No copywriter or content marketing specialist is going to tell a client, ‘no, we don’t know anything about SEO’. It would be a sure way to lose business. However, hiring a content writer or a content marketing agency and then taking their word that their work is paying off in search engine rankings isn’t a good idea either. Just as you would check in on your retirement account to make sure it’s making money, you should check in on your SEO results.
First, let’s back up a step and define ‘content marketing’. The term is thrown around a lot, but essentially it means creating content (articles, case studies, videos etc.) with the aim of telling your story and gathering interest. Generally, you’re looking to gain users, leads, customers or partnerships. Those tangible goals start with more users on the site and more conversations thanks to your content.
So how does SEO figure into a content marketing strategy? If your content isn’t found via search engines you’re probably missing out on a big piece of the available value of the content. An average site gets over 70% of it’s traffic from search engines (mostly Google), so if your content marketing agency is publishing content that isn’t optimized, you’re not getting the most out of the effort.
How can you check up on your content based SEO progress? Take stock of your rankings and search engine traffic before you kick off your new marketing effort and then check in regularly afterward. Don’t settle for vague, ‘rankings are up’ information, look at the content that was created. Did it have strong keyword targets? Did your rankings for those keywords rise? How does the content contribute to your business goals?
Like any investment you want to make sure it’s worth your time and money. If the value can’t be seen in 90 days or so, it’s time to reevaluate the strategy, the team executing that strategy or both. If you have questions about a current content marketing strategy or plans for a future one, get in touch. We’re happy to answer questions.