Should you focus more on quality content or SEO?
If you’re just getting started with a content marketing and/or search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you might wonder whether it’s more important to attract more traffic with SEO or perfect the quality of your content.
High-level, it’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg problem. Let’s say you have a highly effective SEO strategy that’s earning you thousands of unique visitors a month, but your content isn’t very compelling. Those visitors will likely bounce, or at least think less of your brand, ultimately making those visitors less valuable. Now flip things around; you have some of the best content on the web, but because you don’t have much incoming traffic, it’s not doing you much good.
That said, which is more important overall? And which should you focus on first?
The Impact of Content on SEO
First, it’s important to note that it’s very hard to build a solid SEO strategy without good content. High-quality content will help your site seem more authoritative in the eyes of Google and other search engines, and will be more likely to help you attract links, which will boost your authority further. For this reason, good content is an absolute must; it’s nearly impossible to carry an SEO strategy without it.
Substituting SEO
SEO is one of the most universally accessible and cost-effective marketing strategies available today, but it isn’t the only way you can generate traffic. You can also get more traffic to your site with paid advertising, a robust social media marketing strategy, and through other channels. Of course, these may take more time and/or money, but this also implies that having good content is more important than SEO. No matter which form of traffic generation you use, you’ll need to have a strong anchor to keep those visitors interested in your brand (and possibly pulled toward your calls-to-action, or CTAs).
Creating Good Content
No matter which way you look at it, high-quality content should be your first priority, though it can’t succeed unsupported. If you need help developing better content for your brand, or promoting the content you already have, contact us for a free consultation today!