Those of you who follow internet marketing trends are probably familiar with the underlying debate about SEO and content marketing. After reading an article on socialmediatoday, written by the executive director, Mark Schaefer, it got me thinking about the real value of social media optimization. Is this something that businesses really need? Can they have as much impact online by simply producing great content?
To start with, we need to acknowledge that content marketing has always been a part of search engine optimization. When you are developing content that is going to be favored by search engines, among the many things you consider is its quality. The only scenario where content marketing won’t work well is if your SEO is of the black hat variety.
The shady practice of keyword stuffing, link exchanges and poor content writing has and will never get you anywhere. Google updates have become smart enough to notice these tactics and bring you down before you even get your first dollar back. So what’s the way forward?
Understand the value of Great content
Here’s why you need great content for your site:
- It helps you to attract target customers to your business
- It established your brand as an authority in your industry
- It gives you better rankings for the long term
- It enhances visibility since great content is likely to be shared all over the web
- You won’t be penalized by search engines for content issues
We develop content in order to support our SEO strategies. If done wisely, this content is a huge part of SEO that helps to boost rankings.
Why you need SEO
Great content alone will not make your site shine on the web. You’ll need to promote it which is where search engine optimization comes in. Basically SEO and content go hand in hand and there is no way you can do without the other. You write great content for people to get the information they want. You then optimize the content to ensure that other people get to discover it.
In my opinion, search engine optimization is not about optimizing the search engine but rather optimizing online content. You basically have content that needs to be structured in such a way that search engines will find it. It’s like a happy harmonious marriage consisting of these two (great content and SEO).
You need Great Content and SEO
Search optimization strategies will only work if they are used hand in hand. One cannot do without the other and you have to understand that in order to realize success. The smart way to market your business online is to treat all these aspects of SEO (social media marketing, content optimization and content creation) as critical aspects in your strategy bearing in mind that one cannot do without the other.
You can’t provide content that no one else will discover online. Similarly, you can’t promote poorly written content that people will click away immediately they read the first line. You can write great content, share it via social networks and include keywords that target your organization. That’s how you succeed in SEO.
