How to Maximize Traffic with SEO And Content Marketing

Website Traffic from SEO and Content Marketing

SEO and Content Marketing are quite similar, but they aren’t the same.

When infused with one another, they can create magic and draw your business more traffic as well as sales.

Streamline definitions of the two are located below:

SEO – Also known as Search Engine Optimization, SEO strategies are distinctly for those who are trying to obtain a more organic reach from search engines. Blog posts are usually optimized to become picked up by search engines easier, getting the website more traffic.

Content marketing – Much like viral marketing and content, content marketing is when content is curated and created on the blog section to attract traffic. This can be click bait related articles, tutorials, shocking information, and others that draw people in to read.

While there can be precision added to these definitions, these basics can give you an idea of the main difference between the two. During their missions, SEO and content marketing both overlap quite a bit. Before we dive in, let’s look at last year’s statistics when it came to SEO and content marketing for businesses and blogs.

SEO and Content Marketing – 2015 statistics:

• Over 77% of marketers increased their use of content production
• More than 90% of Business2Businesses marketers used content marketing
• Almost 50% of marketer gave more of a budget to SEO and SEM strategies

These statistics proved right in 2015 and will only grow in 2016. Many people believe that one or the other is what you’d use for your business, but if you want to increase conversions and traffic, you’ll want to utilize both. While they are similar in theory and in the way the operate, they are two very different marketing bits that can help optimize your website for sales and traffic.

Now that you know a bit more about each and their general success statistics, let’s take a look at how they’re different and how they’re similar. In the past, these two types of marketing strategies often used different content. While many of these strategies are “dead” now in the world of marketing and make it much harder to rank a page, there are new and improved ways.

With SEO, link spamming, stuffing keywords, vague content, and link exchanges are all things of the past. Thanks to ways Google has improved their SEO operation, one can no longer keyword stuff in their articles and link spamming can get one banned and blacklisted from showing up.

SEO and content marketing both overlap in the sense that backlinking and social media sharing are currently the best ways to gain traffic to your website. New ways that beat the outdated ways are infographics, viral videos, and high-quality articles. It’s no longer about stuffing as much as you can with little to no sense made. It’s all about high-quality content where the links are seamless and don’t seem overly spammy.

Search engines have made it 10x harder for those who write junk, to rank the junk in their search engines. Higher quality content is making it further and further to the top of the list as new rules are implemented. Value is now desired over how many times a keyword is written into a short blog.

What’s the main goal?

When creating an article infused with SEO and content marketing, the main goal is for it to be informative, high quality, while attracting more traffic. This may sound easy, but it’s actually quite hard. When being able to utilize your content well, you can almost triple your traffic and your sales.

Search engine traffic isn’t the only type of traffic you should be obtaining; as social media is on a non-stop whirlwind of success. However, it should be known that it’s quite naïve to think that search engine traffic will be the only traffic you should focus on. There are three types of technical SEO you should know about:

Technical – This part of search engine optimization focuses on how easily and how well spiders can crawl through your website and index your content. We’re not talking about creepy critters from the soil; we’re talking about search engine spiders!

Off-page – Off-page is a part of search engine optimization that primarily focuses on inbound links on other websites that direct straight to your website. Natural links that come from relevant and non-spam websites act as a “vote of confident” for search engines, which helps them put your website higher up on the trustworthy list.

On-page – On-page is a part of search engine optimization that focuses on the content within your website and how well it’s optimized using keywords. This means that if you keyword stuff, it’s most likely not going to work. This step determines if your website is a great “user experience’ for people visiting your website.

While technical SEO may improve rankings, you may not see many results with content marketing. This is why you must combine the two for optimal results. In order to improve your results, you need to do more than just focus on on-page keyword targeting.

How do they benefit each other?

SEO and content marketing benefit and complement each other like a pair of inseparable best friends. Many people don’t realize this, but they’re like two peas in a pod, rather than twins or the same thing.

SEO tasks that one may complete:

1. Page load speed increased
2. Responsive content
3. Fix dead and bad links or redirects
4. Content with clear hierarchy

These help with content marketing because a page that loads fast will begin the fantastic user experience. Ones that aren’t optimized for mobile will immediately decrease in the user experience department. Responsive content follows the same rules.

You can also improve the user experience by the fixing of dead and bad links or redirects. This will keep them on your website longer, which will have a longer lasting effect. Last but not least, when you put clear headings and sections, you’re improving how well someone is able to view your content. This will help gain shares, favorites, and even translate to conversions.

When it comes to marketing, it’s all about their experience that will help your gain. User experience is extremely important in the world of marketing, and it’s about putting them first to benefit you in the end.

Does SEO or content marketing come first?

While they go hand in hand with each other and share similarities, they are a bit different in a few areas, which can help you decide which goes first.

There are two main questions one might have:

Do I find keywords first and then create the content or do I create the content and then implement the keywords throughout?

There’s no specific right and wrong, as both can be done, but they both have their own weaknesses and strengths that you can be the judge for.

When you’re focusing on keywords and building content around, you’re putting SEO first. If you’re creating content and then implementing keywords, you’re putting content marketing first. How do you determine which should go first and what’re their strengths?

Firstly, when you put content marketing before SEO marketing, you’ll be likelier to curate an idea to write about that you know your audience is interested in hearing about. After this has been created, you can research keywords on Google that fit the idea of your piece and incorporate them into the headings of your article.

If you’re going for keywords first, you don’t really have too much wiggle room for a topic whereas when content comes first, the sky is the limit. This is because you don’t want your keywords to look odd and out of place, like they’re trying to sell you something. They must fit seamlessly in order for the search engines to pick up on them and not blacklist you. Without value, volume means nothing when it comes to search engines and user experience.

Let’s recap:

Content marketing before SEO – You’re able to see what your demographic and targeted traffic/audience is interested in, allowing you to create content around that to drive up your traffic and possible sales. When they have a specific problem you find reoccurring, you can solve this or address this in a post, to drive up traffic.

SEO before content marketing – You can research keywords to rank higher on search engines, which may or may not give you more results.

In conclusion

In order to optimize your website for search engines, you must present your audience with valuable content without over spamming with links and keywords. Stuffing is a thing of the past and will not get you higher in Google rankings as you can be blacklisted from doing as such. Valuable content mixed with keywords will bring a more organic reach to your blog and your businesses.

Sometimes, when you focus on SEO or content marketing in itself, you’ll automatically drive up the other because they complement each other so well. When you’re able to distinctively do both and separately, you’re able to pinpoint how to market each blog perfectly.