Being a part of the online business environment means that you often need to master some new skills to stay competitive. Content marketing and search engine optimization are perfect examples of such Web-features. If you want your website traffic to blossom and thrive, it’s important to make these two elements work for you. While they intersect in some areas, mostly they’re two separate lanes that will improve your business results, given that you use them properly. This guide will explain SEO and content marketing can work for your website and your business.
Natural flow and organic traffic
First and foremost, it’s important to define SEO. Webopedia brings the following definition:
Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques, and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP).
In line with that, the main goal of every SEO strategy is to improve the visibility of the content published on your website.
Only a few years ago, you could write a low-quality, 500-word text packed with relevant keywords and your rankings in SERPS would rise.
Today, however, things have changed. Thanks to the efforts of search engine teams, this strategy won’t yield the desired results anymore.
Nowadays, you have to provide your readers with valuable content if you want them to become your repeat visitors and customers. That way, you’ll achieve organic traffic, meaning that it will grow naturally, due to the increased interest of the target audience.
Therefore, top-notch content that solves your visitors’ problems will sell itself – it will attract the visitors to come back to your website.
What’s more, the SEO-part of work will also be easier to perform with high-class content.
What’s older, keywords or content?
Every new business and website owner will need to resolve the following dilemma – should I generate the keywords first and then make the content revolve around them or should I start from content?
From one point of view, it might be more practical for a new business and a new website to start from keywords. The Google Keyword Planner can come in pretty handy for a rookie in this niche. What you need to do is search the phrases and words pertaining to your products and services. That way you’ll get the most frequently used terms for your field of work.
After that, you can start producing content bits that will contain those keywords. When you still don’t have any business results behind you, the most important thing is to raise interest in your business.
On the other hand, however, it’s possible to create amazing content without generating the keywords in advance. However, this will depend on the type of business. For instance, if your business has become popular overnight in your area, people will already recognize your brand when they see it online. Consequently, they won’t hesitate to click on the links leading to your website. In that case, you’ll already accomplish the main goal of keywords – increasing your website traffic.
Still, the latter situation also demands keywords, but as an addition to an already visible and recognizable brand. Populating your content elements with keywords will strengthen your position and expand your popularity to the online surroundings.
UX-friendly website features
Apart from superior content, your website also needs to be organized in a user-friendly way. Oxford Dictionaries define user experience as
The overall experience of a person using a product such as a website or a computer application, especially in terms of how easy or pleasing it is to use
If you ensure that your visitors seamlessly navigate through the website and intuitively use its features, it will be a great addition to content marketing and SEO.
For example, your products need to be described in a concise but informative way. Also, the images of your products should be as clear as possible.
When talking about the visuals on your website, we must emphasize the importance of original videos. On the one hand, they’ll present your business efforts in the most natural light. On the other, they’ll make a vital cog in your content marketing mechanism. When your customers take a look at your original videos, they’ll know that your business is a genuine professional effort.
Apart from your website, upload those videos to YouTube. Make sure that their descriptions contain the proper keywords for your niche and the content of these videos. It will ensure better visibility and a higher probability that your videos are offered when YouTube users make their searches.
Further, businesses that collaborate with other ventures need to make the payment process as simple as possible. In line with that, take care of the payment solutions on your website and use original invoice templates. These features will enable your customers and business partners to make their payments in a swift and frictionless way. As a result, they’ll keep coming back to make new deals with your business and your website.
Creating pre-website incentives
One of the key points in attracting more visitors to your website is the moment before they reach the website itself. Namely, when outstanding content meets professional SEO, your website will appear high in the SERPS – and this is the pivotal point. A visitor that sees the link to your website among other results needs to be properly incentivized to click on it.
The most effective way to do that is to come up with a smashing title and meta description. These two features need to show the potential visitors what you’re offering to them in that text. This is why it’s extremely important not to mislead the potential reader. So, make sure that every title and meta description reflect the content of the text they’re associated with.
That way, when an Internet user quickly scans the description, they’ll see if the title and meta description are helpful and relevant to their needs.
An important note: search engines are highly interested in the main title and the headings of the text. That’s why you should include your target keywords in these parts of every article you write.
Conclusion
Creating relevant and up-to-date content shows that you’re a knowledgeable professional. However, it might not be seen by anyone if that content isn’t distributed throughout online channels. Since your key online channel is your website, it needs to be popularized as much as it gets. This is where SEO comes on stage and contributes to the increased traffic. In a nutshell – SEO and content marketing make a perfect match for website popularization, but they both require your full attention if you want to reach high traffic figures.
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