The key to successful SEO-based content marketing is realizing that you are not trying to produce content that YOU want your audience to see, but rather to produce content that YOUR AUDIENCE wants to see. A subtle but critical difference. Figuring out how to take your message and frame it in a way that lines up with how your audience is searching for it is the foundation of this approach.
The power of SEO-based content marketing lies not in the flash-in-the-pan, but rather in the push of the flywheel. Each keyword tweaked and piece of content published adds momentum until you have got a juggernaut of traffic generation. However, like any flywheel, little pushes are continually needed to maintain what has been built. This is not a “set it and forget it” strategy, but then, no successful plans are.
The beauty for me is the near infinite flexibility. This is not like being offered a choice between a yellow car and a blue truck, but more like being offered everything from a unicycle to the Space Shuttle. Blog posts, features, itineraries, videos, podcasts, infographs; on your channels or on outside channels… three of one, two of another and ten of the third. Each campaign is bespoke, tailored to the exact needs and goals of the client.
The elegance of SEO-content marketing lies in its subtly. The saying used to be that “Content is King.” But before the first piece of content is written or even conceptualized, the right keywords need to be chosen. In SEO, the keyword is King. Small variations can make all the difference. For example, the keyword “theme parks” may be searched for about 40k times a month, not bad, but the term “amusement parks” might be searched about 165k times a month. So, if you are optimizing your content around the former instead of the latter, you are potentially missing out on thousands of visitors a month.
The joy comes in the unexpected moments. When you find the unforeseen oddity or opportunity in the most unlikely of places. For example, you are a destination on the east coast, but finding out that your largest organic search competitor is a toilet paper factory in Boston! True story.
The satisfaction of SEO-based content marketing is the ability to affect change in a measurable way. Information is power and the ability to develop and execute a plan driven by real-world data and being able to see and report on, in a quantitative way, how we’ve moved the needle on our target KPIs is incredibly satisfying.
I am passionate about SEO-content marketing not because it is new or trending, but because it works. Time and time again, it works.
Lance Harrell, Owner/SEO Specialist