3 Tips for Better Aligning B2B Content Marketing & SEO in 2017. As every search marketer knows, content is critical in driving SEO efforts. In an ideal world, your content and SEO strategy would align perfectly and you’d start seeing your content ranking for your target keywords overnight. As Andy outlined, you need to write about the topic, not just the keyword. In doing so, it’s important to find the words and phrases that are semantically connected to the target keyword and use those in your content. For content marketers, this means we’ve got to start adapting our content for natural language – and fast. As a content writer working in search marketing, you need to keep up with the trends happening in search. Client-Facing This becomes slightly more complicated when you work at a B2B search engine marketing agency and regularly write about not only your own industry, but your clients’ industries as well. Attend an industry conference or tradeshow where you connect with your clients’, their vendors and/or customers, industry publications, etc. These are all, of course, valid questions, but, unfortunately, the answer always is: “It depends.” The truth is it just takes time to see the results of SEO and B2B content marketing efforts.
As every search marketer knows, content is critical in driving SEO efforts. Whether you’re looking to improve traffic, drive conversions, or acquire links, you need quality content in place to help get you there.
As noted by Neil Patel, content marketing and SEO are like peanut butter and jelly. You can eat them on their own, but they complement each other so well.
to go with this analogy.
In an ideal world, your content and SEO strategy would align perfectly and you’d start seeing your content ranking for your target keywords overnight.
But, as we well know, this is far from an ideal world.
So let’s explore what you can do to match up your B2B content marketing and SEO, making them into a delicious pairing, the kind you could just gobble up and eat.
Here’s a look at 3 tips for creating smarter content in 2017:
Understand & Educate Yourself on the Factors in Search
Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to attend Andy Crestodina’s webinar, “The Future of SEO: 5 Ways to Adapt Your Content for 2017.”
So, what were the 5 ways he outlined for adapting your content in 2017?
Like I’m going to tell you – go listen to the webinar!
Just kidding.
While I’d certainly encourage you to check out the webinar in full (in addition to Andy’s accompanying blog post on Curata), here are a couple of the main points he touched on for adapting your content in the new year:
Semantic Search
As defined by Techopedia, semantic search “is a data searching technique in which a search query aims to not only find keywords, but to determine the intent and contextual meaning of the words a person is using for search.”
Okay, but what does this actually mean in the context of content creation?
What it basically means is that, when you create content, you have to present the information in a way that’s easy for the searcher to find and easy for the search engine to find.
But how?
As Andy outlined, you need to write about the topic, not just the keyword. In doing so, it’s important to find the words and phrases that are semantically connected to the target keyword and use those in your content.
One of the easiest places to find this information is to simply look at the bottom of Google. An article on Ironman cat toys? Yes, please!
Natural Language
Gartner research shows, within four years, 30% of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen. Say what?
For content marketers, this means we’ve got to start adapting our content for natural language – and fast.
During the webinar, Andy outlined three key ways to get your content ready for the wave of the future:
- Be very deliberate about your sentence structure and include
complete questions in your content writing - Write complete, full-sentence answers in your articles
- Use long, specific phrases in your titles and headers
The reason for this is simple: If you want to get your content out in front of your readers’ eyeballs, you need to provide the type of question-and-answer-based material users and search engines alike are looking for.
Think of it this way: People want answers to their questions fast, and it’s your job to provide it in a format that allows Google to get it to them.
In fact, Andy pointed out that writing content in this type of...
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