Marketing your business with content can be one of the strategies that brings the voice of your brand to the forefront through quality content. However, the importance of SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is undeniable for effective marketing through high quality articles and blogs.
Thus, content creation and SEO work together to maximise the visibility of your product or service. Hence, if you want to accelerate your marketing goals, you must learn about SEO content marketing and how you can leverage it to reach your audience.
What is SEO in Content Marketing?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is the process of optimising a website’s content so that it ranks higher on the Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page). SEO can also be referred to as a strategy for enhancing, changing, or improving content to make it more engaging for your audience.
Search engines like Google, Bing, etc., work on specific algorithms, according to which they tend to rank content higher that has the potential to fulfil their users’ search intent. When users find your website contains more engaging content, there are higher chances for them to return more frequently and eventually into leads.
Therefore, the more informative, engaging and helpful your content will be, the better it is for SEO content marketing. You can only expect higher ranks or become the optimum search results for the users if your content exhibits authoritativeness, and expertise while showcasing extensive research and experience behind it.
Checklist for Effective SEO Optimization
The below points feature some of the crucial components of SEO. Keep these SEO tactics in mind while optimizing your website for SEO content marketing to get the best results.
1. Research and Integration of Keywords
Keywords refer to the specific set of words that users enter into the search bar. These are the words that depict the search intent or the queries which they want to get resolved by searching for them.
Thus, by performing necessary keyword research for a content, you make it more accurate to satisfy the search intent of the users. These also help in working as per the Google algorithms, convincing Googlebot to offer rankings against relevant search queries.
2. Page Loading Speed
No user would like to wait for your page to load. If your content does not appear the moment users click on it, they are most likely going to leave. Thus, the loading speed of your page is considered equally crucial to ranking higher on search engines.
3. Embedding Necessary Links
Only after thoroughly analysing your content for search engines, Google is going to provide you with a higher rank. For that, including necessary internal or external links to your content is also beneficial.
Therefore, it is recommended to embed links within your content wherever necessary. Also, you must ensure to include links of authoritative sites – they add credibility to your content.
4. Responsive Design
Amidst the pool of internet users, most people tend to search online with their mobile phones. Considering that 50% of the total internet traffic comes from mobile phones, it is important to optimize your content for search engines and phones as well. Your web page must have a responsive design that can be easily accessible from any device whatsoever.
What is Content Marketing?
It is one of the most effective types of digital marketing that works to increase the online visibility of companies by publishing quality content on their websites. Content marketing campaigns can only be implemented well when your website content is optimised to secure higher ranks on the search engines.
This is because search engines work according to a set of predetermined algorithms, based on which they rank different content. Thus, content marketing is considered successful when your website gets a higher rank on the search engines, increasing the visibility of your brand, and attracting more traffic to your website.
Therefore, most companies opt for SEO content marketing to build the credibility of the services and products they offer. The more authority your content showcases, the better it earns the trust of the users.
Types of Content in Online Marketing
Content writing experts ensure superior content quality for your brand that engages the users, increasing the chances of conversions in the long run. Nevertheless, there can be several forms of valuable content marketing, which include the following:
1. Website Content
These refer to the piece of content present on the official website of your company. Primarily, the content should be SEO-optimised with proper set of relevant keywords that cater to your target group for your audience to find the content.
2. Social Media Posts
Social media is among the most powerful mediums for digital marketing. Thus, brands must have their social media accounts and regularly post content on social media about their products and services to have better reach.
3. Blog Posts
Frequently posting blogs about the services and products your company offers is one of the effective ways to engage the readers. However, such blogs should be SEO optimised to help your website rank higher on the search engines.
4. Advertisements
Producing successful content helps in advertising your services and can also increase your online visibility. These can be in the form of a carousel, newsletter or regular social media posts.
5. Emails
Through analytics, you can gather data about the purchasing behaviours of your target audience. You can proceed with email marketing by sending them emails and creating content about your services.
How SEO Helps in Content Marketing?
In an ocean of endless content, SEO is responsible to give your content the right direction for it to visible to the target group. SEO content marketing focuses on the growth of your business in many ways, which include the following:
Increased Visibility
One of the key requirements of digital marketing is to create awareness about your brand. It can only be possible by increasing your online visibility. Thus, content marketing works by ensuring your content is optimised through on-page SEO and off-page SEO strategy, letting your target audience reach you and learn about your services.
Greater Engagement and Conversions
Optimising content following several types of SEO content strategy is essential. It means making the content informative enough to resolve the search intent of your audience. This ensures better engagement, which helps in retaining the users for longer periods on your website, featuring higher chances of conversions.
Higher Position on Search Engines
To engage to grab the attention of your audience, you need to reach them. The users can only find your website if it ranks higher on the Google SERP. Thus. SEO content marketing enables your content to drive lead generation, getting higher positions on search engines since these are optimised with relevant keywords, links etc.
7 Tips to Merge SEO into Your Content Marketing Campaign
Creating SEO content may seem like a challenging task to the unintiated. However, the key is to write naturally and for your readers. Go through the following points to learn how you can merge content marketing and SEO for your brand:
1. Optimise Content as per Your Audience
A successful SEO content is not merely about the technicalities, rather it allows you to be crisp and precise, making it as informative as possible for your audience. The idea is to have a robust insight into the audience’s habits and their pain points. It should resolve the search intent of the users and add something of value to the user.
2. Plan First, Implement Later
To implement any effective SEO content marketing strategy, you need to have a clear vision. Thus, make sure to produce content that has the base of strong research, includes relevant keywords and execute it by producing well-optimised content.
3. Publish Regularly
You need to ensure posting regular blogs and publish high-quality content frequently to increase your online visibility. The more frequently your website appears online, the more your audience can recognise you.
4. Craft High-Quality Content
Producing high-quality content is the only way to engage and retain your audience on your website. Thus, make sure to craft content that showcases the extensive research, authoritativeness and expertise that has gone behind crafting it.
5. Analyse Performance
The best way to effective content marketing is to analyse the performance of your website. Thus, using Google Analytics you can get raw feedback from real users to understand the performance of your website. You can then proceed accordingly to make necessary changes to optimise the content better.
6. Pay Attention to Updating Outdated Content
You must make sure to keep updated with the previous blogs to get your website aligned with the recent trends in the market. The more updated your website and its content will be, the better ranks it will get on the search engines.
7. Build Topical Authority
Audiences get attracted to content that features expertise and authority. Thus, to build the credibility of your content, you need to craft them with extensive research. It will eventually lead to the improved visibility of your website.
3 Examples of SEO integrated Content Marketing Campaigns
SEO content marketing is not limited to catering to the high volume keywords to attract increased number of traffic. Rather seasonsed content marketers would argue against it. Any successful content marketing campaign backed by a desire to contribute genuine knowledge to the audience.
This knack to produce high quality informative content ultimately builds the image of the brand as a thought leader in the industry. The following are 3 of the renowned start-ups in India who are actively contributing knowledge by creating quality content for the target audience.
1. Zerodha Varsity
Founded by Nikhil Kamath and Nithin Kamath, Zerodha is one of the most esteemed forerunners in the Indian fintech landscape. What makes Zerodha stand out is its commitment to making investments simpler for the general people. For such a country with poor financial literacy, Zerodha marketing team focused on producing effective, easy-to-understand content that empowers people by offering insights related to investments.
2. Academy by Zoho Payroll
The B2B platform was founded in 1996 to offer streamlined CRMs to businesses in India and worldwide. Built for enterprise usage, Zoho managed to streamline the business management for small and medium scale enterprises in India. Primarily targeting the up and coming businesses and the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, Zoho introduced the Zoho Academy that offers knowledge on marketing, eCommerce, accouting and other related business practices.
3. Acko General Insurance
The smart insurance company seeks to streamline different insurances including vehicle, travel, health and life. To ensure transparency and help people educate about insurance policies and how to choose them, Acko has a series of useful content featured on their website.
Like other players with a content-led marketing strategy, this allowed Acko to contribute knowledge and insights about the industry to the target group.
Takeaway
SEO and content marketing strategies work together to boost awareness for your brand. Thus SEO content marketing does not only refer to making your website more engaging but establishing its credibility among your audience. It enables you to build trust with the users, convincing them to retain and be loyal to the services you offer.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What can be the best practices for SEO content marketing?
Some of the best practices for SEO content marketing can be researching and integrating relevant keywords, using infographics to make content appear more engaging, including necessary links to authoritative sites and crafting the content to be as informative as possible.
2. What is the ideal length for content that is SEO-optimised?
The ideal length for content depends on various factors such as keyword volume, keyword difficulty and also a careful analysis of the top-ranking websites. However, a length of 2250 to 2500 words can work well for SEO-optimised content since longer content contains quality backlinks that affect ranking factors.
3. Is content marketing ineffective without SEO?
Creating content and SEO work together. Content marketing helps SEO efforts to increase the online visibility of brands, which can only be effective when you make your content well-optimised for search engines.
4. What kind of content works well for SEO?
Some of the popular types of content for SEO include blogs, articles, technical SEO content writing, case studies, landing pages, infographics, webinars etc.
5. What is the key to making content optimised for search engines?
To formulate a successful content marketing strategy, you should consider various factors. Some of the crucial ones include integrating necessary keywords in adequate numbers in content, embedding authoritative links, and adding relevant content information to satisfy the search intent of the users.
Subhodip Das is the founder and CEO of Das Writing Services Pvt. Ltd. He has an experience of 12 years in the field of Digital Marketing and specialises in Content Writing and Marketing Strategies. He has worked with well-established organisations and startups helping them achieve increased Search Engine Rank visibility. If you want to grow your business online, you can reach out to him here.
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Vaughn Doloremque
Absolutely phenomenal work! The way you've broken down this complex topic while maintaining depth is impressive. Your expertise and research quality are evident throughout.