The Ultimate Guide to SEO and Content Marketing (2024)

For years, business owners have been hearing two terms thrown around in relation to growing their businesses online.

These are SEO and content marketing.

If you’ve ever met with a marketing professional who didn’t mention these two all-important terms, then they likely weren’t going to help you succeed. A marketer who knows how to leverage SEO and content marketing to organically grow a business from nothing is worth their weight in gold.

Why?

‌SEO and content marketing work together to create a well-rounded digital marketing strategy. Their goal is to appeal to Google’s search algorithm. A campaign is successful when:

You gain page one penetration on Google’s Search Engine Results Page (SERP)
Organic traffic starts flooding your website.

But what is SEO? And what’s content marketing? Are they different words for the same thing?

This article will explore the definitions of both terms. Then we’ll go in-depth on how to create an SEO strategy and content marketing plan with the potential to facilitate explosive business growth.

Want to become an SEO and content marketing expert? Read on!

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is a series of content adjustments on and off your page. These content tweaks rely heavily on keyword research. Their purpose is to appeal directly to the Google search algorithm.

Like all search engines, Google has a system that automatically ranks content for specific search terms. It takes a lot of factors into consideration, like:

Keywords
Internal links
External links
Image optimization
Meta title and descriptions
And much more

We’ll go into all of this in a lot more detail later in the guide, so don’t worry if your head is spinning.

On a fundamental level, you need to know that SEO is the process of improving your SERP rankings through content optimization. When done properly, you’ll see organic traffic start to come through. High SERP placement appeals to prospects with positive search intent.

In other words, the people who need your products or services can find you easily and become customers.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a marketing strategy based on creating and distributing content.

When people hear the term “content marketing,” they think of blogging. And blog writing is a form of content marketing. A strategy involving the creation of a blog would involve planning content, writing articles, and distributing them.

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Take this guide, for example. It went through the process—assignment, research, outline, editing, and distribution. Finally, it reached you, dear reader.

That’s content marketing at work.

And the fact that you found it shows we know what we’re doing.

But content doesn’t just mean written copy. Content comes in many different forms. For example, video content like tutorials and entertainment offerings on platforms like YouTube.

Video content is highly engaging and draws an audience in faster and deeper than text. There are many steps when creating a content marketing video campaign. You need to identify a need in the market, film your content, edit it professionally, upload it, and promote it.

But the job doesn’t end there.

You need to optimize your video’s description and tags. Then you must create a winning and attention—grabbing thumbnail image to get noticed.

Then you have audio content like podcasts. That involves researching, recording, editing, and releasing your content on several podcast platforms (Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, etc.).

Much like video marketing, podcast marketing also involves optimized descriptions, tags, and killer cover art that’ll catch the attention of prospective listeners.

There are many ways to push your content, regardless of its format. Promote it on social media or even run paid search ads on Google or Facebook. Optimize your content for search engines.

That brings us nicely into our next section.

How do SEO and content marketing work together?

Are SEO and content marketing the same thing?

No, they’re not. SEO is far more technical and aimed at a single distribution channel. Content marketing is a broad term covering many different types of content and distribution to the masses.

SEO is a significant part of a larger content marketing plan. It’s a means of organic distribution where you make sure that the people who need to find your content can find it.

SEO and content marketing work together to create a lead generation^[1] gold mine.

Here’s an example of how that would work.

For the sake of this explanation, let’s say you’re selling power tools. Your big new product is an electric cordless drill. That means you want to guarantee that when someone searches for the best cordless drill in your service area, they find your content.

To push this product, you develop a content marketing strategy. It includes a how-to guide about home improvement DIY projects on your company blog. One of the main tools highlighted in each article will be your cordless drill (with a link to your product sales page).

How does Google rank content for search engines?

We now understand that SEO plays an important part in optimizing our content marketing for Google’s search algorithm. But how does the Google search algorithm work? What’s Google looking for when choosing SERP ranks?

If we’re to appeal to Google’s criteria, it stands to reason that we must first understand it.

But before jumping in, you might be saying, “Google isn’t the only search engine out there. What about Bing and Yahoo?”

Both of those platforms are valid search engines that see some traffic. However, Google gets more than the lion’s share of the market.

The overwhelming majority of people use Google. It made up 91.94% of the global search market in December 2021^[2]. So while Bing and Yahoo have a slice of the search engine pie, it’s a tiny sliver.

Google is where the eyes are. That means it’s where the opportunities and money are as well. You’re wasting time and money if you’re not focusing more than 90% of your energies on Google optimization.

Now that we have that out of the way, what’s Google looking for?

Authority.

Google wants to make sure that the sites it recommends to users are authoritative, valid, accurate, and high-quality. As one of the world’s most well-respected and successful companies, Google puts its reputation on the line when it makes recommendations. That means it wants to know without a doubt that its page one content meets the user’s search intent.

It determines authority in a few ways. First, its crawler bots index your site, noting your content, headers, metadata, alt tags, and image titles. It also follows the internal links sprinkled throughout your content, moving from page to page.

Google uses the E-A-T approach to determine content quality. That acronym stands for:

Expertise
Authoritativeness
Trustworthiness

Once that’s complete, Google will search for authoritative backlinks on other websites. That means a website in good standing that’s relevant to your topic is linking to your pages with optimized anchor text.

Why does this matter?

You can talk yourself up in your content all you want. Proclaim yourself the end-all-be-all of your niche until the cows come home.

However, Google won’t just take your word for it. It wants to see that other authoritative sites are linking back to you. When a site links to your page, it tells Google it respects you as an authority on this subject.

Think of it like a letter of recommendation or a five-star Yelp review.

Once Google has indexed your pages, checked your metadata, and compiled your backlink portfolio, it’s ready to pass judgment and rank your content accordingly.

What are the components of a well-rounded SEO strategy?

You can’t overstate the importance of digital marketing for modern businesses. There’s still some use for more traditional marketing channels (radio, TV, print ads, etc.). However, their effectiveness pales compared to the wealth of opportunities generated by digital marketing efforts like SEO and content marketing.

Through SEO, you’ll improve both the quality and quantity of your reach.

Anyone can pick up a magazine or flip on the TV and see your ad. Some of these people might be in your target audience, and others might not.

However, SEO and other digital marketing channels allow you to target the right people to guarantee maximum success.

In the following sections, we’ll walk you through what a well-rounded SEO campaign looks like. That includes on-page and off-page optimization, technical SEO, and generating links internally and externally.

On-page content optimization

Optimization begins on the page. When most people think about SEO, they’re thinking about on-page optimization. These are content and formatting tweaks that’ll catch Google’s eye and prove your authority on the subject.

We chose a landing page promoting a business name generator by Logo to showcase a great example of on-page optimization.

This page has a lot going for it regarding search optimization. Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s easy to spot several SEO elements on display.

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You have keywords naturally placed within the content, as seen above. These terms also appear in the header.

The copy is well laid out, easy to read, and accessible to readers. The real artistry of SEO content creation is effortlessly weaving your keywords in without making it obvious. Google takes readability and content quality into account when making its decision.

Then you have the Frequently Asked Questions page. This addition is an SEO gold mine.

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The FAQ page is jam-packed with helpful content that helps prove your authority. Every Google SERP has a “People Also Ask” section and a featured snippet.

By asking common questions and providing quality, accurate answers, you improve your odds of getting included in this prime real estate.

An FAQ page is a great way to include a lot of SEO content without keyword stuffing.

The page also includes visual elements like images. These improve the page’s overall quality and present an additional opportunity to get some keywords in. That brings us nicely into our next section.

Off-page backend optimization

There are plenty of optimization opportunities off the page. We’re talking about back in the inner workings of your website that the user never sees.

Google’s search bots see this information, though. In fact, they use it to help determine your SEO score.

The images applauded in the previous section should receive optimization on the back end. This includes putting keywords in the image titles and alt tags.

The alt tag is the text that appears describing the image if it fails to load. It’s also what an audio assistance device would read aloud to someone with a visual impairment.

Google’s search bots aren’t smart enough (yet) to look at a picture and figure out what it is. They need extra information. That’s why placing keywords and descriptive text in your alt tags is also useful.

Then you have the meta title and meta description of the page. These titles and descriptions ultimately pop up on a Google SERP.

Meta descriptions don’t play a huge role in deciding your placement. But they’re an excellent resource for explaining the purpose of your page to the search engine.

It’s also a good opportunity to optimize your URL slug for the primary keyword.

Technical SEO

Google considers more than your content when ranking you. It also wants to know that your site is of a certain quality.

Technical SEO encompasses elements of your website that prove its quality. That includes:

Website speed
Having an organized site structure and map
Removing duplicate content
Structuring your URLs logically
Including Breadcrumbs navigation
And much more

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Run an audit on your website using a tool like the one offered by SEMRush. It analyzes your pages and highlights what you need to tweak and tighten for Google’s inspection.

Internal links

Your website should have a web of internal links connecting various pages. It’s particularly effective regarding blog content. By interlinking your blog articles, you’re creating a path for users that will keep them on your website for longer.

When users stay on your website longer, it helps decrease your bounce rate. A high bounce rate will negatively impact your SEO score, so it’s beneficial to do everything possible to encourage users to stay.

Connecting your content with internal links also makes it easier for Google to index your pages. That allows the engine to get an accurate accounting of who you are and what you do.

How to plan SEO content

You should never launch into any digital marketing plan blind. When aiming for such explosive growth, you owe it to yourself to step up to the plate with a plan.

All content marketing strategies should have a plan. Before you start generating that SEO content, make sure you take the following steps and create your roadmap to success.

Research your audience

Before launching any marketing campaign, the first thing you need to do is ask a straightforward question.

“Who is this for?”

Every element of your content marketing plan is for your target audience. These are the people to gear your content toward. They’re your ideal customers who both need your services and have the willingness (and means) to purchase.

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Of course, your target audience could be very broad. This happens a lot, and it’s why audience segmentation exists. That’s when you segment your audience into specific buyer personas.

Let’s say Persona A likes to find content on Facebook, while Persona B enjoys video content on YouTube. You’d market to these two groups in vastly different ways.

It’s common to have multiple marketing campaigns going on at the same time. Each points to a specific audience segment.

If you get the bulk of your business from Persona B, then that’s where a lot of your content marketing time and budget should go.

You have to chase the money. Invest more heavily in marketing ventures that have a greater profit potential.

Ask yourself a few essential questions:

Who are these people?
What are their pain points?
What’s their budget?
Where do they live?
How do they consume content?
What marketing channels reach them the best?
How do they search for content?

Once you know this, the skeleton of your SEO content plan is in place. Everything else harkens back to this information.

Identify keyword opportunities

Next, you need to do keyword research to determine what the audience you just identified is searching for.

Ideally, you’re looking for terms with high search volume but low competition. When you identify a key term for your niche, do a SERP analysis. Look at who is on the first page, who has the featured snippet, who’s in the People Also Ask section, etc.

If Wiki pages and massive global corporations dominate the first page, that’s probably not a term to go after.

For example, suppose you’re a travel agent trying to rank for “Orlando Florida vacations.” In that case, you’ll be up against the main sites for Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World, and many huge hotel chains.

That’s why it’s important to look for other opportunities. Sometimes, changing a word by using a synonym makes all the difference.

For example, “Cheap Orlando Vacations” or “Affordable Orlando Vacations” might put you against other travel agencies. That’s a more winnable battle.

Keep your eyes open for low-hanging fruit.

Map out content

Make a list of the content you’ll create for this campaign. Use a spreadsheet to list out headlines, keywords, platforms, and content types. Arrange a schedule, strategically marking when you’ll release each piece of content.

When laid out, you should have a well-rounded list of future content geared toward your target audience.

Create a sharing plan

Once you know what content you’re creating, you need to decide how to push it out. That means what marketing channels will you be promoting your content on?

Remember, SEO takes time to generate results. While your optimization picks up speed, supplement it with targeted ad campaigns that create a return immediately.

Just make sure your target audience frequents these promotional channels.

Use SEO tools

There are many tools to help you plan out your SEO content strategy. They’re worth sinking some money into as they take the guesswork out of the process.

First, you have your research tools. This category includes Google’s Keyword Planner (which is free) and paid options like Ahrefs and SEMRush. These platforms help you identify keyword opportunities, analyze competitors, and audit your site.

Then there are optimization tools. Platforms like Frase, MarketMuse, and Clearscope analyze your content against the SERP for chosen keywords or terms. They’ll assign you a score based on the strength of your optimization.

How to optimize your content on-page

When it’s time to optimize your on-page content, use this checklist to make sure that you’re leaving no stone unturned.

Create quality, useful content your audience will benefit from
Weave keywords into your content naturally
Use different headers to break up text
Insert visual elements like images and videos
Ask and answer common SERP questions
Avoid keyword stuffing
Keep the layout neat and open
Use bulleted lists where appropriate

How to optimize your content off-page

Next, you’ll optimize the backend of your site. That includes all those fun little elements the user never sees.

When optimizing content off-page, take the following vital steps:

Create an optimized meta title.
Write an optimized meta description to tell Google more about the page’s content.
Add optimized titles to all images.
Create optimized alt text for images that meet accessibility requirements and inform Google’s search bots.
Optimize your URL.

How to generate internal links for SEO

When you initially plan out your content, identify internal link-building opportunities. These should be in your content planning spreadsheet.

Your internal links need to be strategic. They connect different content pieces and forge a path for Google’s search bots. Make sure that the content you link to is relevant and that you use the right anchor text.

If you have a piece on power drills and you reference socket wrenches in it, link to a page with content about socket wrenches. If targeting the term “affordable socket wrenches” on the page you’re linking to, that’s your anchor text for the internal link.

How to get backlinks for SEO

Now we come to the hard part. Generating backlinks isn’t easy, but it’s important for SEO success. You need relevant high-value sites linking back to you if Google will ever consider you an authority and major player in your industry.

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To get backlinks, there are a few link building strategies to try^[3], such as:

Writing guest posts for other websites and including relevant links back to your pages
Getting listings in relevant directories
Offering up content for other websites to cite when making their own arguments

When guest posting, create a list of relevant sites and check their submission guidelines. Then, send queries to these sites and see how many will be willing to post your content. Just remember, the content needs to be unique for each site.

Google hates duplicate content, and if the sites you’re writing for realize what you’re doing, they’ll never accept content from you again.

It helps to do your own research, generating statistics that other relevant sites will want to cite and link to. Then, they’ll cite you in their articles. That’s a great indicator of authority for Google.

How to measure SEO success

You have to measure the success or failure of any marketing campaign. Do this often and never wait until the campaign ends.

Think of it like baking a cake.

You might periodically open the oven before the cake’s baking time to check on its progress. You could see a perfectly rising cake and smell the delicious aromas indicating quality.

Then again, you could see black smoke and a charred husk. You’d then need to stop the oven immediately and start over.

Throughout your SEO strategy, track your SERP placement. Remember, it takes time—weeks to months—to get page-one penetration. It all depends on your strategy and execution.

You should see a slow, steady rise over time.

If your rankings aren’t rising, then something about your SEO campaign isn’t working. It’s time to go back to the drawing board and determine where you went wrong.

You also need to check your page’s traffic. If you hit page one but you’re not getting many visitors, it could mean that the term you’re ranking for is low in search volume or irrelevant to your audience.

Then determine if you’ve attracted the right audience. If you see SEO growth and increased traffic but a high bounce rate, the people finding you organically don’t fit your target audience.

What is the future of SEO and content marketing?

As time rolls on, SEO and content marketing aren’t going to fall by the wayside. If anything, they’ll become more of a priority for businesses of all sizes.

According to UpCity’s findings, 44% of businesses planned to implement an SEO strategy in 2022. Additionally, 55% are investing in content marketing as part of that strategy.

You’ll also start seeing AI step more soundly into content marketing. In 2023, more than 80% of marketing experts will leverage AI tech for content marketing. And that technology is only becoming more accessible.

But SEO and content marketing aren’t static processes. Google is constantly changing its search algorithm.

That means businesses like yours have to stay abreast of these changes. Suddenly, more emphasis will fall on certain SEO elements over others, and you must be able to adapt.