From keywords to conversions: The art and science of SEO content marketing
Discover how integrating SEO and content strategy can boost search visibility, drive conversions, and build authority in your content marketing efforts.
By Laura Gomez, Marketing Strategist
In the world of content marketing, content strategy and search engine optimization (SEO) are two critical components that work together to drive successful outcomes. Failing to integrate them into your content marketing approach from the beginning can lead to extra work and unnecessary headaches, which no one has time for. In this article, I’m going to show you how integrating content strategy and SEO into your content marketing approach will build trust and authority with your audience—driving actions that benefit both your customers and your business.
Content strategy
According to Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach, authors of Content Strategy for the Web, Second Edition, at its core, “Content strategy guides your plans for the creation, delivery, and governance of content.”1 It’s a strategic approach to creating an entire editorial system for a web product, whether that’s a website, a landing page, or an app. It also involves content posted on other channels that will drive traffic to your website. Content strategy focuses on creating content with a purpose and goal in mind, ensuring that each piece of content (and each element of your website, landing page, or app) plays a key role in achieving the overall objectives of your web product while meeting your audience’s needs.
Content strategy works closely with user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, focusing on creating a simplified experience through both content and design.
SEO
SEO, on the other hand, focuses on optimizing content for search engine bots. The challenge? Humans and robots don’t think alike. While a beautifully written blog post or an eye-catching landing page can entice humans, they might lack the keyword density needed for search engines to find them—thus not appearing in the top search results.
Seamless integration: Merging content strategy with SEO
To bolster your content so that it appears in the top search results, it’s imperative to integrate content strategy with SEO from the beginning. This might seem obvious, but content strategy and SEO are often handled by different departments, making this seemingly easy integration difficult. Nonetheless, combining these specialties can significantly boost search visibility, enhance user experience, drive long-term organic growth, attract targeted traffic, and improve conversion rates by aligning valuable content with effective SEO.
For content creators to avoid frustration and SEO specialists to reduce unnecessary back and forth—and for both of them to produce killer content—they need to collaborate from the start. Here’s how:
1. Define your audience and goals
Before joining forces, clarify what you want to achieve (for example, do you want to increase traffic, generate leads, or boost sales?) and understand your target audience—their needs, preferences, and search behavior. Map out the user journey to define your goal, identifying the main topics for each step to guide content creation and SEO.
2. Perform keyword research
Use SEO tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to find relevant keywords for your chosen topics. Focus on long-tail keywords that match your audience’s intent, and analyze competitors to find keywords that they might be using.
3. Plan and create content
Structure your content development process with an editorial calendar to prioritize topics and keep your team organized around key dates, events, and campaigns. With your SEO structure in place, you’ll be able to create high-quality, valuable content that addresses your audience’s needs and questions. Break your content into sections with enticing subtitles that will benefit both humans and search engines.
4. Edit and optimize
After your content team is happy with the draft, send it to the SEO team for optimization. They’ll ensure that the necessary keywords are included to achieve the desired keyword density without keyword stuffing. Once both teams are satisfied, publish the content with the appropriate meta tags and descriptions.
5. Promote and distribute
Before publishing, make sure you have a promotion and distribution strategy in place, one that uses both organic and paid channels. Driving traffic to your site will increase its relevance, ultimately improving your overall SEO score.
Bringing it all together
Content strategy and SEO aren’t opposing forces or rival departments, and viewing them this way can cause more problems than it solves. By having content strategy and SEO teams collaborate from the start—or even having an SEO expert on your content team—you’ll be able to create content that meets your audience’s needs and gets you in the top search results. In the end, writing for the web involves crafting content that appeals to both human readers and search engine robots—and now you know how to do just that.
[1] Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach. Content Strategy for the Web, Second Edition (United States of America: New Riders, 2012), p. 28.
Editor
Katie Blaszkiewicz
Design
Carolina Vargas
