SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and content marketing go hand in hand. While good content attracts others to link to it and make it rank higher, good SEO will get that content searchable and highly popular among web visitors.
Search engines change a lot, and do change more than often than we thought they need. But actually, all changes they do is to aim for a better result delivery. While most marketers struggle with these changes, the best way to survive algorithm changes is to produce unique and valuable content that anyone (humans and search engines) can enjoy.
(Read: SEO Trends That Always Grow and Never Fade)
SEO and content marketing are two disciplines that work closely together, and one feeds off another. Getting the basics of SEO can improve the performance of your content, while the best way to improve search rankings is by creating unique contents.
Online companies, e-commerce businesses, IT firms, reputable blogs and others similar, are more likely to integrate content marketing with their SEO strategy than they are with any other digital marketing discipline.
Having Quality Over Quantity
More is not always better. While high-numbered low quality contents may have worked years ago, search engines don't appreciate them like they use to. Weak contents that are only strong because of their numbers don't really work from a content marketing perspective. This is because no one wants to read something that is not appealing.
Creating high-quality content can take more time, if compared to creating numerous low-quality ones. But the effect is much more significant. On the other hand, more information is better, and a single high-quality article may not compensate all the necessary information. To benefit both worlds, ones strategy can involve creating a single high-quality content that is supported by several low-quality ones. Make sure that all of these articles have the same purpose and niche target.
Creating Original and Unique Content
There is no end to originality. Unique is what makes your content valuable. If your content is taken from somewhere else, there is a chance that others did the same thing, making that content less valuable.
Original and engaging content helps to set you apart from competitors and gives people a compelling reason to read and share your content.
Human visitors appreciate fresh and unique contents. The more unique the content is, the higher chance it has to be shared. And if human visitors is not enough, search engines are also actively looking for fresh and unique contents. So if you want to compete well in your content marketing campaign and SEO, the best way is to give what they want.
Keyword Research
Before you create a piece of content, think about what you are trying to achieve with it. What do you want to rank/be known for? Are you aiming for traffic and awareness or leads from specific visitors?
Make the most of the tools available. The tools include, and not limited to, the following:
- Google Trends is useful for deciding on the best wording for posts.
- Analytics will tell you what has worked before for what goals you want to achieve.
- Keyword tools are useful for generating ideas.
Performance Measurement
After a content is created and published, it's time to see how well the new piece is performing. You must place a lot of importance on measuring the results from the content you create, and look at various factors to know the current engagement of your content to the public.
The measurement include:
- Traffic. Pageviews and visits give the idea of what your audience is interested in.
- Conversions. Shows how the business is able to make sales.
- Engagement. The behavior of visitors. This include metrics like bounce rates, time on page, and so forth.
- Search referrals. Hone in on the right keywords. The term is used to describe the visitor traffic that a search site sends to other websites.
- Tracking rankings and keyword performance. Online tools that provide these services can help you track and improve rankings over time.
(Read: Writing for SEO, Publication and Conversion)
Alluring Headlines
Headlines are important, and for that they should be descriptive and alluring, without overdoing it.
Headlines must be written for the web. This means that is should be sensational and descriptive. Creating a great headline is the effort that may result in whether the content is popular or not.
You may need to think about which keywords and phrases to use in your headlines. This is to make people easier to find the article, and getting it better ranked. Then there's headline length. Most headline posts use the "65 character rule".
The next thing to consider is doing an on-page SEO to further support your headline.
Using Internal Linking
Internal linking should be an important part in your SEO tactic. Unlike external linking, site owners and webmasters have complete control over internal links, so it' very much necessary to make the most out of it.
There are a number of compelling reasons for good internal linking, some are SEO tactics, others are just about improving the user experience by making it easier for visitors to find what they want. By using the appropriate internal links strategy, visitors (humans and search engines) can go through every page you have on your site without difficulties.
Besides than just helping visitors browse your site, internal links is also for another few compelling reasons: link equity is helped, rankings can be improved for targeted keywords, anchor text to help indexing, send traffic to older and less popular posts, etc..
Timeless Content
Things are added to the internet, and many old posts are covered by others, making them harder to compete. Some posts have age in which it stays interesting. And if the time for that passes, the post will expire and no one/less people will see it as something interesting.
Creating content can be time consuming. But one of the best long-term SEO and content marketing strategy is creating an "evergreen content" that can be interesting regardless the time. Whether it will be weeks, months or even years after its initial publish date, evergreen content will appeal and stay interesting.
This type of content doesn't date like news articles, and the value is that it can deliver traffic, social shares, leads and occupy search positions for a prolonged period of time.
This is the best long term SEO and content marketing strategy, and it's what we aim to do on this blog.
Evergreen content is that which is still interesting and relevant weeks, months or even years after its initial publish date. It doesn’t date like news, and the value is that it can deliver traffic, leads, social shares and can occupy valuable search positions for a prolonged period of time.