A guide to maximising the impact of content marketing with SEO, and how you can create relevant content that boosts your visibility and attracts more organic traffic.
Ieva Treiliha
On the WeMarket blog, you will find numerous articles on various SEO disciplines, often covering more technical SEO topics. For example, Free SEO with Google Search Console, 3 SEO mistakes you can find with Screaming Frog, Image SEO, Voice Search and many more. This time, I want to focus a little more on SEO and creativity.
Almost all of us have heard the phrase “Content is king”. This means it is more important than ever to create valuable content for your customers.
SEO has a reputation for being a highly technical and nerdy marketing discipline, but in reality, SEO is both highly technical and creative.
SEO combines the best of both worlds – so while you are conducting keyword research and site audits, remember to devote time to creating quality content for your customers.
Content marketing can take many different forms – guides, tips & tricks, reviews, tests, video tutorials, comparisons and much more. With content marketing, the sky’s the limit.
Content marketing is a slightly different approach to marketing than we are used to. Typically, when working on new campaigns, the focus is on sales, ROI and traffic. With content marketing, the main focus is on building customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty goes hand in hand with increased sales. That is why it is well worth investing time and resources in content marketing to create content that adds value for your customers.
Quality content demonstrates to your customers that you are passionate about your products and know what you are talking about. Think of quality content as a taster of what you and your products can offer.
We have created an infographic about content marketing, the various channels, and the types of content you can use as part of your marketing strategy:
You can also open it in PDF format here.
It may sound as if SEO and content marketing are two different worlds, but they are not. Yes, SEO is a more technical approach to marketing, while content marketing is more holistic – but it is difficult to succeed with one without the other.
To get your product or service to rank number one on Google, you need SEO. It is impossible to do SEO without content. To rank in the search results, you need words, articles, blog posts, keywords, content on your website, and so on.
To appear in search results and optimise those positions, you must have content on your website. For link building and press outreach, you also need content that is worth publishing.
When you do SEO, you typically select focus keywords and work hard to get them to the top of the search results.
With content marketing, you can support and strengthen your keyword positions. By creating blog posts, guides and videos on relevant topics, you help your focus keywords to rank higher in search results.
A major part of SEO is link building. Link building gives your website credibility, as Google sees inbound links to your website as recommendations. If many other sites link to yours, it means you have valuable content and/or offer excellent products.
The strongest links, those that bring the most value, are from reputable, authoritative sites with content relevant to your website’s category. But how do you get these links? you may ask. By having valuable content on your site!
With content marketing, you can create content that people want to view, read, share and link to. When you create something new, exciting and relevant for your industry, others will want to engage with your content. By producing valuable content and with outreach to other media, websites and blogs in your industry, you increase your chances of getting links from strong sites.
We have now covered why creativity and SEO go hand in hand, but how do you come up with ideas for quality content? Here are a few tips to help you get started:
To create the most effective content for your audience, you need to know your target group. You may have some great ideas for blog posts and Facebook updates, but what if your audience is primarily on Instagram? It would be a waste of resources if you are not reaching your target group with your brilliant blog posts or video guides.
To create content that delivers results, you need to know who your audience is, what their so-called pains & gains are, and where you can best reach them.
Identify your target audience using Google Analytics. For example, you can use a simple demographic analysis to see the age and gender of your visitors:
(e.g. A)
(e.g. B)
Once you have identified who is interacting with and most interested in your brand and/or products, you can begin to explore how best to communicate with this demographic group.
In example A, we see a young audience, aged 25-34, almost equally split between men and women. In example B, the audience is almost exclusively women aged 45 and over.
These are two very different audiences, and marketing to these groups will be most effective using different approaches and channels.
Before you start working on your content, you should investigate which media your target group uses most, and which type of content works best on those platforms. You can also mix different approaches – if your audience mainly uses Instagram, you can still write a blog post on your website, but use Instagram Stories to share it with your audience.
The second part of the process is content production itself. What are your audience’s interests? What needs do they have? What challenges can you help them solve? What does your audience value? All of these questions will help you generate ideas for content that brings value to your customers. For example: “10 tips to refresh your autumn wardrobe without buying a new one”, “Everything first-time buyers need to know about buying a house”, or “A guide to maintaining oak flooring”.
People like guides, lists, videos and other forms of informative content that easily explain complex topics or help them learn something new without spending too much time. Is your audience interested in saving money? Learning something new? Making the right choice before buying? Research their interests and needs so you can create valuable content for them!
A great example is WeMarket’s new video project: Marketing Quickfix – complex marketing topics explained in under 2 minutes.
What are your competitors doing? How do they engage with their followers? Have they had successes you can use as inspiration for your own content?
It is not about copying a successful campaign your competitor ran last week. In fact, copying competitors’ ideas can have the opposite effect. It is about staying up to date with the latest trends and developments in your industry.
What works for your competitors will not necessarily work for you and your business. We live in a world where people have instant access to information on any topic, at any time of the day, at their fingertips. That is why it is so important to stay informed about trends, keep up with changes and not be afraid to try new marketing initiatives. If you do not, your competitors may take the lead and gain a competitive advantage.
Be inspired by your competitors, study the market and do not be afraid to experiment with your marketing!
Once you have analysed your audience and created a strong piece of content, remember to consider SEO before publishing. Think about the basic SEO elements that can give your content the best chance of reaching the top of Google search results.
SEO and content marketing may seem like two different worlds, but they are really not. Synergy between SEO and good content marketing can help you increase awareness and customer loyalty for your brand and products.
It might feel like double work to think about both SEO and content when planning a campaign, but the return from such a campaign can be much greater than if you were to run two separate campaigns focusing only on SEO or content.
If you need help getting started with creative SEO content, you can contact us here or call us on 70 44 42 88. We will come up with fresh ideas tailored perfectly to your brand and products! 🙂
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