A lot of people have bought into the mistaken belief that SEO and content marketing are two separate animals. Perhaps that might have been somewhat true back in the day, these days the two are so intertwined as to be thought of concurrently.
What is necessary now is a marriage of sorts between the two. SEO can't exist without content, and content needs SEO to rank as well as it can.
It's time to understand the sibling relationship SEO and content marketing share, and start exploiting it for your site's success. Here are some ideas to get you started.
7 Tips on SEO for Content Marketing
#1 – Integrate keywords naturally (but with SEO in the back of your mind!)
Long gone are the days of keyword stuffing your way to top rankings, but they still play a vital role. Be sure you use your primary keyword in titles, in the front of your content, and other strategic places.
#2 – Still do on-page SEO
It's still very important, perhaps more than ever, to make sure things like SEO title tags, Meta data, image tags and H1 tags are crafted properly. If you're using WordPress, you can use WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.
#3 – Write for your readers!
These days Google is all about satisfying searcher intent. This means you need to write for your audience, and keep technical SEO out of the equation for the most part. Since it's no longer necessary to hit X amount of keyword density on your page, it should free you up to write what you need to!
#4 – Get mobile ready
More than half of all traffic now is served to a mobile device of some flavor, making it imperative to make sure your pages are mobile friendly.
#5 – Use social media
Whether social signals count for much in the search algorithm is a widely debated topic, but one thing is sure: that's where the people are. Employ social sharing buttons on all your content and you might find some of them!
#6 – Employ visual content
People love to watch video and look at your images. It also serves a dual purpose of keeping them on your site longer, a Google ranking signal. You can search for images via Flickr or from our #1 source of free stock photos, Pexels.
#7 – Use expert wording
The more expertly you speak on a subject, the more favor you'll find in Google's rankings. They are delivering the best, most authoritative content they can come up with, and obviously you want that to be yours!