The digital marketing landscape has changed drastically over the years, and yet search engine optimisation (SEO) remains one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies.

What is SEO or Search Engine Optimisation? 

SEO refers to techniques that help your website rank higher in organic (or “natural”) search results. That means helping your website to be found via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, etc.

Rand Fishkin, founder and former CEO of Moz, defines search engine optimization as “the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of the traffic that you earn through the organic results in search engines” (Moz).

All the major search engines display the most relevant search results on the first page. And we all know how much everybody wants to be on that first page.

The search engines list and rank based on their “secret” algorithm of what is most relevant to the users search query.

What is a search query?

• Search queries are the words typed into the search box
• SEO navigates the Internet for users – mapping out search
• Search engines are smart – but still need our help to ensure our website is found
• They can read only programming code for example HTML, not images
• Searches tend to be: I want to do something? (do); I need to go to? (go) or I need to know how to do this! (know)

As a business you need to understand where customer pain aligns with the solutions your business provides. You’ll need to know what content appeals to your target audience. If they are looking to solve a problem that your business can solve your content will help you be found.

Content marketing and SEO

Marketers know that having a website that generates traffic is normally one of the top priorities.

If you are going to achieve higher search rankings and keep visitors coming back you will need quality over quantity of content. A high volume of traffic does not necessary mean more conversions.

Content marketing is the creation and promotion of online materials with the goal of increasing interest in your products and services. Generating qualified visitor traffic to your website to acquire sales leads to be nurtured into customers.

For content to be a lead magnet, it needs to be relevant, dynamic (fresh) and high quality.

Recently businesses have been shifting to long tail keywords, as people are typing whole sentences into the search engines.

Traditionally we used to think of search words as just a few keywords but this can be costly. Using phrases or sentences means less traffic but those that come are far more likely to have intent to buy.

Read more about how to create content that wows …

Long tail keywords

Source(Josh Steimle – Forbes)

Rising up the search page rankings on your own merits, by driving organic traffic doesn’t happen overnight. But it does have benefits and it does take a lot of hard work.

Times are changing fast, whereas content was historically built around keyword performance to optimise your SEO. Today, it’s more effective to produce content that adds value and provides context to what you are writing for search.

Write content for humans not robots …

• By creating content that is high quality, compelling, and relevant, you’ll engage visitors and build trust
• When content resonates with someone, it feels personal and authentic – hopefully to be shared
• Adding proper structure to your content is essential to optimising performance
• Understanding the limitations of search engines allows you to build and format content to be read
• Without proper SEO a website will be invisible to visitors

It’s easy to get tied up with the detail, especially with SEO – take a step back, focus on what you can influence, and avoid those things that “hurt” your SEO.

Content and SEO are a match made in heaven, identify how you can get them working together. And of course make sure that when you get a visitor they arrive on a site ripe for conversion.

Takeaway

Do you think that SEO can help improve your onsite conversion rates? Do you have any tips or insight into helping SEO and content work together? Let us know your thoughts.

We are Google certified and have lots of experience helping our clients map their journey towards inbound and SEO success. Whether that be research relevant keywords in English or Swedish, setting up PPC ad accounts or helping you develop a digital marketing strategy.

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