Content Marketing is NOT SEO (neither the other way around).
But if your SaaS marketing strategy is to choose only one, SEO vs content marketing, what would it be?
Well, the majority (87%) of marketers actively use content marketing.
But 95% of searchers don’t scroll past the first page results. In short, optimize your content to be on the first page or they won’t read them (no matter how great they are).
Do you know what it means?
The two tactics are supposed to work together. Content marketing vs SEO is a false debate, really,
Let's uncover it today.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is about generating quality content that grabs your audience to your offer. It’s part of your inbound methodology where your organization attracts new customers, engages and delights them with resources that fit their needs through your product.
Some of the forms it takes include
- Blog posts
Like this from CaaSocio:
- Video
- Podcasts
- E-book
- infographics
- Social media posts
When you create content, you build your authority (more about this later 😊) and trust with your audience by sharing your insight and expertise in your industry. Other factors it boosts are brand awareness, reach, interactions, and loyalty.
Here are some great content marketing statistics:
- 92.96% of all global internet traffic comes from Google searches [Google Images, and Google Maps]
- 3x as many leads come from content marketing vs from outbound marketing
- 57% of marketers acquire new customers through blogging.
- 45% of the global online population [aged 25-34] listen to podcasts.
- 84% of infographics users say it works
- 68% watch YouTube vlogs before making a purchase
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and works to optimize your site for search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo! So you get organic, targeted traffic. Put simply, SEO increases your website's visibility.
Here’s a sample process.
When a user enters a search query, the search engine spiders crawl the websites related to that query. According to ranking factors, it lists the websites that match that query.
- High-quality content.
- Mobile-first.
- Page Experience.
- Page speed
- On-page optimization.
- Internal links.
- External links.
So if we’re after a search query that involves finding the best keywords to rank for. The SEO task is called keyword research.
Here’s what we use in CaaSocio for keyword research to know if a search query has a decent search volume.
The keyword automation tool reports the monthly search volume, SEO difficulty [competition in the organic search], paid difficulty, and the keyword’s cost per click if targeted on paid campaigns.
Note: Search engine optimization is the opposite of paid advertising because SEO lets you get organic web traffic instead.
Look at these fun SEO statistics;
- On the first page, organic results account for 67.60% of all the clicks.
- 61% of marketers say improving SEO is a critical part of their inbound marketing strategy
- 70% of marketers see SEO as more effective than paid advertisements
- 53.3% of web traffic comes from organic searches
- Only 0.78% of Google searchers click on results from the 2nd page.
- 68% of online experiences start with a search engine.
SEO vs content marketing
From our terms’ definitions above, I’m sure that you already see their major difference. SEO is a more technical tactic.
While content marketing requires your creativity on what and where to post to get more exposure, SEO ties in with website design, structure, and site speed.
But here’s the catch. It’s difficult to divide SEO and content strategy. Both are complementary tactics.
So if you’re optimizing pages, you’re improving pages with content. Whether that’s a video, an article, or even just a title.
Now let's tweak our definition to be like this―SEO is the process of optimizing your content so that search engines show it first when someone searches for it.
We shift from SEO vs content marketing to SEO and content marketing.
See the ideal result:
It’s how our partner here in CaaSocio grew website traffic to over 400,000 in just 4 months.
Read the full study here.
Here’s how powerful they are together.
- 86% click organic search results instead of paid banner ads.
- Websites get 300% more traffic from search engines than from social media.
- The conversion rate of SEO-generated leads is 14.6%.
- 57% of marketers believe content development is the best way to improve SEO.
- 75% of SEOs will rely on content marketing to build links.
- 72% of marketers say the best way to boost SEO is to create relevant content.
How does content marketing help authority building?
When you constantly post content (whether videos, blog posts, or graphics) to social platforms like LinkedIn, you reach a wider audience and some get intrigued by you.
Some may start off reacting to your posts and simply commenting. But if they find them a valuable resource, they may even start following you. You just gained a follower that sees you as a top-of-the-mind authority figure in your field. 😁
Now, here’s the juicy part.
When people perceive you as the authority for the niche, they start trusting your brand and become more open to trying your product. It creates a strong impression that you are knowledgeable and therefore promotes the service or product that ties with your name as well.
That’s a huge part of your demand generation process. Because remember, it’s the way of driving interest for a product or service.
Let’s see it in action.
The example above is Eggcrate. Our client that helps software companies create live, explainer videos. We help them by creating blog posts and publishing micro-content around them on a regular basis.
In simple terms, we’re helping them build authority on LinkedIn through content marketing (blog posts). So here you’ll see the power of blog posts and social media marketing.
So in summary, content can let people know what you can do better than anyone. People get answers to their questions just by reading posts from you. Even those who never end up buying from you will regard you as the authority in your field based on your content.
Now is the time to start content marketing
So there you have it.
SEO and content marketing are two different ways but achieve the same goal: getting your website in front of as many people as possible. When used together they can be incredibly powerful.
But if your SaaS is just starting out, give content marketing a serious thought. It may not get you the quick wins that SEO can, but with a little bit of effort, you can see some serious long-term gains.
Do you need help putting out some long-form blog posts? We can help you with that! Book a call with us and let’s see how we can help.
