In an ideal world, search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing go hand in hand, but that is not always the case. They can clash and even sabotage one another. Not every website needs both in order to achieve high-quality and optimal search rankings, but if you do use both, you need to be certain both of these aspects are complementing each other — not battling it out. Without well-managed SEO, your content marketing can suffer.
To optimize harmony, start by pinpointing any short-tail keywords. Focusing on long-tail keywords is today’s best SEO practice. If you are forcing short-tail keywords into content, it is nearly impossible for your content to be great. This result is thin content that does not read well to your audience. Google’s Panda rallied in the era of long-tail keywords, sometimes even resulting in manual penalties for staunch offenders. However, a lot of SEO agencies didn’t seem to get the memo — make sure your SEO strategist is on the long-tail keyword bandwagon.
Lack of Hospitality
Some people think guest posts are good for SEO no matter what, but that is not true if the guest site is low quality. When done well, guest posting can offer a great boon to an overall content marketing campaign. However, if your SEO pro is using guest posting solely for link building, Google may catch on (and it leads to poor-quality content anyway). It’s about quality, not quantity.
Before providing a guest post, make sure to check how many followers a blog has and what its social media presence is like. Find out how many email subscribers they have, and just how often they post. You can also gauge the quality of other guest bloggers to see if you would want to be considered their peer. Finally, check the quality and number of links that are directed toward that site.
The Biggest Mistakes
If you syndicate content on a website, that can be a fantastic way to secure regular quality content. You can also do the same thing on other sites, and get more readers/traffic/traction in the process. However, if you are having your content syndicated nonstop, Google can get confused about who the real owner and author is. The solution is to use rel=canonical, and be sure to ask any other owners of sites on which you are thinking about posting content if they utilize this tool. This lessens duplicate content risks (a terrible black hat trick) and makes sure any rankings go back to the first URL (yours).
Another misstep is caring too much about your mobile strategy — which sounds counterintuitive. It’s important to know whether your followers are consuming content on mobile before implementing an involved mobile strategy. It’s also wise to be aware of headlines geared toward mobile users, and to know exactly how your mobile users want content presented.
Contact Be Locally SEO today to make sure your SEO and content marketing are playing well together.