SEO and content go together like cookies and cream, fish and chips or turkey and stuffing. They’re a match made in heaven. Although they’re considered to be separate marketing channels, in reality, they’re rarely used in isolation: a successful SEO strategy will include a sprinkling of fresh content, and an effective content strategy has to be created with SEO best practices in mind.
Before we delve into the ways SEO and content work together (and why collaboration is so important), let’s first remind ourselves of the key responsibilities each channel has.
SEO, or search engine optimisation, does exactly what you’d expect it to do. In a nutshell, SEO is all about optimising your website (content included) to improve its search engine rankings.
You could sell the best products on the market or have decades of experience behind you, but if nobody can see your business, none of that will matter. SEO works to change that, helping you rank ahead of your competitors and get noticed on search engines like Google and Bing.
The better your search rankings, the more people are likely to visit your website. As a result, a successful SEO strategy can deliver a significant uptick in users, filling the top of the funnel with a whole host of potential customers.
Just like SEO, content on its own won’t automatically turn the fortunes of your business around. You can write gripping, insightful articles or convincing product copy, but without the right SEO practices in place, not many people will see it.
It’s when you pair content and SEO together that the magic happens. While SEO aims to drive new users to your website, quality content nurtures those users and converts them into customers.
By engaging with users, succinctly communicating your business’ USPs and building trust, content can not only help you attract new customers, but retain them for years to come.
Although SEO and content teams work differently (and measure their success in different ways), they both work towards the same end goal. Ultimately, the role of both SEO and content is to boost a website’s visibility and drive conversions. SEO’s primary aim is to deliver page one search rankings that drive users to the site, while content focuses more on keeping those users there and engaging with them.
Take either one of these channels away and your marketing strategy will begin to fall apart. Let’s say you have a rock-solid SEO plan that’s delivering page one rankings on Google’s SERPs and driving thousands of visitors to your site each week. If your content isn’t up to scratch, those users will (in most cases) close the tab and take their business elsewhere.
It’s no use having thousands of users on your site if only a small percentage of them actually convert into customers. If you invest solely in your SEO strategy and neglect content, this is the situation you’re likely to find yourself in. Your site might attract a lot of people but it won’t keep them engaged for very long, the telltale sign being a high bounce rate.
This is where content marketing comes in. Content is what connects your business to your potential customers. Without content, how would any business differentiate itself from its competitors? From straplines to whitepapers, content is responsible for shaping the personality of your business and giving it character – character that turns casual shoppers into loyal customers.
The most successful marketing campaigns blend the benefits of SEO and content marketing together. Here’s how.
We’ve mentioned a few hypothetical scenarios above, explaining what would happen if a business chose to have either a content or an SEO strategy instead of both. In theory, choosing an SEO strategy and neglecting content would fill the top of the funnel with leads, very few of which would convert. Doing the opposite would likely lead to a high conversion rate but a tiny user base, with the majority of leads coming through word of mouth instead of organic search results.
These kinds of scenarios aren’t really possible nowadays, though. In order to generate page one rankings and get your brand out there, SEO relies increasingly on quality content. Without well-written, well-optimised content, an SEO strategy is likely to fall flat on its face.
The same applies to content. Even if your content is outstanding, if your site isn’t technically strong or you’re not targeting the right keywords, don’t expect to generate many conversions.
The message here is simple: if you want to build the visibility of your brand and attract loyal customers, you’re not going to get there with either an SEO or a content strategy. You need both.
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