use these insights to optimise content strategy continuously, adapting to changing consumer behaviours and search engine algorithms.
Concluding thoughts
Seamlessly integrating SEO and content marketing is a winning strategy for local business owners seeking to boost their online presence, establish and nurture customer relationships, and achieve sustained success. By understanding the fundamentals of both approaches and acknowledging their distinct roles, one can harness their complementary impacts for remarkable results.
Central to this is culling SEO data and using such insights to implement data-driven optimisation and content strategy techniques. By having both, organisations can thrive in the crowded digital realm while gaining brand authority and forging meaningful connections with their audiences
