Many businesses are asking what is SEO and content marketing. Some companies understand these two terms well. More and more of the others want to understand. T
hey are two parts of a quickly growing online marketing trend. Let us look at what these two terms mean and how you can integrate them into your own business.
First, what is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. The concept is to craft information on your website or connected articles that will land at the top of search engine results. You want a potential customer to go search for something relevant to your business and see your business name at the top of their search results.
Let us say you sell parts for antique automobiles. In order to increase your online sales, you optimize your website so that someone searching for antique automobile parts will see your website in the first page of results on Google.
You do this by using the search engine methodology for searching out and prioritizing websites based on common search phrases. For an antique automobile parts business, the common search phrase might be “antique car parts” or “old car parts.” Most marketing experts call the common search phrase keywords. You can provide articles on your website or some linked to your website that optimizes the use of these keywords.
Next, let us look at what content marketing is. One of the leading trends in marketing today is providing something extra for your customers. You want to build a personal relationship with your customers. Yet, most businesses have large numbers of competitors. You have to somehow stand out to your potential customers as inexpert in your line of business.
Many businesses do this by providing content to their customers. If you run a home improvement store, you can provide online video demonstrations of how to do various improvement projects to customers’ homes. It could be as simple as providing a technical paper comparing products in a certain industry. The idea is to show your customer your expertise and give them the incentive to continue coming back to your website.
You can use SEO and content marketing together or separately. Each business uses these marketing techniques in different ways depending on their customer and business focus.
More and more people use the Internet to get information and to find businesses that provide products or services. This increases the amount of competition for many businesses. For your company to stand out from the crowd, you need to have something that grabs their attention and keep them focused on what you can offer.
One of the best ways to get the most out of both SEO and content marketing is to sharpen your focus. Many businesses make the mistake of trying to be everything to everyone when it comes to marketing. If your business focus is on other businesses rather than individual retail customers, you should not market towards retail customers.
You can flip that and the same thing would be true on marketing to businesses when retail customers are the focus of your business. You should focus your content towards those that are your current customers or potential customers.
Maintain the focus of your product or service as well. If you specialize in residential plumbing projects, content on your website should focus on homes instead of plumbing projects at commercial properties. If you focus mainly on writing nonfiction articles for technical magazines, the content on your website should not feature all the fiction you write on the side. Make sure you know what your business is about, and then focus all of your marketing efforts towards that end goal.
If you take nothing else from this article, you need to understand that you cannot use SEO and content marketing without a bigger strategy if you want optimal results. If you try to generate more business with either technique, but have no plan in place, then you are shooting blind.
You need to understand what your business is about, who your customers are, what their concerns and needs are, and what you want to get out of marketing your business. Once you understand that, you can translate that into a larger marketing strategy that includes SEO and content marketing.
It is important to understand what SEO and content marketing mean. It is also important to understand how they can help your business. On the other hand, it is just as important to understand that they are not perfect solutions for every business in every situation.
You need to understand how you can integrate them into your overall marketing strategy and get the best impact for your investment. Both concepts are simple enough for an individual businessperson to start utilizing them. However, to get optimal results, you need to use them in a focused, disciplined manner. If you do not understand how to use them, you might want to consider bringing an expert in to your business to help you out.
