Subhead: No, You Don’t Have to
Choose Just One
“SEO and content marketing – which
is best for your business?”
“Should you invest in SEO or
content marketing?”
I’m sure you’ve seen tons of
headlines like this. And I have and I decided I’ve had enough!
I’ve also heard this question from
a lot of my agency’s clients during the onboarding process. “Yeah, content
marketing sounds good, but I’ve read that SEO is better.”
Yes, that happens in 2017. Shoot
me now!
Such questions and headlines have
clearly shown me there is a serious shortage of education on the matter. More
people need to understand that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. At all! Quite
the opposite actually. I would go as far as saying that they are interdependent
and crucial to a coherent digital strategy.
Much like peanut butter and jelly
are for a really good sandwich.
Let’s see why.
Defining the terms
According to the Content Marketing
Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on
creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract
and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable
customer action.”
Search Engine Land tells us that
SEO (search engine oOptimization) “is the process of getting traffic from the
“free,” “organic,” “editorial” or “natural” search results on search engines.”
There is something that the two
clearly have in common: “attract (…) a clearly defined audience” and “getting
traffic” or attracting traffic.
Does this mean that they do the
same thing and that you have to choose between them? Absolutely not.
A battle that’s artificially
fueled
The type of headline cited above
is only designed to “help” you allocate your resources where the publisher of
the article needs you to.
For instance, let’s say your
budget is $4,000 per month and you have the same dilemma: should you invest it
in SEO or content marketing. When you Google your question you’ll get quite a
few results. Each article you read declares a winner.
Some will tell you that you can
get nowhere without SEO in this competitive world. Others will argue that all
the recent Google algorithm updates killed SEO and you have to move your budget
to content marketing.
Guess what? In most of the cases,
the first ones are selling SEO services, while the latter are content
marketers. There is an incredible scarcity of unbiased articles that advocate
the need for the two to coexist.
The case for BOTH SEO and content
marketing
Imagine this scenario: you put all
of your $4,000 in SEO and you get lots of traffic. More than you’ve ever
dreamed of. But no conversions.
You may have gained some brand
recognition (and certainly some ego-massage from the vanity metrics displayed
by Google Analytics), but what about cash? You know, the thing that keeps
businesses going.
Enter content marketing.
The techniques used by content
marketers are designed not just to keep users on your website and reduce your
bounce rate, but also to turn them into paying customers. Perfectly optimized
content is of no value if those who see it don’t make a purchase or an inquiry,
as well.
In today’s world, the
Internet-savvy shopper or client isn’t easy to convert. You need to provide him
with relevant, valuable and informational content before you can convince him
to even consider your brand. A poorly written, keyword-stuffed article doesn’t
do that. It just annoys potential customers and scares them away from your
website (and business).
Aside from valuable, informational
content, good copywriters spend hours crafting the perfect call-to-action to
complement your optimized copy so that your organic visits turn into actual
cash. What good is a page that ranks No. 1 in all searches if it sells nothing?
The argument works both ways,
actually.
What good is a perfect, stunning
call-to-action if no one discovers the content it accompanies? This is why you
need to pair up content marketing and SEO, not choose between them. If someone
tells you to make that choice, run and never look back.
How SEO and content marketing can
work together
Whenever I hire SEO copywriters
for my agency, I make sure they have at least basic knowledge of content
marketing. In fact, I’ve found that inbound and content marketing experience is
much more valuable than SEO knowledge.
That’s because you can easily
teach someone to optimize his or her content. You can tell them which tools to
use to find relevant keywords, what density they should use and how to choose
the right LSI keywords. But teaching them the importance of a proper CTA and a
compelling headline from scratch is harder. Not impossible, but harder.
Experience has also taught me that
there is such a things as the golden ratio between SEO and content marketing.
Let me explain that.
Of course you want all your texts
optimized. Organic traffic is a gold mine for any type of business – no one can
dispute that. But you don’t want to sacrifice your content marketing strategy
for it.
You want to find the right
balance.
In other words, don’t just write
articles for the sake of boosting your page rankings. Write because you have
something to say. Write because your buyer persona wants or needs that
information. Make sure that everything you write has tons of research behind
and that it’s in the right tone of voice for your audience.
Your potential customers love
that. And, according to the latest Google algorithm updates, so do search
engines. So, if you don’t believe me that content marketing and SEO should go
together, take Google’s word for it. It has made it quite clear that websites
that write for human readers will always rank higher than those that try to
impress Google too hard.
Bottom line: SEO and content
marketing have some value on their own. Together, they are unstoppable.
Source: - http://www.sitepronews.com/2017/07/05/content-marketing-and-seo-why-you-need-both/
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