Bhagya Lakshmi

How to Blend SEO, Social and Content Marketing For Effectiveness Have you created your content marketing strategy for next year yet? If yes, does it include SEO and Social media as well? Your answer should ideally be “yes” to both the questions, because firstly, we are almost at the end of 2016 and we should definitely be ready by now for the next year, and secondly, old school content marketing strategies by themselves do not yield results in this digital age. The social media and SEO (or Search Engine Optimization) are two very important disciplines that go along with content marketing and if these two do not play a prominent enough role in your action plan for next year, then get ready to be kicked out from the race! Yes, that’s the stark staring truth. I know it sounds a little brutal, but let’s face it, would you be surviving now if you still used paper based records for your company? No right? Exactly the point. Well, it’s not too late though. You can formulate a new plan now. We are here to help. Now, people often consider content marketing, SEO and social media as three separate disciplines that are important, but the fact is they go hand in hand. In fact, content and SEO actually overlap at a point. They are like the two sides of the same coin. Again, what is the point in just creating good quality content and having it up on your website? You need to push it out and have people see it. That’s where the social media comes into the act. Before we get in to how we can combine the three of them effectively, let’s see what kind of a relationship they share. What’s the deal with content marketing and SEO? Ok, so the main part of your entire content marketing plan is obviously content. Now, how should you go about writing this content? Should you make it very interesting and engaging with simple words and phrases only, or should you make it less engaging and stick to the SEO needs to increase traffic? In other words, should you write according to your content marketing techniques or SEO techniques? As difficult as it may sound, the answer is both! According to a research by Conductor, almost 79% of SEOs feel that they need to work more closely with the content creators and marketers in order to be effective. Although SEO does not have much to do with the content, it actually makes the content effective. SEO is all about handling the search engine’s behaviour in the browser, which in turn decides whether or not your content will be seen by the people you target. In the actual sense, strictly conforming to SEO practices would mean short and focused content, keyword based content and faster page loading. It makes sure that the content gets a good rank and competes well with the gazillion other articles that use the same keywords. Sometimes engaging content also works well for SEO, as it helps in getting backlinks and thereby increase search rankings. Content marketing on the other hand is more about creating high quality content and using the right medium to convey the content such as an info graphic or a blog post or a podcast etc. Once you have created the necessary content, you want as many people as possible to see it right? That’s what the social media channels are for. They help you reach a larger audience and improve your chances of a possible lead or conversion. Now let’s get into how you can combine these aspects in an effective way. Combining SEO and content marketing effectively - - - Make high quality content – Earlier, it was a lot easier to trick search engines into giving your content a high rank by stuffing keywords excessively into it, with no real substance. We all know that that’s not possible now. Keywords are still very important, but so is quality. Ask yourself these questions while you’re writing your content: “Would this help my users? Would I link to this page if I were looking for some info?” The point is to create informative, focused, clear and engaging content that would make the users stay on your website and interact with you for longer. This will decrease your bounce rate and also help to increase backlinks. Add researched keywords – Keywords are still very important as mentioned before. Find out what the audience wants and blend them in with the content well. Identify the keywords and mention them in your content. Be sure to make your content relevant to what’s trending as well as the keywords. Link building – This is a straightforward strategy for SEO. You can make guest posts on other sites that have a high level of traffic and a high level of quality. You can link back to your site from the guest post, which will give your website more visibility and credibility, all of which helps to improve your rankings. With time, you should be able to generate more of such links from other sites if you maintain quality in your content. Now that you know how to mix content and SEO well, let’s see how social media can be added to increase effectiveness Adding social media - - Market and advertise through social media channels – Yes, leverage your Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter accounts and what not. You may need to pay for this, but it is definitely worth it. It boosts the visibility of your site by a large margin improves the chances of inbound leads. Moreover, people often use social media for making purchase decisions to check user reviews. In fact, almost 88% of users trust reviews to shop online. So go ahead and flaunt your user reviews through social media as well. Connect with the big shots and engage with them – It would be very useful in the long run to connect with the major influencers in your industry, and introduce your brand to them in an effective way. They can refer you to others and further improve your reach. Keep all the above points in mind when you plan your content marketing strategy for next year.