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Content Marketing and SEO might seem like completely separate strategies, but they share a very important connection that is key for digital marketing success: both need high-quality content and an understanding of what their audience is searching for.
While content marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable content that builds relationships, SEO focuses on getting that content discovered by the right audience at the right time. Without engaging, people-first content, even the most meticulously planned content strategy and technically proficient SEO plan would fail.
In this article, you’ll discover how these strategies compare, where they overlap and why quality content wears the crown in both digital marketing realms.
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Content marketing is a form of strategic inbound marketing that uses the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract, engage and retain a target audience.
Unlike outbound marketing approaches such as advertising and promotional tactics, content marketing tells a brand’s story, creates meaningful connections with consumers, and draws them in.
Content marketing formats include:
Most good content marketing addresses the pain points of its target audience and builds a positive reputation for the brand as a helpful and trusted authority.
While some content can generate a quick audience response (such as social media), the strategy as a whole is long-term, requiring the fostering of authentic connections and brand authority over time.
By building consumer relationships through valuable content, the success of this marketing strategy is generally measured via growth in engagement, audience, lead generation, and conversions.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the marketing strategy of making content and websites more visible to search engines (and, therefore, to audiences) by “optimizing” content.
In this case, optimizing means understanding and aligning with search engine algorithms and user intent (what people are actually looking for when they search) in order to make content discoverable and prioritized for appearance in the search engine results page (SERP).
Modern SEO goes beyond keyword placement (and avoids outdated practices like keyword stuffing) to earn visibility through comprehensive, relevant, and helpful content that is technically optimized through user experience considerations, site architecture, mobile optimization, page speed, and authoritative backlinks.
Because search engine algorithms change, SEO also must adapt to be successful. SEO strategy is long-term, as improvements in rankings and traffic develop gradually over time.
SEO success is mainly measured through improved rankings for targeted search terms, increased organic traffic and, in the end, leads and conversions.
Both content marketing and SEO are essential digital strategies with some foundational similarities. Both marketing strategies:
However, the two approaches have their own focus, skills, metrics and other differences.
While content marketing is a relationship-building endeavor that focuses on storytelling, SEO addresses user intent but also must satisfy search engine algorithms. This is where the two strategies diverge to work together for the common goal.
These complementary differences enable the two digital strategies to work together toward shared goals: leads and conversions.
Content marketing and SEO are interrelated strategies that, together, are more powerful than what one can accomplish without the other. Quality content is at the core of both.
Helpful, relevant, comprehensive content that aligns with user intent is the backbone of content marketing strategy and is essential for SEO. You can’t try to rank without top-quality content to start with. Great content also provides the needed opportunities for backlinks, social shares, and boosted site authority.
SEO takes content marketing efforts to a new level by ensuring audiences can find it when they search. SEO insights (such as keyword research, search trends, and predictive SEO) should inform content creation, and content should be created with an eye on giving SEO great material to work with.
These two strategies not only depend on strong content, but they also supercharge each other’s impact when integrated, boosting discoverability and engagement at the same time.
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