Some pairings are meant to be, from Johnny and June to peanut butter and jelly... to SEO and content strategies. Let us explain.
Your brand's SEO strategy and content strategy can live separately, but that's not to say they should. In fact, both strategies can become far more effective (and drive far greater results) when they're working together. Here's how.
What makes an SEO strategy different from a content strategy, anyway? After all, they both have similar goals: to attract more visitors and, ultimately, drive more conversions.
But even though they certainly have overlapping interests, SEO and content strategies are fundamentally different. That's because your SEO strategy serves to help people find your content via search results, while your content strategy serves to draw in and engage audience members across multiple platforms.
For example, an SEO strategy could include:
On the other hand, a content strategy could include:
When I say that SEO and content strategies are better together than they are apart, I don't just mean that they passively complement each other. Instead, I mean that they can both achieve better results when they're actively working together.
And since search algorithms are continually evolving, it wouldn't make much sense to do so by creating content solely to appeal to search engines. Rather, it's best to do so by using SEO tactics to better showcase your brand's content.
If you do, your SEO strategy will get more eyes onto your content, and your content strategy will help turn casual readers into paying customers.
Ready to turn your content and SEO strategies into one powerhouse? Good – here's how.
It can be tempting to focus solely on SEO backlinks, but you'll be doing your content a disservice if you don't remember to spend some time building internal links too.
That's because internal links tell search engines like Google which pieces of content are the most important. Think of it this way: if your site links to one of its own articles from multiple places, that article is likely to be particularly informative or useful.
Once a search engine has learned which pieces of your content are most important, it will be more likely to assign them higher rankings and better able to show them to users who will find them useful.
As an added bonus, internal links can also help visitors navigate your site more easily and find pieces of content they might have otherwise missed.
Search engines like Google place a higher value on new, updated content, and users typically do too.
So, make sure your content is always fresh and relevant by updating it on a regular basis. That could mean rewriting old articles, updating statistics to reflect more recent numbers, reworking previous posts to capitalize on new ranking factors or all of the above.
For instance, if your blog has multiple articles citing studies and statistics from a decade ago, you can get new eyes on those old pieces by finding up-to-date alternatives.
Similarly, if Google announces that there's been a major algorithm update, you can update previously published content accordingly.
Key marketing metrics, such as clicks, views, engagement and the like, shouldn't be kept within your brand's SEO team.
Instead, they should be shared with the content team, who can then use them to see which types of content perform best and what visitors are interested in seeing.
For example, perhaps your content pros have been dividing their efforts equally between blog posts, white papers and videos. However, the SEO team informs them that the blog posts and videos are generating far more traffic. Then, your content team can use that knowledge to budget their time more wisely.
Trends change, and your audience's interests will change too. So instead of publishing a new article for each new keyword that catches your eye, make sure that your SEO strategy includes monitoring target keywords for changes.
Once any significant changes are observed, your content team can work newly valuable keywords into existing pieces of content.
Doing so will maintain a consistent level of quality across the board, and ensure that your content continues to drive traffic over an extended period of time.
When you consider the benefits of integrating your content and SEO strategies, it just doesn't make sense to keep them apart any longer.
From higher-quality traffic to better engagement to more revenue, an SEO strategy and content strategy can achieve great things together. Now, it's time for you to unite them.