Now let’s take a look at how an SEO campaign can fit in and work with a content marketing strategy for manufacturers. If you’re implementing a content marketing strategy, you’ll already be halfway there.
There are two fundamental components to any SEO strategy, and you’ll need a solid balance of both to be successful: onsite optimization and offsite optimization.
Onsite optimization includes:
· Quality written content (like that posted in a content marketing campaign), optimized with chosen keywords
· Meta data throughout the site, including title tags, meta tags, and alt tags, that is updated with chosen keywords
· Indexed pages and microformatting that registers your site with search engines directly.
Offsite optimization includes:
· Backlinking, which includes posting links to your site from external pages. Backlinks on authoritative pages, such as government sites and university sites, are the best
· Link juicing, essentially having a chain of links that point back to your site
· Offsite content, which features chosen keywords and backlinks
Combining these two strategies is the best way to achieve your desired results. However, keyword selection is also a critical phase. Some keywords will take weeks to rank for, and others will take years.
To find the best keywords for your brand, you’re going to look at two factors: search volume and competition rating. The search volume is the average number of times a keyword phrase is searched for over a given period of time. The competition rating is the number of competitors currently trying to rank for that keyword.
The ideal keywords are the ones with a high search volume and a low competition—words that will be easy to rank for, and carry high visibility. Unfortunately, those words are hard to come by. Generally, the higher the search volume associated with a keyword, the harder it is to rank for. It takes a discerning eye to find the gem keywords that will get you the most traffic in the shortest amount of time.
That being said, like with any investment strategy, you’ll need to diversify your portfolio. Choose 10-15 keywords to start out with, ranging from low competition and low search volume to high competition and high search volume. Experiment with these words for a few months, see how they perform, and make adjustments to your SEO campaign accordingly.
A word of caution: not all SEO strategies are created equal, and not all of them are tolerated by major search engines. Google is notorious for weeding out companies and individuals who take advantage of “black hat” practices, schemes and tricks that are designed only to improve a page’s rank. These include tactics like keyword stuffing and backlink spamming, but if you’re posting quality content and being reasonable with your linking, there’s no major reason to be concerned.
It’s possible to handle SEO on your own through a keyword-focused content marketing strategy and a syndication channel that focuses on backlink building, but your best bet on this is to work with an agency. There are a few reasons for this:
· Google Analytics is great, but you’ll need as much data insight as possible. The right agency will be able to provide you with tons of information you can use to set a direction and evaluate your performance.
· Google is a stickler for quality content and accurate results, and they make changes to their algorithms constantly, often with no advance warning. Unless you’re paying close attention, it’ll be hard for you to keep up and make strategy adjustments as needed.
· Costs are actually lower with an agency most of the time, since you’ll get the combined experience of several niche experts for a price less than hiring one person full time.
When working together, content marketing and SEO are a match made in heaven. Just remember, it takes time for these strategies to pay off. Over the first few months, it may seem like you’re not building any significant momentum, but by the end of the first year, you’ll be seeing returns far higher than what you’ve invested in them.
