How SEO And Content Marketing Work Together

How SEO And Content Marketing Work Together

 

When looking to drive traffic to your website, you’ve more than likely already looked into using SEO. SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – is the act of researching and building a list of suitable keywords to work into your site content. The idea is that the inclusion of these terms will allow your content to rank higher in search engine results, leading to an increase in site traffic from internet users looking up these terms online.

 

However, SEO alone, however effectively you think you have applied it, isn’t enough to guarantee those excellent results. You must also look at the content that you are designing for the purpose of increasing web traffic and ensure that this is strong enough to encourage internet users to not only click the link, but stay on the page, too.

 

Why Isn’t Good SEO Enough?

 

When we create content for the sole purpose of using SEO keywords, it can be easy to just write as though you are ticking the boxes – put simply, you could be writing on autopilot, believing that as long as the keywords are there, the content you have created is effective. However, that simply isn’t the case.

 

Site content which has been written for the purpose of increasing traffic, if written in this way, can simply appear disjointed and almost soulless, and likely will not read as well to those who do visit the page. For SEO content to be effective, both the SEO and the body of the content must be strong as individual components.

 

Another mistake that businesses often make in the creation of SEO content is believing that the more keywords you use, the more effective the content will be in increasing traffic. In actual fact, using SEO keywords to create effective content marketing pieces is very much a case of less is more.

 

If you use too many keywords, you could be in danger of actually harming your search engine ranking. In trying to include a long list of keywords, the content itself could be all over the place and won’t be helpful to site visitors or, detrimentally to your business, encourage the traffic you were hoping to see.

 

When we, as internet users, look for content regarding a specific topic via a search engine, we want to see content that is centred around that one particular topic. Content created for the sole purpose of cramming in as many keywords as possible will more than likely lack clear direction, and is therefore unhelpful to the site visitors you were hoping to attract.

 

Why Isn’t Good Content Effective Alone?

 

So, if SEO alone isn’t enough to secure an increase in traffic, what about forgoing the keywords and simply aiming to create the best content possible? Unfortunately, that won’t work alone, either.

 

Inbound marketing is about just that – marketing. Even if you were to create incredible site content, which is clear in its objectives and is incredibly well-designed, it will be ineffective in helping your site if it never reaches your target demographic in the first place.

 

Think of it in the way that traditional advertising works. A company could have the very best product on the market, something which solves a problem that has been around for years. The company pays to have an incredible advertisement made for the product and then… runs the advert on a satellite TV channel at 3am. No matter how good the product is or the advertisement for it, it will never get the traction that it needs if nobody sees it!

 

In this case, the product is your site and the advertisement is the content that you are placing onto it in order to increase traffic. However, in order to put that content in front of people, you have to ensure that you are giving it the best chance in the search engine ranks by choosing effective SEO keywords. That way, users who are searching those keywords will come across your content and visit your site – giving you the all-important increase in traffic that you are looking for.

 

So, well-researched SEO and high-quality content are both important, but either can only be effective when used together. 

 

How Should I Create Good SEO Content?

 

The best way to go about creating high-quality inbound marketing content is to first decide what content you will create. The best way to do that is to start with one question: which one key piece of information am I looking to deliver with this content? By giving yourself just one clear topic for the content, you will be able to not just write it more effectively, but find the best keywords more effectively, too.

 

Remember, though, this content must be relevant to your site, and should be easy to naturally work your keywords into.

 

In order to identify the best keywords to use, list the topics that you would like to rank highly for in search engines. For example, if you were the owner of an online pet accessories store, you might want to rank highly for ‘cat accessories’, ‘coats for large dogs’, ‘best dog food’, etc. Then, using these terms, create a short list of different keywords (remember, less is more!) that could be effectively worked into these topics.

 

Working off this example, the pet store owner may decide that the question they wish to answer with their content is ‘what are the ten must-have accessories for puppy owners?’. This is an ideal topic, as it answers one question and is relevant to users of their site, and can easily have a short list of keywords naturally worked into it, such as ‘best puppy food’, ‘beds for puppies’ or ‘puppy leads’, meaning that the content will rank higher and – when visitors do visit the page – will be of high-quality. It can also be worked to direct readers to use that particular site itself, increasing not just traffic, but sales, too!

 

Put simply, the most important rule to remember is that great SEO and high-quality content must be used hand-in-hand in order to effectively increase site traffic. Once you know how, everyone can do this with very little trouble!

Digital Marketing