9 Content Marketing SEO Tips For Content Teams

What Is a B2B Content Marketing Funnel & How Do I Create One?

SEO Content Marketing (How To Use SEO & Content Marketing Together)

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Navigating the B2B content marketing funnel can feel like trying to find your way through a maze. You've got a great product or service, but how do you make sure your content gets seen by the right people? That's where SEO comes in. By optimizing your content with the right keywords and phrases, you can improve your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages and ultimately drive more traffic to your website. We'll share some of our favorite content marketing SEO tips to help you get started.

Feather's notion to blog can help you measure the success of your content marketing efforts by providing insights into how your content is performing.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a smart way to attract and keep customers by sharing useful stuff like:

Articles

Videos

Images

It’s different from traditional ads because it focuses on what the audience wants and needs. This strategy helps businesses connect with people in a meaningful way. It’s about giving them what they’re looking for, whether how-to guides or interesting stories about your brand. Content marketing is more than just pushing products; it’s about being there for customers throughout their journey.

Why Customers Prefer Content Over Ads

People are tired of ads everywhere. With so much information out there, it’s easy for messages to get lost. Content marketing is different because it creates high-quality content that gently promotes a business’s offerings.

It’s about building trust and delivering value. During the pandemic, content usage increased by 207%, which is expected to continue. More businesses are planning to post content more often and improve its quality. The key is finding the right mix of content marketing to grab attention.

The Connection Between Content Marketing And Seo

Content marketing and SEO are like two sides of the same coin. Creating great content that’s helpful, well-researched, and relevant benefits readers and search engines.

When you optimize your content for what people are searching for, it shows search engines that your brand is knowledgeable and trustworthy. Use best practices like choosing a main keyword, related terms, meta descriptions, and image alt tags. This way, your content stands out to both search engines and users.

How Content Marketing Engages Customers

Content marketing centers a brand’s message on customers. Instead of bombarding them with ads, it provides valuable content that engages them.

It follows them from the awareness phase to the decision phase. Businesses can benefit consumers by offering helpful resources like how-to guides and story-based ads.

Content Creation in Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing Content Management

SEO Content Marketing

Why Is Content Marketing Important

Content Marketing in B2B

Content Marketing for SaaS

Content Marketing Inbound

Optimized Content Marketing

SEO Content Marketing Strategy

9 Content Marketing SEO Tips For Content Teams

To succeed in SEO content marketing, it’s essential to follow best practices aligning with search engine algorithms and audience needs. Here’s a breakdown of key strategies to enhance your content’s search performance and make it valuable for your target audience:

1. Know Who Your Customers Are

Companies must ensure they understand their audience and know how to engage with them. Customer segmentation allows companies to build detailed views of their customers with buyer personas.

These personas help the company understand its customers and identify the types of content that will best resonate with different customer segments. By activating and acting on these personas, a company can successfully communicate with its audience, build trust, and find new customers.

2. Figure Out What Information They’ll Need

The next step is determining what information is necessary to connect customers with your:

Product

Brand

Service

Identify your audience’s pain points better to understand their priorities, challenges, and preferences. Your content marketing strategy should answer common questions and solve your audience’s problems. The better your content solves a problem, the more likely your audience will engage with you.

3. Research And Plan Content With Keywords In Mind

Start by researching keywords that resonate with what your audience is actively searching for. Tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs can help identify high-value keywords, uncovering phrases that reflect your readers' language.

By doing keyword research, you can ensure that:

Your content speaks directly to your audience's needs.

Your content aligns with search intent, whether users want to learn, purchase, or solve a problem.

You drive relevant traffic to your site, increasing the chances of engagement and conversions.

For example, if your website offers project management software, identify keywords related to specific features, benefits, or pain points your audience might look for, like “task management for remote teams” or “project collaboration tool.”

4. Prioritize High-Quality Content

Quality content that meets user needs is essential for ranking well. Google favors relevant and authoritative content, so creating helpful, in-depth resources can improve your visibility. Use Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) to ensure your content is comprehensive and reliable:

Experience: Share firsthand insights or data that show you understand the topic from direct experience.

Expertise: Demonstrate strong subject knowledge. Readers and search engines alike prefer sources that show clear expertise.

Authoritativeness: Position your content as authoritative by covering a topic thoroughly across multiple pages and earning links from reputable sites.

Trustworthiness: Build trust by being accurate, transparent, and consistent across all published material.

Consider interviewing internal experts for unique insights or conducting original research that provides fresh data to the audience. Original perspectives and research set you apart from competitors and increase the likelihood of backlinks and shares.

5. Write Comprehensive, In-Depth Content

Cover each topic in depth to establish authority and provide readers with all the information they need in one place. This makes your content a “one-stop” resource, reducing the need for readers to seek additional sources. Comprehensive articles rank well and encourage readers to stay on your page longer, indirectly boosting SEO.

For example, if you’re writing about “project management tools for small businesses,” break down each feature, compare different tools, and cover FAQs.

6. Set a Schedule

Your business must consistently release content to attract regular traffic and search engine crawlers. Creating a posting schedule can help you do this, but be realistic.

It’s easy to be overly ambitious, so start with one blog post or video weekly. Remember that overnight success isn’t possible with content marketing, so it will take time to gather enough data to see if your posting schedule is adequate.

7. Set a Budget

While content marketing is one of the most affordable forms of marketing, it isn’t free. Businesses should always set a budget for their content marketing initiatives so they can measure return on investment (ROI). To control your spending, create a budget for hiring freelancers, buying content tools, and running paid ads.

8. Distribute Content Across Multiple Channels

Once your content is published, distributing it effectively helps maximize reach and engagement. Using various channels ensures that different audience segments encounter your content at multiple points in their journey. Here are some effective distribution methods:

Social Ads: Platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook allow targeted ads, helping you reach niche audiences with specific interests.

Email Newsletters: Send content directly to subscribers and segment lists based on interests or behavior, ensuring each group receives the most relevant content.

Organic Social Media: Platforms like LinkedIn and X (formerly Twitter) are ideal for sharing updates and engaging directly with followers. Follower interaction can increase content visibility within their networks.

9. Analyze Performance and Optimize

Regularly analyzing content performance is essential to refine your SEO strategy. Tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics provide insights into which pages drive traffic, how users interact with content, and what might need improvement. This analysis allows you to:

Track organic search performance and keyword rankings.

Measure user engagement metrics like bounce rate and time on page.

Identify areas to update content, adjust keywords, or create complementary content to address new topics or trends.

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How Content Marketing Helps SEO

How Content Marketing Drives Sales

Content Strategy for Inbound Marketing

End-to-End Content Marketing

How Do You Integrate SEO Into Your Content

Types of Content Marketing

B2B Content Marketing Types

How To Do Content Marketing Competitor Analysis

How To Measure Content Marketing Success

SEO Content Marketing Strategy

Optimized Content Marketing

For your content to rank well, it should meet or surpass reader expectations and outdo the pages already occupying the top spots in the search results. Build your strategy around the following components to tailor content to user queries and drive traffic to your site.

2. Target audience

The first step of SEO content writing is to know who you’re writing for. What are their pain points? Where do they look for information? Do they prefer short-form videos or in-depth articles? Align your content to your customers, and deliver your message in a resonant tone.

3. Industry niche

SEO content strategies vary depending on the industry. Research the keywords customers use when searching for products and services and the keywords your competitors target.

Landscapers

Event planners

Plumbers

Realtors

Automobile mechanics

Must focus on local SEO. Businesses in the health and finance sectors that publish YMYL, or “your money, your life,” topics need to be attentive to quality and subject matter expertise due to the impact their advice can have.

4. Search intent

A good SEO content strategy focuses on keywords and the meaning behind them. Understanding search intent ensures you shape content to answer a user’s questions.

For example, a cosmetics company targeting the keyword “moisturizer with retinol” should determine if someone using this phrase wants general information about the product’s benefits or already knows they want the product and are evaluating brands. A look at top-ranking pages or assistance from keyword research tools can help you determine search intent.

5. Content clusters

Sites Google considers reliable sources of content tend to rank better. Build your site’s topical authority to establish expertise. Instead of targeting random keywords, build purposeful content clusters and explore topics in-depth. These content clusters serve as your website’s core and help you grow an inventory of content that continually demonstrates knowledge about a specific topic.

6. Exceptional content

We’ve talked a lot about optimizing your website for Google, but it’s just as important to remember your content will be read by potential customers, business partners, and stakeholders. As mentioned earlier, focus your SEO content writing on original pieces that provide value to readers. Align your content with E-E-A-T guidelines and the objectives of the helpful content system.

7. Semrush’s 2024 Ranking Factors

The study examined the content of top-performing pages and found that relevancy and quality correlated most strongly with higher rankings. On average, the top 10 ranked pages have 90.6% text relevance and a 76.9% content quality score.

Keyword coverage came third at 67.8%. “Don’t waste your time obsessing over keyword count or updating content dates for the sake of making your content appear fresher,” the report advises. “Focus on the things that matter, which is creating content that covers its topic in a way that meets readers’ needs.”

8. Key performance indicators

Set goals so you can track the impact of your SEO content strategy and refine your tactics to improve performance. Choose KPIs that reflect what you want to achieve for example, the number of impressions can be a measure of brand awareness.

Common metrics include:

Traffic

Keyword rankings

Click-through rates

Session duration

Conversions

Determine your benchmarks and measure progress regularly.

Now that you know the ingredients of an impactful strategy, you’re ready to put the pieces together. Here’s how to create an effective SEO content strategy to increase search engine rankings and hit your business goals.

1. Understand Your Customers

The more precisely you know your target audience, the better you can tailor your campaign to meet their needs. This means understanding their needs, concerns, and motivations at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

For example, if you sell baked goods, determine if your audience is most interested in quality (organic), cost (affordability), or a solution to a problem (gluten-free). Create content to capture them at the awareness, consideration, and decision stages.

2. Research Keywords

Once you identify who you’re writing for, perform keyword research to find the search terms they’re most likely to use. Sort the keywords into topic clusters and begin building an SEO content strategy. You’ll want a mix of head and long-tail keywords.

For example, “artificial grass” is a head keyword that generates a high search volume, but it’s tough to rank for. You can aim for more precise long-tail keywords with lower search volumes. These keywords make it easier to gain visibility, such as “What are the benefits of artificial grass?”

Long-tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords also help you optimize for voice searches. People tend to be conversational when speaking to a voice assistant, saying, “What trees are native to Maryland?” instead of typing “Maryland trees” into a search engine. While SGE is still early, the preciseness of long-tail keywords may improve your chances of surfacing in AI-driven searches.

3. Plan Your Content

Look at your chosen keywords and choose the best format for each piece of content.

Blog posts are simple to publish and can be outsourced to an SEO content writing service to help you scale output.

Videos are helpful for product demonstrations, how-to guides, tutorials, presentations, and fun behind-the-scenes content.

Podcasts give your brand a personal touch and enable you to bring in experts and leverage their audiences.

Infographics are a visual way to deliver information and are easily shareable.

E-books share valuable expertise and can be used to generate marketing leads when gated.

Case studies show customers how your product or service makes a difference.

Interactive content, such as:

Mortgage calculators
Quizzes
Games
Polls
Interactive maps

4. Create a Content Calendar

Use an editorial calendar to plan the content rollout. This helps manage workflow and ensures everyone on the team works toward the same goals. It also ensures you don’t miss out on seasonal marketing opportunities in your industry. Build deadlines into your calendar for writing, editing, and publishing, assigning each task to a team member.

Prioritize pieces focusing on important core keywords first, and grow your content clusters later. If you don’t have the in-house resources to devote to content writing, consider a blog writing service to implement your strategy. Freelance writers can support your team when you need extra hands on deck or ensure a continuous content output to grow your blog steadily.

5. Ensure Content Can Be Crawled And Indexed

Before you publish, optimize each piece of content according to SEO best practices. Format content with headers, use metadata, add internal links, and ensure pages load quickly for desktop and mobile devices.

Remember, search engines can’t crawl webinars, videos, images, infographics, and other visual content. You can provide transcripts or written summaries to convey the meaning of content and help with indexing.

6. Develop An Off-Page Seo Strategy

Complement your SEO content strategy by building backlinks from third-party sites that are respected in your niche. There are a few ways to create these links:

Share your expertise by publishing guest posts that link back to your site.

Partner with influencers or businesses that may have the same target audience.

Add your site to directories with local chambers of commerce or business associations.

Make new content shareable on social media.

7. Engage Users

You should see increased organic traffic as your pages climb the search rankings. Make sure those who land on your site have a great user experience.

The site should be easy to navigate, visually appealing, and filled with relevant, interesting information. The more you engage users and the longer they stick around, the more likely you are to establish trust and brand awareness.

8. Track Performance

Set goals for your SEO content strategy and track your progress toward achieving them. You can monitor the impact of specific campaigns and compare quarterly or annual performances. Use the data to build on successes or refine your approach if performance needs to be improved.

For example, if a page ranks well but isn’t generating click-throughs, you might need to rewrite your meta title and description to be more compelling to readers. The content might fall short of reader expectations if a page has a high bounce rate.

9. Understand the Search Landscape

Search engines are continuously updating algorithms and ranking factors to better serve users. Read up on SEO with Crowd Content’s blog, and ensure you follow best practices. This helps you respond to changes in the search landscape as they occur and stay ahead of your competition.

10. Update Content Regularly

As the bar rises on quality SEO content, readers expect timely and accurate information when clicking through to sites. Regularly review your posts to ensure you’re providing the best information possible. Remove outdated information, use current statistics, and fix broken links.

How to Measure Content Marketing Success

Set Goals That Matter

Start by pinpointing what you want to achieve with your content. Whether it’s:

Boosting brand awareness

Generating leads

Driving sales

Your goals should guide your entire strategy. Define specific, measurable objectives that tie directly to business outcomes. This alignment ensures that your efforts lead to meaningful results.

Pick the Right KPIs

With clear goals, choose key performance indicators that will help you track progress. If you’re focusing on brand awareness, monitor metrics like impressions, reach, shares, and search volume for brand terms.

Focus on conversions, form submissions, and new email sign-ups for lead generation. E-commerce goals can track revenue directly from content. The right KPIs will show how your content is moving the needle.

Use the Right Tools

Check your client’s existing analytics tools to see what’s already used. Platforms like:

Google Analytics

Search Console

Social media analytics

Can be gold mines for insights. Identify any gaps and consider additional tracking tools if necessary. This ensures you use the best options to monitor your content KPIs effectively.

Analyze and Optimize

Regularly analyzing performance data helps you understand what’s working and what’s not. Look for trends over time to identify high-performing content and areas that need improvement. If something’s not hitting the mark, figure out why and adjust. Use these insights to consistently refine your content types, formats, and topics.

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