Why SEO and copywriting go hand in hand
Content is the foundation of a successful SEO strategy
What exactly does this mean?
Why is content so important for search engine optimization?
What is “content marketing”?
Content marketing involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to increase brand awareness, traffic and sales. Please note that if your content isn’t useful, relevant and consistent, it’s not content marketing. If it doesn’t drive profitable customer action, it’s not marketing.
Gone are the days when all you had to do was use your target keyword a certain number of times in your document to convince the algorithm that your content is relevant to that search query. Google has come a long way since then.
Its innovative algorithm uses artificial intelligence to teach the algorithm to think like a human being. It uses a variety of signals to evaluate the usefulness of a search result. It is no longer possible to simulate the actual value. Authentic value always comes first.
Why is content so important for SEO?
Content is traditionally fundamental to SEO, as Google needs words and text to understand relevance. Even decades after the birth of Google’s algorithm and now that Google can read visual and video content, Google still admits to relying on text for the most part:
So how does Google understand the quality and relevance of textual content?
What is high-quality content?
Really useful content. First of all, be excellent at what you do. Google is increasingly able to differentiate what people are really looking for.
Be very clear about who you are and what you do. There’s no guarantee that you won’t run into these problems, but Google is getting better and better at determining the intent of a query and finding the best result.
Authenticity and transparency are very useful. It’s not about simulating relevance and quality signals. It’s about really solving the problems behind search queries. As a result, it’s increasingly difficult for affiliates and resellers to suck brand traffic from branded search queries, without the brand having to improve its SEO.
Content and link building
There’s another distinct advantage to creating content for your business site: content attracts links, and without links, there’s no ranking.
Content-based link building is the only safe way to build links: You generate links by creating linkable content. There are many formats and tactics for creating linkable content, and you’ll need to experiment with them all to find what works in your niche:
To help your content generate links, contact bloggers and journalists in your niche and invite them to read your content and link to it. It’s a slightly overused but perfectly legitimate and effective method of obtaining backlinks. Use Hunter to easily find e-mails from bloggers and journalists who might be interested in your content.
The Email Verifier function is also very useful for cleaning up your existing e-mail lists and making the most of your awareness methods.
Content and SEO: they only win together It’s clear, then, that SEO isn’t really possible without content. Can content exist without SEO? As a matter of fact, yes.
But if you don’t take SEO into account when creating content, you’re relying on luck to get it discovered or found. When it comes to business and marketing, relying on luck is never a good strategy. You need data and planning to increase your chances of success, and that’s where SEO comes in.
It is increasingly important for content creators to understand how content is published and discovered on the Internet. In a way, optimizing your content for search becomes easier to understand and easier to integrate into the overall content creation process.
Why create content, distribute it and then ask someone else to optimize it? If you’re creating content and putting it into a CMS or working with a developer to publish it, why not integrate these elements along the way?
This is particularly important for small businesses, non-profit organizations, and even government and higher education – those people who don’t have huge SEO resources at their disposal.
If content professionals can learn a little basic SEO, they’ll be 90% of the way there. All the other keyword analyses, backlink profiles and pattern analyses are what you do when you’re already 90% of the way there.
Content + SEO tools
There are a number of SEO tools that can strengthen your content creation process and enable your team to make more informed marketing decisions.
My favorites are
1. Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a keyword research tool based on Google search data. It extends your search query and allows you to find out what your competitors are ranking for. It’s a great content ideation and optimization tool that lets you see what problems and questions your target audience is facing.
2. Text Optimizer
Text Optimizer is a semantic search tool that takes your target queries and imports search snippets that match them. It then analyzes the text to extract related concepts and entities, allowing you to discover other topics and angles to cover.
Text Optimizer is a great tool for creating lead magnets, as it allows you to create long, in-depth content that addresses several angles of your chosen topic.
3. Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows you to identify the most successful content to help you use the data to better understand your audience and focus on what works.
4. Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo includes a number of tools, including content analysis and backlink research. The toolset focuses on content signals and authorship, making it ideal for content creators and media publishers.
5. Rank Tracker
With Rank Tracker, you can generate a ton of keyword ideas for your content, create keyword groups for landing pages and set up ranking tracking for your website and those of your competitors.
Conclusion: Content strategists shouldn’t be afraid of SEO
Fundamentally, content marketing is about collaboration. Your content marketing needs to rely on SEO for ideation strategy and data, but it also needs to be unique and creative. Content and SEO teams are only as strong as their weakest link.
The elements you publish need to be found organically to make their way through the current cacophony of content. Search, content, social networks, technology, ergonomics and analytics all need to work in perfect harmony, just like your team.
If there are silos in the organization, your content will suffer. If you have inefficient workflows, your content will suffer. And if people don’t believe in your mission and values, your content will suffer.
Strong individuals make great teams. Great teams create great companies. SEO and content must work together to achieve a successful digital marketing strategy.
