Why SEO is Actually All About Content Marketing — and Vice Versa
True marketing success lies in the area where they converge.
Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are like peanut butter cups — chocolate and PB are great on their own, but put them together and you get an unforgettable pair. Though these terms are thrown around a lot, and people assume they understand the basics of each, they’re really an essential symbiotic pair for companies looking to capitalize on content for ROI.
So, about those basics: SEO refers to taking advantage of certain search engine-friendly keywords to increase the amount of traffic and quality visitors to your preferred digital destination — in this case, it’s usually your company blog; content marketing focuses on showcasing valuable company insights and perspectives via channels like blog posts, video strategies, and other tools to boost your entire marketing plan, which drives profitable customer engagement.
A lot of very successful people know that both are important to have, and they spend a lot of their marketing budget trying to incorporate each. But often, realizing that successfully rolling out a marketing strategy requires a coherent blend that overlaps SEO and content marketing remains elusive.
Running each as separate methods isn’t going to provide your company with the results that combining them into one strategy will. If your company wants to grow search traffic, you can’t simply smash the SEO button in your CMS. If you want to generate more client leads, you can’t keep posting random blog posts without a unifying message.
Think of it like a big success-focused marketing venn diagram. There are unique details on either side, but the true meaning lies in the area where they converge.
Optimized Optimization
SEO on its own is a narrower and more technical concept that can be applied within the broader content marketing strategy. Conversely, the more holistic techniques of content marketing can only be successful when companies implement precise SEO strategies.
SEO techniques are the rules, while content marketing is the game.
The essential component of SEO is about finding relevant keywords to surface particular posts and rank them higher on search engine pages. All the keywords, buzzwords, and optimized terms don’t mean much without a contextual basis for the search engine to pull from — not to mention enhancing metadata, maintaining proper tags, and a good UX design.
It’s important to utilize those key phrases in a way that follows an overall approach that syncs well with marketing. The SEO and content need work in a near-perfect balance.
Top-Notch Content
Technical stuff aside, for SEO to truly work there needs to be legitimate content. Thankfully, the word “content” is right there in the phrase content marketing.
When you have keywords, you need to use them strategically across your content. Good content marketing consists of top-notch posts that utilize targeted keywords and topics that are relevant to the brand as well as industry
Fresh creative content that does this indexes more rapidly and ranks higher across search engines, as well as attracts new client prospects given each piece of content’s high-value perspective. Matching your creative ideas with embedded keyword strategy is the key to this very important motion of a company’s overall marketing strategy.
SEO and content marketing should not be seen as different departments, instead they’re essentially different employees working on the same team. They need each other to truly differentiate — content marketing is only successful if it has appropriate SEO and vice versa. Your SEO strategy will fail unless you integrate it across content marketing and amplification channels, and your content is going nowhere unless people are able to search and find it.