Content Marketing or SEO: Do you have your equation in place?

“Just create great content.”

It’s a notion one has probably heard over and over again: the idea that the solution to every business’s search engine problems is to focus on creating content that the audience and the potential client loves.

In the words of Matt Cutts, head of Google’s web spam team,

“Even if you do brain-dead stupid things and shoot yourself in the foot, but have good content, we still want to return it.”

That’s like, 2+2=4! Straight and simple.

Create content and publish. Paying for SEO is needless, for SEO is dead!!

Or, is it??

What is search optimization, actually?

SEO basically deals with two different elements of ranking well in search engines: the technical side like coding and ease of crawlability, and the on-page factors in the form of keywords and content.

The technical elements clearly indicate why SEO remains so important in an era where content marketing is usually and largely considered the golden goose.

What most people know about SEO is, you need links to rank well and that is where the initial push for content marketing came from. But, that’s not about it.

A greater share of an SEO’s job is to ensure, your site is built in a Google-friendly manner that is in a way such that Google can access and crawl your content seamlessly. And this is where things like clean code, avoiding use of Flash/heavy JavaScript and anything else that might veil a search crawler’s ability to read what’s on your site comes to play.

And, it’s more than just that!

In addition to making websites accessible to both users and search engines and improving things like site speed, an SEO also needs understand how to organize your content and arrange it so that Google can properly interpret its topicality and determine its relevance.

SEOs play more of a content strategy role in such cases, helping you figure out what needs to be created.

Content Marketing isn't just SEO, you mean?

It is… and it isn’t.

Tricky, is it? It is, indeed!

Content marketing is a comprehensive way to build links and influence onsite metrics, both of which being essentials of SEO that significantly impact rankings.

With the passage of time, SEOs realized their manipulative ways of building links could mean inviting trouble.

Enter content marketing.

Content marketing was looked to as a new form of link building — a way to naturally attract links without firing down Google’s spleen.

 Online marketers today have realised that rankings and links are just one of the many functions, and not all of content marketing. Actually, if the only reason you’re creating content is for SEO purposes, you've got the equation wrong, completely.

Content marketing is a great way to build links and also target keywords — two distinct SEO functions. But it’s also so much more: creating and capturing leads, nurturing leads, and building a brand above all!

 Great SEO is a part of what makes your content great, and great content is part of what makes for great SEO!

One isn’t good enough!

While a greater amount of potential in online marketing still remains untapped, the amount of awareness and investment in SEO and content marketing has accelerated dramatically over the past few years.

Content marketing and SEO can overlap and complement each other. But, neither of them is a suitable replacement for the other. And, the reason is simple: each of them helps you achieve equally important though separate goals.

 “Just create great content.”

The next time someone says so, sit back and smile. If content is considered the king, SEO is the throne! And, a king is absolutely nothing without a throne to sit on!!