The digital marketing world has undergone a true revolution, thanks to search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. The combination of SEO and content marketing is a perfect match that helps companies establish their brand online, attract new customers and stay on top of the cut-throat competition. However, perfecting your content merely from an SEO standpoint will no longer bring you valuable results; you have to also think about the people and provide them with valuable, informative, high-quality content that matches their needs and interests. 

In this article, you will learn about the role of content marketing in SEO and how to master this art for your benefit. We’ll talk about keyword optimization, how search engine rankings work, and how to use link-building strategies to promote your brand online. 

Understanding Content Marketing

Content marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable, consistent and relevant content. Its goal is to attract and retain a new audience and drive more profitable customer action. 

Content comes in many forms and types: blog posts, infographics, videos, articles, social media posts, eBooks and more. The goal is to create content that meets people’s interests and requirements and satisfies their search intent. Content marketing consists of two main steps: content creation and content distribution, which we will discuss next. 

Content Creation

To start creating content, you first need to know who you are creating it for. There’s no way to converge all types of audiences with the same content, so you need to clearly identify your target audience and their needs. For example, content for startup owners, GenZ buyers and chemical companies owner will differ drastically. Thus, the content you create depends on the services/products you’re selling and who you’re selling to. 

After identifying who you’re addressing with your content and what needs you will cover, it’s time to figure out how to generate valuable and engaging content. Your blog posts, articles and other forms of content should be informative and demonstrate to the reader that you are an expert in your niche and that you are not merely creating content for SEO. 

source: Cardsletter

Indeed, it is essential to use search engine optimization strategies when creating content. SEO tools help identify what your target audience is searching for and with which intent, what keywords your competitors are already ranking for, competitors’ best-performing pages, etc. All these insights you can use for creating or improving your content strategy. Online resources like Top10seosoftware.com will help you to choose the most suitable tools depending on your business type, budget and requirements.  

Content Distribution

After you have created your content, it’s time to introduce it to the world. Content distribution is about promoting your content in one of three ways:

• Earned content distribution: During this type of distribution, your content is shared by third parties through social media, media coverage, guest posts, or product reviews.
• Owned content distribution: This type involves publishing content to the web platforms that belong to you, which can also include blogs, social media, or email newsletters. 
• Paid content distribution: This distribution happens through paid channels, such as a pay-per-click advertising model. 

source: Rankingbyseo

Content distribution helps you maximize your reach and visibility online, especially if you combine approaches instead of using just one of them. 

The Connection Between Content Marketing and SEO

The connection between content marketing and SEO is very simple because they are interlinked. Content marketing is a part of any successful SEO strategy and one cannot work without the other. Your content can help you rank higher in search engine results, prove that your website can be trusted and build brand visibility. 

Quality Content and Search Engine Rankings

Here’s your secret to high search engine rankings: quality content. Google algorithms consider the quality of your content when crawling your websites. Search engines identify relevant content and prioritize those that seem the most helpful, ranking them higher in search results. Google evaluates content based on its authoritativeness, expertise and trustworthiness. 

source: Google

The importance of writing high-quality content is easy – you won’t rank online otherwise. When your content is audience-centric, follows Google’s recommendations and brings real value, the chances of appearing on top of the SERP skyrocket. Apart from ensuring that your content is informative, you should also pay attention to the keywords you use, link building and overall content marketing strategy.

Keyword Optimization

Keyword optimization is a part of content marketing. It helps you increase the relevance of your website’s content to a specific search query. 

Your task here is to identify the most relevant keywords for a target audience. It can be done with the help of various SEO tools available online.

When working on keyword optimization, look at the volume and traffic potential of the keywords. Once you have compiled a list of keywords, it’s time to put them strategically into your content. Your meta title, meta description, H1 and H2 should always include keywords. However, incorporate them naturally and avoid keyword stuffing, which is when you use too many keywords in your content, and it decreases its quality. 

Link Building and Content Marketing

Content marketing is also about building links to your content. According to the State of Backlinks in 2021 report, backlinks greatly impact search engine rankings, according to 58% of SEO professionals surveyed. You can build three types of links: backlinks, internal links and external links. Backlinks are the links from external websites that lead to your content. Internal linking presupposes linking your own blog posts/landing pages in the content you create. Finally, when a page on your site includes a link to a relevant third-party site, it is external linking. Link building can greatly benefit your business: links give you more credibility, Google uses links to rank your site, backlinks get you an increase in web traffic and lead to higher site metrics and SEO scores. 

Benefits of Content Marketing for SEO

Since content marketing is a vital part of any SEO strategy, its benefits cannot be overestimated. Let’s take a look at the key benefits of content marketing for SEO.

• Increased Organic Traffic: Creating high-quality, valuable content is one of the best ways to drive organic traffic to your website. When you optimize your content with relevant keywords, people will more easily find your website, leading to higher online visibility and more website visitors. 
• Improved User Experience: You don’t just create content for Google and other search engines; first and foremost, you create it for people. When you focus on people’s interests and needs and create content considering these factors, you enhance user experience. It is crucial to provide a great user experience if you want to increase customer loyalty, lower bounce rates and increase engagement metrics. 
• Higher Conversion Rates: When people find your content valuable, interesting and engaging, it can lead to higher conversion rates. People are more likely to engage with your website and proceed to purchase products or services when they see your content as credible and trustworthy. 
• Long-Term Results and Sustainability: Content marketing is a long-term strategy. It might not bring real results overnight, but you should be patient and keep going. When you consistently create and publish content, it leads to higher traffic in the long run and better brand visibility. 

Best Practices for Content Marketing in SEO

There is no universal content marketing strategy that will fit all business types and sizes. However, some practices have proven to be more effective, so let’s talk about them. 

• Conducting Keyword Research: Keyword research is essential for an effective content marketing strategy. You should focus on identifying words and phrases that your target audience will search for online and use them in your content to help people find them. Moreover, with keyword research, you can easily identify new content opportunities based on the keywords that have high rankings. 
• Creating High-Quality and Relevant Content: Your number one goal in content marketing should be creating high-quality and irrelevant content that addresses your audience’s needs and interests. It should provide real value to the target customer and be credible and well-written. By creating high-quality content, you can attract more customers, retain them and earn backlinks from other websites. 
• Optimizing On-Page Elements: Content marketing is not only about the information you provide but also the way it is structured and presented on the website. Thus, you need to optimize on-page elements such as meta titles, meta descriptions, URLs, headings, images, etc. 
• Building a Strong Internal Link Structure: Internal linking involves linking your own blog posts or articles within your content. It helps Google and other search engines understand the structure of your website better, drive traffic to your web pages and improve user experience. 
• Promoting and Sharing Content: Finally, you should focus on promoting and sharing your content through various channels. If you want to reach your target audience, it is crucial to share content on social media, via email newsletters and directly to other businesses or influencers interested in sharing it. 

Conclusion

Content marketing is the tool all successful businesses use to promote their brand and attract potential customers. However, it does not have the same power as when combined with other SEO practices. Thus, if you want to drive traffic, increase online visibility and improve conversion rates, you need to combine content marketing with smart SEO practices. The secret to success is blending the two, and then you will see real long-term results. 

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• Source: https://www.seoblog.com/content-marketing-role-seo/