How SEO and Content Combine To Influence Buyers

The old tactics of keyword stuffing and “spamming” were often seen as intrusive and may have even driven the average customer away. In today’s world, the goal of every business should be to provide meaning and value behind each interaction they have with a customer. From helpful, reliable blog content to descriptions that paint a visual of even the most basic products, content and SEO go hand in hand when it comes to not only catching the eye of your customers, but also getting them to buy your products.

The Relationship Between SEO and Content

When it comes to SEO and content, one simply cannot exist without the other. To create a successful marketing campaign, SEO teams and content writing services must be in perfect sync. Without SEO, your content is hard to find, and without content, there is no need for SEO. In this way, the two concepts create a perfect cycle that attracts customers and builds brand loyalty.

While the two concepts overlap significantly, there are a few differences that set them apart:

• Content: This is a broader strategy that is often used to attract and keep an audience with relevant, helpful information, often before SEO is even put into place.
• SEO: The more technical aspect, SEO can include sitemaps, ALT tags, correct URLs, and many other things that help define your SEO and content marketing strategy.

If your business is separated into a content marketing team and an SEO team, you may be surprised to find that 79 of SEO experts say they would like to work more closely with the content writing service. How exactly can you make that happen?

Create Quality, Original Content

Two years ago, search engines looked simply for keywords or relevant information, but algorithms today are now much more advanced. When customers look for your products or services, they want engaging, original content that connects them to your brand.

From the SEO side, good, engaging content means that you are indexed in places your competitors aren’t. Original, entertaining, relevant content doesn’t just attract users; it also encourages them to stick around and even come back when they need more information. If your content encourages users to hang around your site for more than a few minutes, then your content marketing services and SEO are doing their job.

Identify the Right Keywords

Good content is vital to a business, but keyword research is often the bridge that connects content marketing and SEO. The content must be high quality, but it must also include the terms that the average consumer is searching for. If your content is too technical or doesn’t have the basic terms that users associate with your products, then good content is essentially wasted.

SEO teams handle keyword research, which identifies the search terms that internet browsers are most often using to search for products and services that are like yours. If a customer searches for “roof repair in St. Louis” and finds a particularly engaging blog post on how to determine if a roof is leaking, then your SEO and content team are on the right track.

Keywords do more than draw attention to your site. They can also help you to generate good ideas for content. Beyond the technical aspects, a good list of keywords can be used to for title tags, meta descriptions, blog posts and social media. When you’ve identified your keywords, it’s easier to pinpoint the type of content your customers want to see.

Build Links with Good Content

Links are used by Google to measure authority, trust and relevance of websites. Simply put, linkable content helps boost your rankings in search engines.

If you have a good piece of content that attracts consumers, it’s likely they will link to it or share it with their friends. The key to building links is creating content that people want to read and share. While the science on this is far from perfect, the formula of the right SEO analytics and content that people genuinely want to read is almost guaranteed to create a wealth of links back to your site.

When you are stuck on how to create content that is linkable, consider the four aspects of shareable content:

• Comparisons: how one thing holds up against another
• Broad appeal: are you hitting a small demographic, or can your content be read by everyone
• Highly emotional: humans respond to emotional situations including stories, anecdotes and real-life experiences
• Pop culture: it’s easy to fall back on what is popular in today’s news when you need a quick, shareable piece of content

Just a Start

Bridging the gap between SEO and content is just a start to creating an effective digital marketing strategy. It may take some time and some adjusting, but when your SEO and content teams work together, the results are obvious.