Organic search is the greatest driver of traffic, at 47 percent of all visits compared to just 6 percent of paid search, according to Conductor.
Although the two disciplines cover much of the same ground—they are both concerned with distributing fresh, original content to address the problems, needs, and wants of a target audience—many companies still manage these two aspects of content creation separately.
The question, then, is how can you align your efforts to optimize and market content?
1. Keywords
Choose keywords that will allow you to create content relevant to your audience’s needs and desires—the sorts of words they will type in to search for your products or services. You cannot just rely on your intuition to identify what these keywords are likely to be; rather, you need to conduct research. Although there are plenty of advanced tools to choose from, if you are just getting started, you may be better off with one of the following free tools:
- Google Trends: Useful for determining interest in topics according to category and location.
- Google Keyword Planner: To identify search volume for specific keywords.
- Ubersuggest: Helpful for generating key phrases based around root terms.
2. Long-Tail Keywords
Long-tail keywords, also known as key phrases, consist of three or more words. They are more descriptive than short keywords and therefore yield more highly targeted traffic against less competition. As long-tail keywords make up 70 percent of all search terms, they should be an essential aspect for any content marketing and SEO effort.
You should determine your long-tail keywords in the same way as you choose your regular keywords and include them within the text of your content, alt text, meta descriptions, subheadings, and alt text. Never stuff long-tail keywords where it is obvious they do not fit naturally or grammatically as this will reduce the quality of your content in the eyes of both visitors and search engines.
Best of all, develop content around long-tail keywords that aligns with your products or services. This sets up your company to become a solution to your prospects’ problems.
3. Internal Links
Internal links are hyperlinks that send users to another page on your website or blog to ensure visitors stay longer on your site, while exposing them to more relevant and interesting content your company has created.
At the same time, this impacts SEO by increasing keyword relevance and therefore improving your ranking in search engines.
You should try to include at least one internal link per blog post, but also avoid overusing internal links as this can overwhelm users. Choose the anchor text (the clickable text of the hyperlink) carefully, using a descriptive rather than generic phrase, and vary anchor texts from one piece to another.
4. Optimize Images
Images are great for blog posts—they add aesthetic value, help visitors better understand a topic, and provide context. But, above all, you can optimize images for SEO to help people find your posts in an image search.
To utilize images to your advantage, it is necessary to use descriptive titles for file names that explain exactly what the picture shows. You should also describe images in alt text to make it easier for search engines to know when to present your image in search results.
Takeaway
When creating content, remember the audiences that you’re creating it for. The first audience is obviously your target market. As I mentioned above, create content that is relevant to your audience’s needs and desires. What types of questions are they asking? What is a problem they face that you have a solution for?
The second audience is the search engine. Not only do you need to publish content that your prospects will find valuable, you need to publish content that Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines identify as relevant to search.
If you fail to understand the importance of SEO tactics within your content, your target audience is going to have a difficult time finding your resources.
Communicate with search engines through the alignment of your content marketing and SEO efforts, only then will you be able to effectively build your search rank and ultimately grow your business.
This article was originally published by SyneCore
Published: July 8, 2014
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