If you’ve had any degree of involvement with the online marketing world during the past decade, you’ve more than likely heard of the terms “content marketing” and “SEO”. These oft-repeated terms refer to two of the most powerful tools in any company’s digital marketing arsenal.

While they are sometimes used in the same context and refer to similar strategies, there are significant differences between the two. So why do people talk so much about SEO and content marketing? Well, according to the U.S Department of Commerce, 53% of all internet users worldwide made a purchase online in 2016.

The importance of these tools is further highlighted by the fact that 70% of consumers want to gain information about products and services via content rather than traditional advertisement methods. SEO and content marketing are two interwoven strategies aimed at boosting online sales and getting the maximum benefit out of both requires a keen understanding of their core concepts.

In this blog, we’ll explain what SEO and content marketing are, their differences, and where they overlap.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization refers to a number of processes that are aimed are directing traffic from popular search engines such as Google and Bing towards a website. By doing so, the objective is to boost a website’s ranking in relation to a number of keywords which make finding a website much easier. The increased traffic, in turn, leads to increased sales and increased sales translate to increased profits.

According to Hubspot, 72% of consumers that carried out local searches proceeded to visit a store of choice within five miles. By incorporating effective SEO strategies, it becomes easier for prospective customers to find your business online and your website performs better as compared to other, non-optimized websites.

In short, there’s a link between increased sales and ranking high on search engine pages, which is the end result of engaging in successful SEO efforts.

Content Marketing

When it comes to content marketing, the primary focus is on creating high-quality and original content. Content marketers strive to find the right balance between creating content that is both useful and practical for customers without being overly assertive or boring.

The content should spark interest in its readers and should be valuable enough for consumers to consider going business with your company based on the information they just consumed. These days, content can take various forms including articles, blogs, infographics, videos, whitepapers, and podcasts.

The approach content marketing takes is to offer a product, service, or information for free with the hopes that if the customer comes back for more or demands an upgrade, your business can claim a price for its offerings.

The following are some interesting statistics about content marketing.

• 17% of all businessesplan to add podcasts as part of their marketing efforts.
• By 2021, video advertisement is expected to grow into a $22 billion dollar industry, according to eMarketer.
• Almost 64% of consumers claim that watching a video on Facebook related to marketing has influenced their purchasing decisions, according to Animoto.

The Differences between Content Marketing and SEO

The following are a few factors that differentiate content marketing and SEO:

The Audience

Content is always created keeping the target audience in mind. Everything from the graphics to the format is designed in a way to attract the most number of visitors. While page optimization is still a matter of key importance, it shouldn’t be carried out in a way that detracts customers from the content.

On the other hand, SEO requires a proper understanding of how a search engine and its crawler work. This includes knowing the different weights given to factors such as title tags, keywords, headers, and other various code-related elements.

The Approach

SEO takes a more analytical approach when it comes to fine-tuning your marketing campaigns. You’ll have to rely on Google Analytics for insights, research keywords, and attempt to gain an understanding of how search engine crawlers work to formulate the best data-driven strategy.

Since human visitors aren’t nearly as scientific or precise, content marketing depends more on creativity rather than rigid processes. You’ll need to create and market something truly unique to stand out from the crowd.

The Value

Both SEO and content marketing have their own unique ways of adding value to a marketing strategy and the website as a whole. SEO serves to generate qualified traffic to the website whereas content marketing seeks to retain the attention of those visitors once they arrive in the hopes of turning them into customers.

Where SEO and Content Marketing Overlap

SEO and content marketing share the same implicit goal, which is to attract more people to your website. The relationship between the two unfolds in the following ways:

• Content marketing introduces new pages:New content means new pages that can be ranked and indexed by Google. While quantity isn’t really the goal of content marketing, it does provide for newer opportunities to target a greater number of prospects.

• Content is the medium for keywords: Content marketing is an easy way to introduce different keywords throughout the website or target those niches that are appealing to the target audience.
• Quality content increases authority: It’s simple, if you post quality content, people will start considering you an authority. And the more credibility you manage to build, the higher up the rankings you’ll go thus opening the window for targeting a greater number of potential customers.

On the flip side, effective SEO will help grant your content visibility much faster. If your organic traffic rates are already growing, this will boost your readership ratings much faster.

There are a number of digital marketing agencies out there that can help improve your online marketing efforts. Some are good at SEO whereas others excel at content marketing. However, there are only a few that can provide both services with a proven track record and affordable rates— one such company is Devebyte

Devebyte is a digital marketing agency Edmonton that offers Content marketing, SEO, Facebook Advertisement, and Google AdWord services for businesses looking to take their marketing efforts to the next level. Contact us today for more information.