The 4-Point SEO Cheat Sheet for Stunning Content Marketing

In essence, content marketing is all about storytelling – and it’s been around ever since humans could speak.

In the last 5 years, however, content marketing has gained tremendous momentum.

From a killer blog post to a killer Tweet, content marketing has become one of the most effective ways for businesses to reach their target audience and drive traffic to their websites.

Search engines were around before to this surge in content creation. And, they remain as important as ever, continuing to deliver the most useful, relevant information to users – many of them your target audience.

But a myth floats around in many marketing circles when it comes to search engines and content.

It goes like this:

SEO and content marketing are the same.

That, essentially, you can use the terms interchangeably. That, if you do one, then you don’t need the other. That, if you have an SEO consultant working on your marketing strategy, then there’s no need for an actual content marketer. 

Uhmm…

Not always.

Sure, content marketing and SEO are both partners working on the same team.

Both have their own talents and ability to put together a kick ass marketing strategy that brings a business results. And both know that search engines are the most powerful channels for delivering readers to the content that’s produced.

What’s more? SEO and content marketing bring staple, repeat traffic to your website and foster relationships with your target audience.

But, while content marketing and SEO can work together brilliantly, savvy marketers know that each has a distinct role in bolstering a company’s visibility.

Content can exist without SEO, but SEO brings eyeballs to that content. And where would an SEO consultant find himself–in this modern era of search engine optimization–without a great content marketer who knows how to write high-quality content?

Take it from Rand Fishkin, who writes,

It’s a ‘huge challenge to get high authority links without content marketing.’

I’ve shown you 4 tactics to build links without writing fresh content.

But there are limitations to them.

In this post, I’m going to provide you with an SEO cheat sheet that boosts your content marketing efforts.

1. Google Hummingbird brought this important factor into focus, in its continued effort to take care of its users

Back in the day, many an SEO consultant’s role was stuffing keywords into one blog post after another in an aim (and game) to boost search results.

This gave birth to what’s known as ‘black hat SEO,’ where marketers shunned the human experience and manipulated search engines. A blog post wasn’t about engagement and reaching one’s target audience through useful information.

It was about driving search results.

Soon enough, Google launched an attack on black hats with its Panda algorithm update. Then, the search engine forever changed the landscape of SEO and content marketing with the introduction of Hummingbird.

The update has introduced a new factor that has dramatically altered the way users interact with search engines – and how both SEO and content marketing strategists do their jobs.

I am talking about context.

[Click to continue reading...]