Without a rich and solid content marketing strategy, achieving the results you’re hoping for via SEO will inevitably fall flat – so how do you get it right?
SEO is the term we use to describe the practice of including specific content on your website. Otherwise known as Search Engine Optimisation, this same content has the potential to improve your visibility on search engines, with the end goal being to connect with the right audiences. Put simply, it helps your site show up more often in relevant searches, and is crucial if you want to reach the lofty heights of the first page of results on search engines like Bing and Google.
In simple terms, the three pillars of good SEO are generally considered to be the following:
- Content, which is just about any material available on the internet. Online content includes text, images, animations, music and videos.
- Links, which are used to both retain audiences and attract new ones from other websites. Google views links in your content as ‘votes’ for a specific page.
- Technical, which is the optimisation of the content and links to format them in a way that Google can properly crawl and index your website accordingly.
In comparison, content marketing is the term that applies to a type of marketing that involves the creation and distribution of online material, such as videos, blogs, and social media posts. Although it often does not explicitly promote a brand or business, content marketing is intended to stimulate interest in its products or services. While it is not the same thing as creating content for SEO purposes, some of the pillars do indeed overlap, and it can be used as a means to boost your brand’s visibility and presence on Google and other search engines.
Five Types Of Content Marketing For SEO
If you’re weighing up whether pursuing content marketing as a means to boost your brand’s SEO, then the good news is that there are plenty of avenues to explore – in fact, probably more than you might initially believe possible.
According to market leader Hubspot, brands are thirteen times more likely to see positive return on investment when they put regular blogging as a top priority. However, it’s relatively uncommon to see business blogs and articles go straight for the jugular when it comes to the hard sell – it’s simply not the place or platform to push products or services.
Instead, regular blogging and content marketing is your brand’s way of capturing the attention of the right audiences, building a relationship with them, and ideally then converting them into a happy, loyal customer. Sure, it’s a slow burn, but the real value of content marketing lies in just how much it can do for your brand or business in the long run.
Oddly enough, putting a conscious effort into building your brand’s SEO works very similarly, with the idea being to advertise your brand organically over time without constantly relying on paid advertising measures. When content marketing and SEO work together, they are a force to be reckoned with – so where do you start?
Blogs And Articles – The bread and butter of any good content marketing strategy with a focus on SEO is your website’s blog. When properly optimised using keywords, titles and headers, meta description and the right length, a blog or an article can come in many different formats. If you’re stuck for ideas, try writing a piece that is list based, is a how to guide, or even interviews in news style editorial, but aim to write evergreen content that will last forever and not expire.
Product Pages – Whether your brand offers a service or physical product, many traders in the realms of e-commerce can forget about on page SEO for the actual pillars of their business. Boosting these with a content marketing approach is a great way to effectively kill two birds with one stone, so in order to get your products and services at the top of the search engine results pages, aim to write unique descriptions that embody all of the right keywords.
Landing Pages – Whether your landing page in question is for a sub menu, specific group of products or services, or simply somewhere for new acquisitions via paid advertising to go, optimising your landing pages with great written content and keywords is a great way to capture the attention of both new and returning visitors. While their presence alone can help to track and analyse the actions of visitors, they can also double as an SEO boost.
Short And Long Form Video – As a general rule, there are far less videos on the internet than there are text, blogs and articles. In turn, it can be easier to rank with this form of content marketing if you’re able to properly optimise them with competitive and favourable keywords. Whether your video is for your website, YouTube or even TikTok, aim to write transcripts, snappy titles and embedded keywords in order for it to rank accordingly.
Infographics – Instead of adding a few optimised images to your social media or website content marketing strategy, don’t forget to throw in the occasional infographic. This style of image usually contains a lot of data compressed into short snapshots, sometimes through graphs or charts. They can be a great way to summarise the content found in a blog, and in turn attract new audiences when properly optimised with alt text and keywords.
While using content marketing as a means to improve your brand’s SEO is a no brainer, sometimes business owners simply don’t have the time, energy, experience or resources to do so. Instead of giving into the temptation of skipping this all together, it might be time to consider outsourcing – but where can you find a reputable provider?
The Key To Good SEO Is Great Content
Producing quality, consistent and on brand content that’s SEO and ultimately Google friendly takes time, effort, experience and resources – and you’re not alone if you can’t quite commit to that. Avoiding the use of content marketing altogether may actually be doing your brand a disservice, but thankfully – investing in a solid strategy has never been easier.
Here at Content Hive, producing top quality digital content is exactly what we do best. We have itemised a list of digital content services, and allocated credits next to each of these. This means that each month, you can use your credits with us to produce digital content such as social media posts, blog articles, videos and even animated Instagram stories.
We believe that this model means we can produce high quality content in faster than normal delivery times. It also means that because you have a monthly credit, you are going to want to make sure you use these up – and so do we – meaning that your digital content is always consistent.
If you aren’t quite sure where to start on your digital marketing journey and would like to speak to a professional, why not book a free discovery call with us at Content Hive today to discuss how we can get your brand buzzing online.
