Is there a difference between content marketing and SEO?

Some people say content marketing is the new SEO. What’s the difference? Is it right for your business?

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is using things you’ve written to promote your business. These assets could be articles or blog posts. They could also be infographics or white papers. It might seem on your website or someone else’s. These aim to offer content your potential customers find helpful as they journey down the buying path that leads to your company’s services.

What is SEO?

I define SEO as “answering questions people are asking through the search engines.” When it comes to a business, SEO is connecting your potential customers with the answers your business has to the questions or problems people are asking through the search engines.

Content Marketing is Part of SEO

You can start to see how content marketing and SEO come together. An essential part of answering a question is providing content. “Where can I buy an AX-21 Mark 2 Green Widget?” is a question a customer might ask. If your company sells that part number, you’ll need content on your website that states this if you want to get that sale.

This tactic works when it comes to services, as well. When a potential customer asks Google, “Where can I find a logistics consultant near Atlanta?” the SEO campaign should ensure you have that on your website to show your company has that answer.

SEO is More than Content Marketing

There’s more to SEO than just publishing the right content on a website. SEO advocates for the search engine and ensures it can crawl and read your website’s content. SEO also ensures other relevant websites link to your website to build authority. This is often done with content, but you could do content marketing and forget about the importance of backlinks.

Content Marketing is More than SEO

A successful content marketing campaign can do more than SEO. It’s able to build a brand. Content marketing can also generate interest in a new product or service (something SEO is very poor at doing). While SEO is about your website, content marketing extends beyond websites into social media and even e-books (or, heck, print books).

Good Content Marketing is Good SEO- and Vice Versa

• Although you could make a strict distinction between these two marketing channels, they both need each other.
• Your content marketing team can write the best blog post ever in your industry, but if they don’t talk with the SEO team to ensure that search engines can read it, it will fall on deaf ears.
• Your content marketing team can get the most-respected blog in your industry to talk about your company. If your SEO team can turn that into a link, you’ll also get even more from that article (the best blog post can never drive as much traffic as ranking better on the search engines will bring).
• SEO is great at introducing new customers to your business, but when combined with a positive brand experience from your content marketing team, you’ll be able to develop an excited customer base for repeat business.
• SEO produces content for a website based on how potential customers might search the web. Sometimes, content marketers forget to use this data. Think about how much better the content marketing would be if they wrote it in light of search engine query data!

Will Content Marketing Help Your Business?

• Do you have a long buying cycle? If so, you’ll probably want to engage in a content marketing campaign to help people through the buying funnel.
• Do people know and trust your brand, or do they just buy from the first, cheapest option they can find? Content marketing can help establish a credible brand, which will encourage repeat customers—even if you don’t happen to be the least expensive option.
• Is your service new or niche? If so, you might need a content marketing campaign to drum up interest or introduce people to a new concept.

Let’s not make too hard a distinction between SEO and content marketing- so they can work together for the good of your company.