Content Marketing and SEO

Content marketing involves publishing informational and persuasive media with the goal of acquiring more clients, generating sales or strengthening a business brand and/or position as a marketplace leader. This form of marketing is not about direct sales but rather about building consumer trust and rapport through educational media communication and establishing industry expertise. The goal is to provide solution-driven content through Blog posts, web pages, white-papers, social media posts, and other forms of internet marketing vehicles (video, audio, info-graphics, memes, etc…). Content that provides solutions and valuable insight for readers is what pulls targeted traffic into a website and generates business or product interest. Search optimization driven content marketing strategy allows a consumer to easily learn the basics of products and services being provided and create a link between the consumer need and company solution.

Content Marketing With Search Engine Optimization

Content and SEO work hand-in-hand to promote web pages, market ideas and with services for organic SEO, grow traffic to a web site. Quality content is necessary to improve search engine optimization and SEO is necessary for search engines to read and rank the content for higher visibility. Each of these key ranking factors and strategies guide marketing and rely on each other as tools for increased ranking, traffic generation, and efficient distribution. Optimization services through a marketing or SEO agency implement a strategy for building a strong marketing presence, offering tools for multiple digital channels, and fostering business success through higher web rankings. Increasing results in a scalable process of content marketing and search optimization improve business growth safe marketing practices. The link between a marketing agency completing SEO practices and financial success is very strong saving a company time, money and hard work while increasing R.O.I.

SEO Benefits of Targeted Site Content

Whether you’re selling to individuals or businesses, personalized content can work to nurture stronger relationships. This is where content marketing differs greatly from traditional marketing. Rather than creating a handful of general ads and putting them in front of a wide audience with little chance of knowing how they’ll perform, targeted content speaks directly to clients and meets them at their point of need.

Writing, creating and curating quality content is only one small aspect of a content marketing strategy. Offering free content that is insightful and that reaches a target audience is what generates a substantial marketing impact but where and how that content is distributed is critical to success. A successful method of business growth through content marketing involves several levels of distribution. The majority of content marketing is created through the dissemination of ideas through online channels. Web content invites prospective clients to gain information on a specific topic, gain trust in a business and direct all readers to further content or a product on a website. Content that is marketed across the web, and optimized properly (SEO), builds brand awareness, site authority, and industry influence. This strategy is a solid marketing tool for building Google rankings and search results for companies.

Content vs. Great Content

The companies receiving the most benefit from content strategies are those concentrating on quality over quantity. Content needs to be of value to your customers, offer them help, problem solving tools or be related to their lives in unique ways. By drawing on a solid knowledge of the industry and the benefits of what you’re selling, you can generate content with high value and a greater probability of generating leads.

Drawing targeted traffic requires a personalized approach to content creation and SEO. Use customer behavior data to uncover a targeted and defined consumer base allows a business to tailor content to a precise audience and increase conversions. Understanding lifestyles and buying habits reveal how you can connect your company’s offerings with the specific problems and challenges clients may face.

Every company has a story to tell, and this is what today’s consumers are looking for. They want experiences and relationships, not advertising and marketing. Selling a lifestyle associated with a product is much more effective than trying to sell the product on its own. Showing consumers how your brand fits with their life draws targeted leads looking to fulfill a perceived need. Get creative with content to turn your marketing message into something with which consumers can really connect.

Digital Marketing With Content and SEO

Search engines rely heavily on text-based content to determine what a website could potentially rank for. Before content is written, detailed research is required to determine keywords to use in the writing process and to analyze the online competition for search ranking. Good content is only relevant to a business if that content is read or seen. Employing search engine marketing (SEM) strategies, structuring the content on a web page correctly for search engines to record, and placing links to that content in high traffic locations is a critical aspect of successful content distribution. With Google driving the majority of traffic to websites it is vital that the content created is optimized for major search portals. A content marketing strategy should have measurable goals of reaching a specific subset of consumers via web search. A web search is where potential clients are actively seeking to solve their pain points… a business just needs to be where they are looking and provide valuable solutions. More so than Facebook and Twitter, search engine marketing offers businesses the potential to reach large amounts of prospective customers at the right time and with the right offering.

Content Syndication involves developing a positive reputation for a business, product, or idea by creating attention within an already created and saturated audience. Sharing content through marketing, with a previously formed group of active readers of specific discourse creates opportunities for business and product branding. Marketing content providing valuable information and problem-solving ideas is readily received and often creates further discussions and branding opportunities. Syndicating content is an integral part of content marketing. This can be achieved by Guest Posting on a powerful industry blog, online press releases, sharing content via RSS feeds, or providing access to content through hundreds of social channels. The goal of content posting is to increase business visibility with careful placement designed to multiply readership, escalate target traffic, and spread your marketing message to a targeted audience.

Web Content Formats

Traditionally content marketing refers to text-based media shared via web site pages, blogs, press releases or social media platforms. However, content is not limited to just text-based marketing materials. Some of the most effective content marketing is built on video, audio, images or the juxtaposition of multiple web-based marketing formats. Marketing with multiple formats on many platforms opens the gates for reaching a larger audience who may prefer to receive and learn through information in a format other than straight text. As an example, a video can be posted on YouTube but also added to a website or embedded in a press release. This will work to increase the business’s potential of reaching a larger audience through multiple web-based constructs. By diversifying content formats the marketing value of a single marketing piece is multiplied and spread to a greater audience on the web.

Content Delivery

Navigating the content marketing landscape can be confusing with so many web marketing channels to choose from. The platforms your business uses need to be those optimized to deliver the types of content your audience expects on a schedule designed to catch their attention at times of peak usage. Once traffic is drawn into the site, additional content is needed to re-engage the user and drive them towards completing an action. Based on the campaign objective, traffic funneled to a website or specific landing page has a measurable action that signifies success. This can be a lead, a purchase, or even the sharing of content within another influential group.

A content management system (CMS), such as WordPress, HubSpot, Hatchbuck or Hootsuite, helps you stay on schedule with creation and posting. These tools make it easy to plan a content strategy and review previous campaigns at a glance. Many CMS platforms allow for visitor re-engagement either via email marketing or a free giveaway in the form of coupons, additional informative content, software download, video, etc… Often, this second level of engagement is what entices the prospective client to pick up the phone or purchase a product. A guide for good content marketing is based on several interactions with a client and with each connection, a business can further build rapport and trust. CMS software allows for easy content marketing management and tracking of campaigns.

Three Elements of Content Marketing

1. Content Creation
2. Content Distribution
3. Content Conversions

Content Creation

Content that solves reader pain points or that delivers lifestyle-changing ideas is what content marketing is all about. Understanding the potential target market and putting yourself into their shoes to really understand how they see products, lifestyle hassles and drawbacks of services is how ideas for great content start. But just writing content designed to help others is only part of the marketing equation. You may post a great article on Facebook, on a blog, or on many other online marketing channels but search engines generate the most traffic to quality content. Within a content marketing campaign needs to be agency knowledge of how much content to write, which words to use, how to use them, where to place them, how the content is structured and how search engines are going to read the information. The SEO portion of content creation is almost as important as the ideas represented within an article. Great content is of little use if it is not found and read by targeted consumers.

Content Distribution

A guide to a solid content distribution strategy isn’t simply posting a link to your content on major social websites. The difference with hiring an SEO agency is that the strategy is more highly focused to improve on building stronger marketing channels and more efficient promotion for companies offering services and products. Social media is a great place to start but the impact of that content is not as powerful as you may think. With Facebook’s Edge Rank algorithm not all of your followers will even see your content. Let’s be honest, your product or services is not the reason why users are on social platforms… they are there to interact with friends and family. Content, as good as it may be, is interrupting the reason why they are visiting Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. They may have Liked your page or maybe following you but you are an after-thought or an interruption to their original intent.

Distributing content via search engine ranking is the key marketing component to capturing an audience that is actively searching for solutions or answers to pain points. Google search drives the majority of visitors and links to web pages with solid content so it is imperative that a content marketing campaign is created with this idea at the forefront.

Content Marketing Conversions

Content that converts readers into customers requires four key components.

1. Optimized Content: The content must be optimized for search engines (SEO) and optimized to deliver concise information to web users.
2. Time of Distribution: The content needs to be found and read at the right time the potential consumer needs the information provided.
3. Provide A Solution: The content must deliver the solution or answer to the question the reader is inquiring about.
4. Solve A Search Query: Content must be designed to solve a search query and be highly relevant to a keyword search in order to rank high and be seen.
5. Targeted Distribution: Content distributed through the correct online channels to reach a targeted audience. SEM (search Engine Marketing) campaigns deliver targeted traffic to quality content.