Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

“The content marketing industry will be a $300 billion industry by 2019, and SEO is forecasted to be an $80 billion industry by 2020,” said Betts.

SEO is the voice of the consumer and it delivers marketers powerful insights, according to Betts. But unless it’s paired with content, marketers won’t realize its full potential.“SEO, alone, is not enough to guarantee success.

Content marketing, alone, is not enough to guarantee success,” said Betts. “Together, they build a better customer experience. There’s a massive opportunity for people who are connecting the dots.”

Here are the group’s top takeaways for doing so....

Today I want to talk about two of my favorite online marketing disciplines: SEO and content marketing.

I’ve had a breadth of experience in both, as I spent years as an SEO before I transitioned into content marketing.

Let’s look at three specific examples of how SEO can improve content marketing, across all stages of a campaign....

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I could get them a No. 1 Google ranking for a specific non-branded, hyper-competitive keyword, I would be rich. If I had a dollar for the number of times the people asking me that question actually had the content to warrant such a listing, I would be poor.

Many digital marketing folks, especially in enterprise B2B companies, don't quite understand the relationship between content and SEO. It's long been said in SEO circles that content is king. However, some SEO folks would argue that links or social engagement is king, and that content is the primary driver of links and social success. There are valid arguments on all sides of that meaningless debate, but the point that often gets lost is that creating the best user experience for the vast majority of people searching for a specific keyword is probably what's going to get you ranked consistently for that keyword.

A content strategy that supports that bigger vision is typically different than the customer-focused strategies most B2B companies use. Many people over the years have told me, "Our company is the market leader for this term! We should be No. 1!" That is often true for products or services that are relevant to the keyword phrase they are targeting. It is true that brand recognition - and certainly the links that typically accompany successful brands - make it more likely that a company will rank well for relevant terms, but the fact remains that brand authority is not always enough to guarantee a top ranking for a particular keyword....

There’s a bit of confusion over SEO and content marketing. The confusion comes over how SEO and content marketing fit together. Do they fit together? Are they at odds with each other? If so, is it possible to force them together?

In a previous post, I explained why SEO and content marketing are like PB&J. They go together. They just fit. They work well together.

Now, I want to share exactly why that is — why SEO is actually all about content marketing, and vice versa.