You can’t just create great, quality content thinking that people will always find it organically. Instead, you have to be creative, think outside the box to devise a SEO content marketing strategy that works best for you! As you most likely know, it's important to have SEO in mind from the very beginning and write for people (a real audience), not for SEO. However, do preliminary keyword research and know your audience (so people looking for your content don’t have to work so hard to find it). In this Daily Brown Bag, you’ll learn 10 ways to do very effective SEO content marketing and make the most of your efforts!
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Hello, and welcome to the Daily Brown Bag. Today we’re going to be talking about SEO content marketing. I’m Chad Hill, and I’m joined by Adam Stetzer.
Yeah, good morning, Chad. SEO content marketing is not a new topic. People have been talking about it for a long time, but SEO has been evolving. It’s 2015, and people are still wondering how to get their stuff out there. When you think about content marketing and search engine optimization -- we get these questions from our white label seo resellers all of the time, Chad -- “I’ve got this fantastic piece of content, but how come no one is seeing it?” And that is the bottom line. You may have something awesome, but it doesn’t mean that it will get read or shared.
According to a 2014 survey from the Altimeter Group, over half of marketers recognize the importance of distribution in and of itself in the SEO content marketing process. Only about a quarter of them invest in distribution. You do have to get the word out. You have to have something of high value. What we’re proposing today is a top 10 list of how to do very effective SEO content marketing and make the most of your efforts.
10 Ways to Make the Most of Your SEO Content Marketing:
1. Have SEO in mind from the very beginning.
Don’t write your content and then figure out how to work SEO in. That will sound a little awkward. It doesn’t mean you’re writing for SEO. We say this all of the time: You’re writing for people and for a real audience, but you want to have SEO in mind for the very beginning as you start your project.
2. Provide good quality content.
We can’t stress this enough. You can make a brick fly, but a paper airplane flies a lot better. Have good content, and it will help itself share and propel itself as you put it out there. Obviously, after you do your promotional activities.
3. Make it mobile-friendly.
We’ve been covering mobile for years now. The stats are pretty solid on this. Everything is migrating to mobile, so do yourself a favor and make sure everything that you put out is mobile-friendly.
4. Don’t forget about email marketing.
Many businesses are afraid to bombard their customers with too many emails. You need to figure out what works for you, but it will include some portion of email strategy. Maybe it’s a weekly recap. Maybe it’s some sort of promotional email or deal, or tailored email lists based on who has opted in. Newsjacking. There are lots of ways to come at this, but email marketing is alive and well, and it’s definitely a part of your SEO content marketing strategy.
5. Make sure to spotlight content on your website.
It’s a multi-channel approach. We’re talking about mobile. We’re talking about email, and we’re talking about using your website, which is another place people are. You have rankings. People are coming to it. You’re running advertising. Even if people don’t buy from you, they may be interested in your content, which means you can get a secondary benefit.
Yeah, Adam. That’s a great initial list here. Before I jump into my five, one of the things I wanted to talk about again is just that content marketing is two words. Content marketing is, of course, all about creating great content, as you’ve said. It’s certainly a lot easier to get your content to be viewed and shared when it’s interesting versus something that’s not interesting. But that second part -- that marketing -- is a critical part. And that’s really what we’re talking about here… is how to distribute the content. I think there are so many people that are in the content marketing business, they think it’s all about just writing the content, and, if you’re not looking at these 10 things that we’re going over right now, you’re really not doing content marketing. You’re just doing content. With that:
6. Social media.
Of course, it’s a fantastic way of getting an initial view of the content you’re creating -- to get some initial viral spread. We always talk about that, while things that Google doesn’t use or there aren’t direct signals for SEO from social media, posting your content on social media certainly helps get your content in front of people who may link to it or who may engage in other ways. It certainly helps on the engagement side, so social media is really important.
7. Be collaborative.
It’s very important sometimes to look for ways to include experts in your content. It’s a good way for them to help share your information. Some people call this ego-jacking. Some people just call it going out and trying to ride on someone else’s coattails and getting them to react and help spread your content. I think that’s a critical one.
8. Anything to do with paid promotion.
There are all sorts of -- literally hundreds at this point -- of different ways to and services to help promote your content whether that’s using traditional things like Google AdWords and good, old-fashioned paid search, Twitter ads, Facebook. There has been a whole bunch of content distribution programs like OutBrain, Taboola… literally the list goes on and on, but explore those. They may not all be right for your type of content, but think about your audience and where they are and then see if there is a good way to plug-in. Again, some of these things are pretty new, so the cost to get in and try some of these things isn’t very high. It’s a very useful thing to look at.
9. Don’t duplicate content.
It just goes without saying that you don’t want to have the same thing rehashed. Certainly, on social media it’s okay to promote your content multiple times, especially on Twitter. People just don’t see your tweet if you only do it once , so if you need to re-tweet, that’s fine, but don’t just rehash the same piece of content over and over again . People are going to get sick of it.
10. Tracking, monitoring, and evaluating.
You want to make sure you look at what’s working. You’re measuring, not only just in terms of rankings and an SEO content marketing standpoint, but also looking at engagement and traffic to your website. Then make tweets because you’re not going to learn what’s better, what can work better, if you don’t challenge yourself to make improvements to your process, and just rinse and repeat.
That’s what we have, Adam, for our top 10 list of ways to do SEO content marketing.
Takeaways On SEO Content Marketing
Great advice. I like your thinking, Chad. It’s two words. It’s content, and it’s marketing. People really focus on making high quality content. They should. It needs to be useful. But then, as the stats from the survey show, people often fall down on the marketing side, the distribution side when it comes to content marketing. It means you could have the best thing ever, but no one will see it if you’re not out promoting it and getting it in front of people.
That’s our Brown Bag for today. We sure hope you enjoyed our top 10 list for SEO content marketing. We always ask that you subscribe because we’d love to see you back for another video real soon.
