SEO and content marketing are two different things but they are ‘besties.’ They work like an engine together just giving us the power term, SEO content.
What? Why? How?
I am sure you have plenty of questions you want to ask me right now, so we’ll start with the basics and see how these two together make ‘SEO content marketing’ the hero for any business.
What is SEO and Content Marketing
SEO aka Search Engine Optimization is the practice of optimizing your website to show up in search results when people search for related queries.
For instance, if you have a business of shower caps, then you want to show up in search results when a prospect is looking to buy shower caps. You then leverage the benefits of SEO to make it happen.
Content marketing on the other hand is done to stimulate the interest of a prospect in your product by creating various types of SEO content. That content is related to the products or services that you are selling.
For instance, if you sell shower caps, then you could be creating content on ‘benefits of shower caps’ or ‘different uses of shower caps’ or simply writing content for the product page of it.
That’s SEO vs content marketing for you, explained in the simplest manner possible!
Relationship between SEO and content marketing
Clearly, content marketing and SEO are poles apart, so how are they related?
Let’s look into this with an example.
Whenever anyone Google’s lipstick, a product from several different brands shows up in search results.
So is the case for any other product.
But what exactly is showing up in search results?
- An image of the lipstick.
- Details about that lipstick.
- Or a detailed page to an e-commerce brand website which sells lipsticks.
Everything that I just mentioned above is content! Here, content marketing is in play with the help of SEO copywriting and image SEO.
Now the question is why only these specific products and brand pages are ranking. For that there could be multiple reasons.
- They are having relevant keywords in their content.
- Their images and URLs are optimized for user queries.
- They are regularly building backlinks for their pages.
- They are constantly ensuring that the technical aspects of their website are top-notch.
- They have established their credibility in the eyes of Google as a brand that sells cosmetics.
And so on…
What helps in doing all the above things? SEO!
So when you do SEO, your content marketing efforts prove to be fruitful. And you can only do SEO when you have content that ranks.
It is a symbiotic relationship where the benefit is mutual and there is a greater benefit waiting at the end of it for the business.
SEO content marketing – Make SEO & content marketing work together
So now we know what is SEO and contentment marketing individually and also how they are related to finally give us the common term content marketing SEO.
Next step is to discuss how to build an SEO content marketing strategy that helps you make SEO and content marketing work together. Content marketing is the new SEO and it is crucial to know the power of both!
Nurture content with SEO for more traffic
There is a ton of content on Google and other search engines. For every single query, you see that there are ten thousand plus results out there. But then why is it that only a few bag the top spot in Google search?
It is because it’s only those few brands and businesses that are leveraging SEO for content marketing. The benefit of content marketing is that anyone can create content. It is a very opportunistic field. But the drawback of it is that just creating content is not enough in the digital age.
You want your content to work, to outshine, and be found by users so you can achieve your final target – which is either be seen and known for your content or sell a product. Content marketing is just the starting point to reach your final objective.
SEO is what helps you achieve your objective through content marketing. The both advantage and disadvantage of SEO is that not everyone can do it. If you can, then leverage it with the help of unique SEO content ideas.
- Do your keyword research and keyword clubbing before you start creating content.
- Use the keywords to understand your reader’s intent.
- Sort your on page SEO and optimize fields like URL, meta title, and meta description.
For instance, checkout this blog from ZeroAdo which is a thorough guide on SEO copywriting and is optimized for SEO as well.
Create quality content for people keeping SEO in mind
When you are doing content marketing, you are just thinking about the readers. But when you do content marketing for SEO, you are doing it for both the users as well as the search engines.
Create your content in a manner that is appealing both to the user as well as the customer and at all costs avoid duplicate content. No matter how good your content is, if it is not ranking, it won’t get any traction whatsoever.
It might sound unfair, but you need to write both for search engine crawlers aka robots and also for humans. Combine SEO tactics with the creativity of content creation, and watch your content take off!
Free backlinks from good content = Automated SEO
When you create quality content keeping in mind both your readers and search engine, that is when your content ranks. And when the content ranks, it gets tons of free backlinks as well. Which eventually reduces your efforts to build backlinks yet getting you the same results.
This is how content marketing helps SEO and vice versa.
It is a loop, you create content, and optimize it with SEO practices, then your content ranks. When quality and helpful content ranks, it is loved by users as well who then build automatic backlinks for it by either sharing it on their social media, or referencing it in their content.
With backlinks, your website as a whole enjoys SEO benefits, one of which is improved rankings for your content. And the loop starts again! But to get your content ranking in the first place, you need off page SEO for which you need nothing less than the best link building services to start this loop of growth.
This is a cohesive partnership and balance of helping each other together is what we call SEO content marketing.
Optimize every part of content for SEO
Quality content is the one, which is good to read, but also rankable and bankable. For that to happen, you need to optimize all the parts of your content for SEO.
So how can content marketing help with SEO?
Here is how!
Image optimization for SEO
Optimize your images and videos so that it is not just your text based content which ranks but also other forms of content.
Google SEO copywriting examples and you will find ZeroAdo’s blog’s image ranking in the images section as well. It is because we have SEO optimized all the images of our content.
Internal linking within the content
Add internal links in your content in a contextual manner to help the reader reach your other pages and help SEO by building the credibility of the linked pages in the eyes of Google.
You must have come across some internal link in this blog as well, those are both to help you as well as our SEO. Do not shy away from interlinking your own content, afterall, you have put in the best of your efforts to create it.
Keyword usage in content and headings
Include keywords in your content, both primary and secondary. One piece of content can rank for multiple keywords at once!
Checkout this blog on SEO companies and agencies in Mumbai from ZeroAdo, where primary and secondary keywords have been strategically placed within the headings.
Optimizing metadata
Optimize your meta data like title and meta description. That is the first thing that the crawlers are going to find. Include keywords in them and follow the best SEO practices to curate them.
Heading structure optimization
Optimize your heading tags and heading structure. That is the outline of your content and should be able to convey the crux of the content and also give its hierarchy making it easy for both the search engines and users to skim through.
Checkout this example from ZeroAdo’s blog where H2 and H3s have been put to use to optimize the blog structure.
Giving external links
Give external links for quotes, statistics, and images wherever due. If you do not do that, then it will be counted as duplicate content, and it won’t be rank worthy.
At ZeroAdo either, we do not shy away from giving credits, checkout a snap from our blog on examples of SEO copywriting 👇.
Combine technical aspects with creativity for best results
You have created the best content, full of images and informative content. You have done keyword research as well and have optimized your content as well keeping SEO in mind.
You made your content personalized too for a good user experience. Yet your content is not ranking. Forget ranking, it is nowhere to be even found on Google.
You freak out, unable to figure what is happening. Well, let me tell you what is happening. There is a possibility that your content is not there in the inventory of Google. Or in technical terms, your content is not indexed by Google.
Either, there are some errors on the technical front of your website that need immediate attention, or you have used no index tag so Google is not indexing it only. No matter what the situation is, you need to find and fix broken links to save your SEO rankings or resolve any other error that you are getting in Google Search Console.
“What? But no one told me all this had to be done as well!”
And I assure you, that no one will. Just doing on-page SEO and following best practices for your content are not enough. Your technical SEO needs to be sorted as well, or else, that content is no good.
- Before getting started with content marketing, checkout your site structure. What it is like and if it is even built right. Because how your site is structured is exactly the same way how Google will read it.
- Make your site crawlable, and indexable as well for search engines to find your content. If search engines have the permission, only then they can find and index it or in simple terms, add it to their inventory.
- Almost 65% of website traffic comes from mobile users as per a report by Exploding Topics. So optimize your website for mobile usage.
Google takes page experience for users very seriously and it is a consideration while ranking your website as well. So optimize your core web vitals and page loading speed, and an overall user interface to make it rank worthy.
“I never thought I would have to do so much to make my content rank and get my business going.”
Well, you don’t have to, as we, the ZeroAdo Crew can do it for you. Contact ZeroAdo to put your SEO and content marketing on autopilot mode. We will do the labor for you, while you just enjoy the fruits of it in the form of increased traffic and leads.
Quantify the quality of content with SEO metrics to level up
A major difference between SEO and content marketing is that content marketing is all about quality and creativity, while SEO is more focused on quantifying those efforts.
For instance, whatever piece of content you publish, you can check its position, clicks, and impressions in your Google Search console. Or you can check that at which point in the content, people are bouncing off your page in your Google Analytics.
[Source – Google Search Console]
When you are able to quantify the quality of your content, that’s when you can make the real difference to your business’s growth.
Because, when you know the top queries you are ranking for, or when you know the demographic your content is thriving in the most, that’s when you can start implementing these insights within your SEO and content marketing strategy.
These insights help you make your content better and help you make it rank better. When content ranks, it gets better traffic and increased leads and also increases your chances of getting backlinks to boost SEO.
That’s how SEO and content marketing nail it together!
SEO and content marketing combination for best business results!
Now that you know that SEO & content marketing can work together to give you the best results of all times. It is time to implement them.
However, the implementation of the SEO and content marketing integration is not going to be easy but it is not impossible either. You need to build a strategy that is hyper focused on your business. If you are unable to do that yourself, then experts in the field of content marketing and SEO aka ZeroAdo would be glad to help you do the same.
