Written by: Tom Jager
Ever since Google and other search engines have emerged, brand managers have been concerned with making their content “friendly” for them.
Search engine optimization became a crucial part of online promotions, because if an organization’s site is not found, it is practically dead.
In more recent years, the importance of SEO diminished with the emergence of content marketing . It is a consistent approach to promoting products, services and organizations through meaningful and valuable images, articles and videos that help build large customer bases.
Some even began to call content marketing the new SEO, because it performs the same function—but also enriches the online experience of potential customers.
However, SEO’s role is still vital. Disregarding it is a bad idea, because its principles have built modern online marketing strategies .
Use these tips to marry the two tactics into one consistent and effective effort:
1. Keyword research.
Coming up with effective keywords is an essential condition for both tactics to work together, because content needs to be exposed to the audience as many times as possible.
To achieve this, textual material must be consistent with keywords that people use to search for the information, products or services you have. Defining a perfect set of keywords for the website requires research, which can be done with the help of numerous tools. Check out this Search Engine Watch article for great tools.
Related: How Can I Gauge My SEO Success?
2. Long-lasting content.
The longer your website content stays relevant to your online audience, the longer it will be displayed in search results.
For example, an article about how to write a critical essay for college from Proessaywriting is more often found than this 2010 news article from The New York Times on the Deepwater Horizon.
“How to write a critical essay for college” is an example of a set of great keywords that represent content that is not time-dependent and creates greater engagement from online visitors.
3. Link building.
Great branded content often contains links because it attempts to persuade the reader or viewer to make a decision. However, we should stay away from overusing links so it doesn’t look spammy. Google will impose penalties if it does.
The biggest secret to getting a lot of attention from online visitors is to create content they want—and good content will receive great numbers of backlinks. These can be articles and videos that consumers find useful in their everyday or professional lives. By providing proper link building, we relate SEO and content marketing—staying friends with Google in the process.
4. Performance measurement.
Every brand manager must measure the affect made by the content they create and ensure that it is consistent with SEO objectives.
To provide proper measurement of content performance, employ analytics tools designed just for the job, such as Google Analytics , Cyfe , Buffer and others.
Buffer can perform analytics on social media pages and determine the most popular posts, helping you know whether you are meeting your marketing goals. By using tools such as this, your organizations and clients can get the most from content pieces, and you can monitor performance daily.
SEO and content marketing have appeared in different times, and have different methods to achieve the purpose. However, they are both outstanding online promotion strategies.
Combining the tactics can help you ensure that you’re creating and sharing excellent content, which is crucial for an effective online presence and your organization’s sales. SEO and content marketing teams that work collaboratively achieve the best results.