Summary: In today’s digital landscape, it’s not enough to just optimize your website for search engines; you also need to focus on creating content that resonates with your audience. By combining effective SEO techniques with compelling content, you can improve your visibility in search results and attract more organic traffic to your site.
Is content marketing the new SEO? This question has been doing rounds in the digital marketing space for years, and the answer is, they are like yin and yang. One cannot be successful without the other.
If you’ve been following
SEO news, you know that Google just realised one of its harshest helpful
content updates which saw dozens of sites lose their traffic. This is among the
four core updates Google had in 2023 compared to two in 2022.
The helpful content
update is important if you use content marketing and SEO as the main source of
traffic for your website. Without quality content, powered by SEO, you will get
no organic traffic. Content is valuable in attracting new prospects and
retaining loyal customers, but SEO makes your content visible in the SERPs.
It’s, in fact, difficult to discuss content marketing without discussing SEO.
Think of the two as a happily married couple who do everything together.
Search Engine optimization, or SEO, is a
strategy used to optimise websites and web pages in a bid to rank higher in
search engine results or SERPs. Ranking above other sites increases visibility,
driving more traffic and conversions.
Valuable content keeps
users on your site long enough to generate high-quality leads. Structuring your
content with topic clusters can further improve its organization and SEO
performance. Search engines like Google use sophisticated tools to determine
whether your content is valuable, then decide where to place you on the SERPs.
Additional read: Lead Generation
Content marketing
emphasises creating quality content that provides valuable information to your
audience and using this content as a marketing tool for your product and
services. It’s a way to build authority and trust among your audience through
insights and industry expertise. Besides written content, you can create many
other forms of content. These include:
Podcasts
Webinars
Vlogs
E-books
Brochures
Case studies
Content Marketing Being the New SEO
In the digital marketing
landscape, content marketing and SEO have become vital elements for online
success. Their relationship is beyond keyword optimisation, which has ushered
in a new era where content marketing is now SEO. Let’s look at the dynamics
that make content marketing the new SEO and its role in creating brand
authority.
User-centric Approach
Content is now the
bridge between search engines and happy users. By creating valuable,
informative content that answers real questions and solves problems, you’re
boosting SEO and building trust and loyalty with your audience. This
user-centric approach is more than a tactic. It’s a commitment to making your
website a destination, not just a landing page. In today’s digital world,
content is the key that unlocks loyalty, trust, and success.
Authority Building
Imagine you have a
website about Women’s handbags that’s ranking well on the SERPs. Then, you
write an article on why building a concrete wall is a great way to improve
security for third-world countries. This article will probably not see the
light of day and will get little to no traffic since it isn’t related to your
site. Google may even be confused as to why you have this article on your
website.
On the other hand, an
article on “best tote bags for summer” is likely to do well and may even rank
within a few days, depending on how strong your content marketing and SEO
efforts are.
The reason why the
article on tote bags does well is Authority. Through SEO, you can position your
site as an authority in a given area (women’s handbags) such that when you
write content around that topic, google quickly crawls and ranks your blog.
Dwell Time and Bounce Rate
Dwell time is the
duration a user stays on a page, and the bounce rate is the percentage of site
visitors who leave after viewing one page without engaging. Engaging content
meets search intent, captivates users and extends their stay.
Google considered longer
dwell times as a signal of relevance and user satisfaction. A higher bounce
rate is regarded as a red flag and suggests that users didn’t find what they
were looking for, thus impacting rankings negatively.
Ranking well depends not
only on high-quality content but also on avoiding penalties from duplicate
content that can hurt your SEO performance.
Social Signals
Social signals are now
influential SEO factors in digital marketing. Users create social signals when
they share, like, and comment on content posted on social media platforms. This
point further confirms social media’s crucial role in SEO.
Social signals indicate
relevance and popularity, which search engines use to determine rankings based
on the symbiotic relationship between engagement and content quality. In
addition to ranking well on SERPs, optimizing content for platforms like Google
Discover can help broaden your audience and bring in more traffic from
different sources. By captivating a broader audience on social media, content
earns more clicks, shares, and comments, boosting its perceived value and
snowballing its impact on search engine visibility.
How SEO and Content Marketing Work Together
The main question is
whether content marketing is the new SEO, but the reality is that these two
complement and not replace each other. You know, the way an ideal marriage
should work. SEO directs people to your content, while the content keeps people
on your site and converts them into customers.
Therefore, a successful
SEO strategy requires content marketing and vice versa. The surefire way to get
the best results from your marketing campaigns is by building a strategy that
blends Content marketing and SEO, as highlighted below.
Know your Target Audience
Both your SEO and
content marketing strategies are only successful if you know your audience
well. Through audience research, you ensure your content is available to
interested people so you don’t waste valuable resources writing to people who
aren’t interested in what you have to say.
When researching your
audience, try to be as specific as possible by knowing everything about them.
For instance, if you are selling a handbag, you can ask yourself these
questions about your audience:
Are you targeting a
teen, mid-twenties, or older women? Better still, exactly how old is the woman
you would like to target?
How much do they earn?
Where do they live?
Do they have a family?
Where do they hang out? Are they on social media? If yes, which one?
Where do they get their
information from? Social media, webpages, or from friends?
This may seem like a
lot, but it tells you the kind of content to create, where to post it, and how
to design your product or service as the solution to your audience’s pain
point.
Remember to continually
improve your strategies by gathering data from your content marketing and SEO
efforts.
Find the Right Keywords
Keywords are the
heartbeat of SEO. Without them, search engines wouldn’t know what your content
is about, and thus, you wouldn’t rank. This makes content optimisation crucial
if you are to see any results. Think about it. Will you sell any product if you
have great content that never gets found? Highly unlikely. So know your
customer intent and apply types of keyword according to our
visitors.
Search engine
optimisation is more than sprinkling keywords here and there in your content.
Instead, you have to be strategic in how you use these keywords. First,
identify your primary keyword, which is the main focus of your content.
Then, find semantic
keywords, which are words related to the primary keywords that Google expect
you to use when writing about a subject. For instance, if your primary keyword
for the example we gave above is “best ladies’ handbag,” Google might expect to
see words like “designer bags and women’s bags” in your content.
Of course, you must
avoid keyword stuffing, as that will lower your content quality. Google
punishes websites with valueless content by de-ranking them and sending that
sweet traffic to websites with more valuable information.
There are numerous ways
to find keywords you can write for, including using keyword research tools like
Ahrefs, Lowfruit, and SEMrush. However, you can always use an SEO marketing
company like us. After all, we have done this for years, with evidence, so you
can trust that we know our way around it.
Check out our professional SEO services.
Create High-Quality,
Informative Content
Quality content refers
to well-written, easy-to-read, well-structured, and well-targeted content.
Google sends results it feels answers a query in the best way. In their helpful
content system document, Google says it rewards content that satisfies readers.
Although numerous
factors impact how well your content ranks, relevance impacts how satisfied
readers are when they visit your site. If they dwell on your page and your
bounce rate is low, Google will take this as a positive sign and send you more
traffic.
If they bounce as soon
as they read the first paragraph, you are likely to be on the wrong side of
Google. Quality content also tends to attract backlinks from other sites
naturally. Backlinks show Google that other people trust you and your
information. This is crucial and one of the major ranking factors. Learn more
about backlinks and why they matter here.
The Perfect Balance Between Quality and Strategy
Content is still king,
but every king needs a crown. That’s what SEO is to content. While quality content
is the heart of a successful online presence, SEO provides the strength your
content needs to attract traffic. They work seamlessly to attract and retain
readers, driving the desired result.
If you find this content
helpful and ready to take your SEO to the next level, give us a call to get you
started. Our professionals will help you get the best of SEO and content
marketing to position your content on top in the SERP.
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