What does it mean for your online presence when 70% of users would prefer to learn about your company by reading an article than by viewing an ad? It means it’s time to start writing. In fact, there are many benefits of content marketing in addition to informing folks about your brand.
Where search engine optimization (SEO) is concerned, these benefits can make or break your online success. Content and SEO are co-dependent. You need both of them.
Continue reading to find out what content marketing is, what SEO is, and how the former leads to success in the latter.
What Is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the practice of creating videos, articles, slide decks, and social media posts, for example, and delivering the media to a targeted audience. You need both sides of the equation–creation and targeted delivery. If you just write now and again on your content marketing blog, users might stumble on your site, but they might not.
Identifying and delivering content to a targeted audience allows you to get more traffic. This paves the way for more conversions. In order to deliver to a targeted audience, you need SEO.
What Is SEO?
SEO is a strategy consisting of technical tactics designed to get search engines to give your online properties a high rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). Basically, good SEO can land your website or social media profile(s) on page one of Google, where users are more likely to find you for a given keyword or long-tail keyword.
SEO consists of far too many tactics to discuss them all here, but there’s one tactic absolutely essential to successful SEO: Content marketing. Without it, you’d have nothing to do SEO with.
An SEO specialist without content marketing is like a sculptor without clay. All the skill is there, but there’s nothing to mold, nothing to produce.
The Benefits Of Content Marketing For SEO
Now that you know the two practices rely on one another, let’s dive into the actual benefits content marketing offers SEO. We’ve got 6 answers to the question, “Why is content marketing so important?”
1. SEO Needs Content
Like the analogy with the sculptor, SEO requires content. Without content, there’d be nothing to optimize for search engines. Content is where you’ll find keywords, geotags for local SEO, pages to tag with title tags and META data.
Without content, you might as well just put up a blank white webpage and call it a day. The reason SEO needs content is because SEO is all about creating a great user experience. In order to do so, users need information to consume.
2. SEO Needs Keywords
We mentioned keywords in the above section, but we need to dive in deeper to this benefit, because keywords exist in more than just an article itself. One of the key benefits of content marketing and SEO together involves using keywords in alt-tags for images, in hashtags on social media posts, in title tags on websites.
A good SEO specialist will conduct keyword research before creating content, so that the content can answer the need for media fitting that keyword. Think of it like this: digital marketing is a restaurant and the keyword is the customer’s order. SEO is the waitstaff, and content is the food.
All of them: the customer, the order, the waitstaff, and the food are necessary to run a successful restaurant. You also need a cook–let’s call the writers/content producers the cooks. Keywords help users find content via search engines.
No content means no keywords, which means your site doesn’t get found.
3. SEO Needs Linkbacks
A linkback, also known as a backlink, happens when another website links to your content. As one of the top 3 ranking factors, linkbacks are not to be ignored. They’re especially important when they come from a site with a high domain authority.
Then it’s like your website is receiving a referral from the creme de la creme. But if you don’t have content, other websites have nothing to link to. It’d be like publicizing an art show for a new sculptor who has no sculptures.
4. SEO Needs Consistency
If you’re consistent, then you’re reliable. Search engines like Google love when websites are reliable because they’re more likely to provide a great user experience. How do you provide consistency?
By following a content production schedule. Maybe you blog every day for your brand, or perhaps you only blog once a month. Remaining consistent is crucial, and content marketing provides something to produce consistently.
5. SEO Needs Technical Optimization
The technical side of digital marketing “SEO” is all about creating a better user experience. A variety of great content provides a great user experience. This is because content tells a story.
Your website and other online presences need to tell a story. Stories engage, inform, and entertain. All three of those lend themselves to a fabulous user experience.
6. SEO Needs Trust
When you create authoritative, transparent content, users browsing your website will start to trust you more. When they trust you more, they:
- Stay on your page longer
- Navigate through your website
- Return to your website
All of this is good for SEO. When your site has lower bounce rates, search engines notice. When users stay on your site for several minutes and read multiple pages, search engines notice.
More trust can translate to more domain authority, or D.A. The more domain authority you have, the more likely you are to rank higher in SERPs.
Creating trust is at the heart of the value one of the powerful benefits of content marketing for SEO. When users trust you, so too will search engines. In turn, more users will find you and trust you, too.
Content Marketing + SEO = Success
Using SEO by itself is a waste of money. Using content marketing by itself is a waste of time. The benefits of content marketing for SEO can only be realized when the two are used in concert.
For the love of your brand, give the sculptor some clay.
And if you still have questions about how these two practices work together, contact us.
With our Smart SEO you gain all the benefits of Content Marketing and SEO together. We have uncovered a way to combine this with advertising – at the same time, with no additional costs. Check out the our video below!
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About Gregory Falicia
I’m a writer, instructor, and a technically savvy marketer…
I focus on what I am good at:
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