WHY SEO DOESN’T EXIST WITHOUT CONTENT MARKETING
The other day, one of our marketers had an appointment with an orthopedist about a troublesome left knee. While she was examining it, our staffer told her that her other knee had also begun to bother her. The doctor said that the appointment was for the left knee only. She said, “c’mon” and the doc said, “Come back.” So what the heck does this have to do with SEO services and content marketing?
The issue is that many marketers, and even some of our clients, think of SEO and content marketing as two distinct marketing functions. They work on one now and the other later. The fact is, they must work in concert. They must move together (like two good knees) to keep digital marketing initiatives performing at optimum levels. To gain any traction with your online marketing, you must invest time and resources in both SEO services and content marketing.
WHAT’S BEING OPTIMIZED, ANYWAY?
The way we look at it, the whole concept of SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a misnomer, because none of us can “optimize” search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and the rest. What we can do is optimize the content that those search engines index. So going forward, Simply180 proposes that we focus on CO, or Content Optimization, as a more unified, accurate and useful marriage of these two marketing disciplines. And that means leveraging the “searchability” and “shareability” inherent in blogs, website pages, videos, photography and illustration, and the inherent power of social media.
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THE CARE AND NURTURING OF CONTENT
In the introduction to this article, we emphasized the need to look at the whole patient. That’s the “new medicine.” In the “new marketing,” we’ve got to take an equally holistic approach to content marketing.
Many marketing execs and self-proclaimed experts insist on placing content marketing, social media marketing and search engine optimization in their own neat compartments. These tactics don’t work in a vacuum. Rather, we see SEO as a vehicle to provide relevant information that prospects and customers want, and enable the shareability of that content through social media to spread the word. Another way to look at it is like this — SEO makes demands. Content marketing fulfills those demands. That’s why it’s so critical to use the techniques and technologies available to you to the max. If headlines build in proper keywords; if videos and images are captioned and tagged; if content is grabbing and relevant, you’re Content Optimization will be running circles around the competition. And if you’re monitoring and analyzing user reactions to your published content, you will know what type of content to continue to produce. We’ll be exploring these strategies and tactics in a future blog. For now, remember that a more holistic approach leads to true Content Optimization and an overall healthier digital marketing program.
GAIN INSIGHT INTO THE HEALTH OF YOUR CONTENT MARKETING STRATEGY
If you feel your content marketing and SEO have not quite reached “CO” status, we invite you to check out the following Simply180 Insights articles:
- CONTENT MARKETING AND INBOUND MARKETING: SIBLING RIVALRY?
- SEO: SEARCH FOR NEW MEANING
- WHAT DO YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA KPI’S TELL YOU ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS?
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