Content Marketing & SEO

We’re betting you’ve heard the phrase “content is king” before, though you may not know its origin. It actually comes from the title of an essay Bill Gates published on the Microsoft website.

Gates opened that essay by predicting that content is where he expected “real money” to be made on the Internet. While he was right, he could never guessed how, or that content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) would exist some 25 years later. Fortunately for companies with an interest in targeting specific markets—so, just about every company—these strategies do exist.

What is content marketing?

The Content Marketing Institute (yes, that’s a thing) defines content marketing as: “…a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

In summary, it’s an encapsulation of high-quality storytelling as told through different media. It’s also laser-focused and should help explain what’s different/better/easier about your product or service than your competitors’ product or service.

What is SEO?

Besides just a being a buzzword, SEO is actually a really impactful strategy for driving online leads and conversions. SEO is the process of improving, or optimizing, web content so that it organically ranks higher when someone searches for a relevant keyword. It’s predicated on maximizing your site’s content in a way that speaks more effectively to search engine algorithms. Unlike paid search, you can control how successful you are at optimizing your site without buying advertisements.

Why does your business need content marketing and SEO?

The two biggest reasons why your business needs a content marketing and SEO plan are because both can be done without having to allocate advertising dollars and because these strategies allow you to provide tailored content to the audiences you’re most interested in reaching.

Content marketing examples

While it’s a bit tricky to showcase SEO examples, it’s important to highlight that content marketing can include SEO best practices. Here are some examples of content marketing pieces that fit that bill.