SEO Content Strategy vs. Content Marketing

Content strategy and content marketing are two sides of the same coin, and you will need both to run a successful marketing campaign for your organization. By understanding how to maximize the quality, reach, and precision of your content, you can bring in new customers and increase revenue.

What Is SEO Content Strategy?

Your search engine optimization (SEO) content strategy is the framework on which your marketing efforts will be built from. It is the document or set of documents you will create to ensure that all members of your content and marketing teams are on the same page and able to work effectively together. 

How to Create an SEO Content Strategy

How you design your content strategy will depend on several factors, including the size and scope of your project, the industry you are promoting, and the audience you plan to reach. Every content strategy plan your organization creates will need to be carefully thought out to ensure a successful execution from the planning stages to the implementation and final assessment.

Research

The first step in creating a content strategy is to conduct extensive research on the product you are promoting and the customer base you are planning to sell to. A great place to start is to research your competitors. What kind of platforms are they using? Do they heavily rely on social media or videos? How user-friendly is their site? What kind of tone does their content use? Are they targeting industry professionals or people who have never used the product before?

Once you understand the environment you will be selling in, and who you’re up against, you can start identifying opportunities for your organization. Is there a potential customer group your competitors aren’t targeting? Is there an online space or a marketing language they aren’t using to reach them? This can be an exciting step in the process because it presents your organization with the opportunity to create your own unique voice.

Select Platforms

There are far more online platforms out there than you will be able to market your product on, so it is important to choose which platform will be the best use of your time and energy. While the backbone of your content will likely take the form of web pages and blog posts on your own site, it should be augmented with great photos, videos, podcasts, social media posts, and other forms of content.

This is a great place for your research to help out. Look at what platforms your current customers are using and what platforms your competitors are advertising on. If you understand the demographics of your customer base, it will give you a good idea of where they are accessing their information. Generally, you can find media professionals on Twitter, young people on TikTok, and older audiences on Facebook. 

Build a Calendar

Once you have built your content strategy, you will need to plot out a timeline to implement it. Creating, editing, and posting content takes time, and you want to create a sustainable pace for your staff. 

SEO content strategy is a marathon, not a sprint, and it will take an extended period of posting consistent, quality content to start bringing in major results. A typical estimate is 4–6 months to start generating leads and sales.  Even if you could create the perfect website and fill it with content within a month, the market is constantly changing, and you will need to adapt to new information and create new content in response.

Review and Reassess

One of the most important items to build into your calendar is a time to review your progress and make any necessary changes to your content. Your website analytics are a fantastic resource to see what content is doing well and what can be improved. 

Maybe you have a certain page that is driving a heavy amount of clicks. Once you identify what on that page is driving it to be effective, you can try applying that to other pages on your site, or write new content that incorporates it. 

Perhaps your webpage is ranking high on Google’s search results page, but people aren’t clicking on the link. In that case, you may need to update the meta title and description to entice more people to click.

What Is SEO Content Marketing?

Once you’ve created a great content strategy, it’s time to execute on it. Content marketing is the actual content, including webpages, blog posts, and other materials, that your team will produce based on your strategy.

How to Implement SEO Content Marketing

The first step in putting your content strategy into action is to ensure you have a great team that is able to effectively create and post content. Once you have people in place, you can put them to work creating high-quality content that showcases your organization and brings in new revenue.

Create and Update Pages

The most important step is to ensure you have an attractive website full of quality content that people will be drawn to and want to engage with. The content on your pages should be easily accessible to a general reader and full of informative content that provides them with real value. Your content should also be based on sound SEO keyword research and include a “call to action” that directs your reader to the next steps they should take to engage your business.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are a great way to bring in readers who may not be your usual customers. While web pages will directly highlight aspects of your organization and your product, blog posts can be indirectly related to your product. They are a way to bring in curious readers who want to learn about a new subject. The job of the writer is to convert those readers into customers by naturally introducing their product and showcasing the value it can bring.

Images & Infographics

A great image will draw the reader’s eye and lead them to the written content. It can also serve as effective SEO by ranking high on Google’s image search, so make sure to use your keywords in the alt text. Depending on the product you are marketing, you can use stock photos, hire a professional photographer, or take a few pictures yourself. 

Infographics can also be a great way to highlight specific information in a way that’s easily digestible for the reader. Want to show how much better your product is than your competitor’s? Put in a bar graph or pie chart, and let the numbers do the talking.

Video Content

Videos are another great way to showcase your product and your organization. They can also allow you to reach a whole new audience that may not spend as much time reading web pages or blog posts. Putting videos on social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, or Tiktok is a vital part of any modern-day marketing strategy.

Social Media

Studies have shown that 80% of people start checking their phones within 15 minutes of waking up in the morning. While few of those people are likely to immediately start googling for products they can buy, most of them do open social media. Having an effective social media account where you can post snippets or entire pieces of written content is a great way to use the material you’ve already created to reach even more people.

Email Marketing

Increase the reach of your content marketing by sending it directly to your customer’s inbox. That curious reader who found your blog post a few months back may not have been ready to buy right then, but if they subscribed to your mailing list while they were on your page, you’ll be right there when they are ready to buy.

Trust Avalanche’s SEO Content Expertise

Creating an effective SEO content strategy and putting it into action isn’t easy. It takes years of experience and months’ worth of effort to build content that can break through the competition and reach thousands of customers. Avalanche Creative is happy to use our extensive expertise, high-quality software tools, and endless excitement to create great content for your business. Send us a message today to start building your content strategy and marketing.