No matter where you are in your ecommerce journey, you’ve probably heard the terms “content marketing” and “search engine optimization (SEO)” mentioned at least a time or two.
Though they have several differences, both strategies are crucial for attracting more visitors to your website and achieving success in ecommerce today.
Learning how the two relate and work together as part of your overall digital marketing strategy ensures that you’re getting the most out of your efforts.
As you develop a plan for your brand’s content marketing, your goal should be to share content that’ll boost your ecommerce site’s organic traffic, ensuring that it’s high quality and sustainable for the long term.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing works very differently from traditional marketing, which involves advertising and marketing involving formats like print, television, radio, telephone, and direct mail.
Though many companies still utilize these more traditional methods, content marketing has become increasingly important in connecting with audiences, especially in ecommerce.
Content marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on crafting and sharing unique, useful content on a consistent basis for a specific group of consumers.
Instead of advertising your products, you’re offering people helpful information that’s related to the issues that they might be facing.
By regularly supplying information that benefits your audience, you’re building trust in your brand. When it comes time for them to make a purchase, they’ll be much more likely to shop with you.
When designing a content marketing strategy for your online store, you may have to experiment a bit to find what types of content marketing work best for your business.
Some of the forms of content marketing most commonly used by brands include blogs, videos, infographics, eBooks, podcasts, social media, and testimonials.
The benefits of content marketing are numerous, such as boosting traffic, brand awareness, and customer conversions. If you haven’t already begun incorporating content marketing in your efforts to grow your business, now’s the time to get started!
In fact, Statista found in a 2019 survey of marketers around the world that 91% were already using content marketing to promote their businesses.
If you aren’t yet taking advantage of this method to connect with consumers, you’ll likely find yourself falling behind the competition.
What is SEO?
When we talk about SEO, we mean the process of enhancing a website to boost its visibility when people are searching for relevant keywords on the internet.
Greater visibility means that search engines, such as Google, will display the site higher up on the search engine results page (SERP). As most internet users tend to only click on sites found on the first page of results, you can see why a high ranking is advantageous!
Brands use SEO to increase not only the quantity but also the quality of traffic to their websites. The aim is to attract visitors who are more likely to convert into paying customers.
Because this approach doesn’t cost money, this type of traffic is commonly referred to as “organic,” “free,” or “natural” traffic.
Google has a complicated search algorithm that uses a number of factors to determine how it ranks websites. It examines items related to the authority and relevancy of a site, including keyword usage, backlinks, content length, readability, page loading speed, and more.
Similar to content marketing, coming up with a top-notch SEO strategy is going to involve some trial and error, and it can take some time to see the fruits of your labor. However, rest assured that the results are worth it!
A 2018 poll by Search Engine Journal determined that for 49% of respondents, organic search was the digital marketing channel that provided the highest return on investment (ROI).
Where do content marketing and SEO overlap?
Although content marketing and SEO are two separate strategies, they actually have quite a bit in common. Understanding their similarities can make your efforts more efficient in both.
High-quality content is key for content marketing and SEO alike. Some time ago, sites could rank reasonably high on SERPs with short blog articles based on their target keywords.
However, keyword stuffing is now a thing of the past, and brief articles will no longer get you where you want to be SEO-wise.
Today, successful content marketing and SEO both require useful content that provides audiences with real value. The better your content, the more chances you have of getting backlinks to your site.
In addition, people are more likely to share your content on social media if they feel a connection to your posts.
Furthermore, consistent output is key for content marketing and SEO alike.
You’ll need to be sharing content regularly to keep your audience engaged and attract new visitors to your site. Consistent content boosts your authority, which then improves your SEO.
Despite the commonalities that the two strategies share, there are differences too, particularly regarding some of the technical aspects of SEO.
For instance, your website’s crawlability with search engines can impact how it ranks on SERPs but won’t really affect how successful your content marketing efforts are.
Nevertheless, other technical aspects of SEO, including your site’s loading speed, security, number of dead links, and responsiveness, can affect the user experience. This means that these SEO elements can therefore also impact your content marketing results.
While it’s true that there’s a lot to consider with SEO, there’s less that you need to worry about when you opt to use the WiziShop online store builder.
That’s because we take care of all the technical parts of SEO for you.
Yep, all of the aforementioned technical aspects and more are managed by us, leaving you more time to focus on other areas of your business!
Ways content marketing improves SEO
Note that your main aim for your content marketing doesn’t need to be to boost your SEO. However, when used effectively, content marketing naturally improves SEO in a number of specific ways.
1. High-quality content generates backlinks
First-rate, useful content is absolutely essential to good content marketing. It can build trust in your brand and help increase engagement with your audience.
Note that if you share false information or always use your posts to advertise your product, though, potential customers may lose interest quickly.
This can then also have a negative effect on your SEO. Furthermore, if you write a rather lackluster, 300-word piece on a topic that’s not incredibly interesting to readers, it probably won’t get you many links back to your store.
In contrast, when you create valuable content that resonates with people, other websites are more likely to link back to yours. These backlinks are important, as they demonstrate to Google that you know what you’re talking about and improve your site’s domain authority (DA).
The greater your DA, the greater relevance that Google believes your website to have, rewarding you by placing your site higher up on the list of search results.
2. More content gives you more opportunities to rank well for keywords
Keywords are important for SEO because when you use the ones that people are most frequently searching for, it makes your site appear more relevant.
As we saw in the point above, an increase in perceived relevance can help your site rank higher with search engines. Unfortunately, you’re generally limited in the number of keywords that your store can utilize in product descriptions and your homepage alone.
Creating additional content via blogs, how-to guides, infographics, and other formats provides you with more space to use those keywords that can help describe what your website is about.
In addition, this allows you to use more keywords that are related to popular search topics, which will definitely catch Google’s eye also.
Say that you sell fresh flower arrangements, for instance. If you want to target “wedding flowers,” there’s only so many times you could use that phrase before you’re heading into keyword-stuffing territory.
However, writing an engaging article on the “Top 7 Flower Trends for Summer Weddings in 2021” or a helpful guide on “How to Choose the Best Wedding Flowers for Your Personality” can expand your reach extensively.
3. Google is a fan of longer pieces of content
When you read tips on how to tackle your content marketing, you’ll often have experts stating that the quality of your content is more important than quantity.
A 10,000-word article probably isn’t going to be very appealing to your customers if it’s poorly structured and filled with useless information.
Nevertheless, it’s important to note that search engines tend to favor content that’s on the longer end of the spectrum. A 2020 study by Backlinko found that organic search results on the first page of Google have, on average, 1,447 words.
Your ideal word count is going to vary, of course, based on the type of content you’re sharing along with the topic.
For example, you may be able to write a captivating, informative article on a very specific topic using between 1,200 and 2,000 words. However, a guide that requires a lot more detail is likely going to need 4,000+ words.
4. Great content keeps visitors interested in staying on your site
Think about the last new website you visited. If you couldn’t locate what you were looking for or didn’t think the landing page’s content was very compelling, you probably left the site in a matter of seconds.
Today’s consumers are used to instant gratification when it comes to anything on the internet and can be quick to leave if a page doesn’t meet their needs or expectations.
When somebody visits a website and exits quickly without checking out other pages, this is known as a “bounce.” Note that a high bounce rate can also cause Google to rank a website lower, as the search engine sees it as less reliable and relevant than other sites.
If your online store has a high bounce rate, it might be a good idea for you to take a step back and do some research to determine why visitors aren’t sticking around to make a purchase.
You might find that perhaps you need to add more information describing your products or your brand to build trust.
Ensure that you’ve provided detailed product descriptions and that your site features a section where you talk about your store policies and how/why you started your business.
If your product is new or a bit more on the complicated side, you could link visitors to a page with product instructions or FAQs.
Remember that if shoppers get bored or frustrated with the content on your site, they won’t hesitate to leave and head to one of your competitors!
5. Fresh, creative content can boost your rankings
These days, many consumers want content that goes beyond providing expert advice. They crave new perspectives and solutions to challenges that they’re facing.
When you create content involving topics that are different from what’s already on the internet, you might be able to rank higher for new keywords.
Consider this. When you focus on content that targets longer, more specific keywords, also known as “long-tail keywords,” you may have less competition for ranking for those terms.
In addition, you have a better chance of attracting visitors who are interested in your product and are more likely to convert.
If your ecommerce business sells eco-friendly shoes made from cork, for example, you might find it difficult to rank well for content that targets the keyword “shoes.”
After all, “shoes” could involve an endless number of topics, and there’s already a lot of content related to shoes available on the web.
Furthermore, if people are searching for “shoes” on Google, it’s very possible that they aren’t interested in purchasing cork footwear. They might be trying to discover how to make shoes, learn the history of shoes, or locate a pair of leather boots.
However, by targeting a long-tail keyword, such as “how to take care of cork shoes” or “benefits of cork shoes,” you’re more likely to rank better on Google and reach potential customers.
Steps for creating content to improve your SEO
If you’re taking the time to create a great piece of content that looks amazing and is sure to appeal to your audience, why not ensure that Google loves it too?
Because content marketing and SEO require quite a bit of effort, it makes sense to try and see how you can have your strategies for both work together. This helps you to not only get more visitors to your website but keep them interested in staying on the page.
Here are a few steps you can take to make sure that you’re sharing content that resonates with the people you want to reach and gets your site a better position on the SERP!
1. Determine your targets
The interesting (and sometimes challenging) thing about content marketing and SEO is that every brand is going to have different goals for these areas of their business.
If you’re just recently launched your ecommerce website, there’s a fairly decent chance that your objectives will vary from those of a large multinational company.
Nevertheless, it’s critical that you take the time to decide what you hope to accomplish with your strategies for content marketing and SEO. Then, consider how you can have both strategies work together to maximize efficiency.
Finally, set reasonable goals with measurable results for both to ensure that you’re on track.
2. Research what keywords are most beneficial for your site
Next, you’ll want to figure out what’s important to the people you’re trying to attract by discovering what topics and keywords this group is likely to be interested in.
This can assist you in creating content that’s applicable to their needs and concerns while establishing what keywords you need to include to rank well with Google.
3. Keep optimization for mobile devices in mind
When prioritizing SEO in your content marketing efforts, don’t forget to ensure that you’ve got a mobile-friendly site. According to a 2020 study by Statista, about half of all web traffic results from mobile devices.
Optimizing your website for mobile use helps to expand your reach, create a better overall experience for users, and inch your way up the SERP.
Fortunately, WiziShop makes this step super easy!
When you use our platform for your online retail business, your site will be created using the AMP format, optimizing your site for mobile browsing and allowing for faster loading speeds. This happens automatically, so there’s nothing extra you’ll need to do.
4. Promote your amazing content
After you’ve created an engaging piece of content that’s sure to dazzle your target audience, it’s time to get the word out!
Use your various social media channels to let your followers know that you’ve got a new blog article or how-to video available on your site.
By promoting your content, you increase your chances of obtaining backlinks to your website, which as you’re now well aware, help to improve your SEO.
If you’d like to strengthen your efforts in getting backlinks, you can also opt to reach out to other sites to create guest posts for them.
Conclusion
Despite content marketing and SEO being two separate strategies, the only way to truly be successful in both is to understand how the two are connected. Put simply, SEO tells you what you need to do, and content marketing is how you fulfill that demand.
For example, SEO states that you need to target certain keywords. You then incorporate those keywords into your content marketing strategy by using them in the content that you share with your audience.
I think it’s pretty clear by now that you can’t really have one strategy without the other!
As you go forward with your strategies for content marketing and SEO, consider this article’s information to achieve the best results possible for your ecommerce business.
