Who Wins in the Battle of SEO vs. Content Marketing?

I'm sure you've heard everything from "Content is king.", "Your content marketing strategy is your marketing strategy.", "Content marketing will soon put SEOers out of work.", "Content marketing is the end of SEO.", etc. As a fellow SEOer myself, one can understand how unsettling this may be when you're livelihood is predicated on one big search giant.  

But as an SEOer I also understand that the almighty Google is trying to sustain its' position as a powerhouse and in the words of the Davies brothers, "Give The People What They Want", in order to do so.

So what is content marketing exactly? Is it PR? Is is branding? Is it simply creating content and publishing it somewhere in the web landscape? Well from the perspective of a SEOer and in the most basic description I can give, content marketing put simply is the process of delivering information to potential buyers that makes them more intelligent human beings.  

The benefit of doing so comes into play when overtime these potential consumers of your line of products and/or services begin to really trust your brand because this relationship has been carefully cultivated through strategic sharing of compelling and meaningful content.  

Once this trust has been fostered with your audience, they can then perceive your brand as one that has proven value, thus setting the foundation for them to convert into long-term, loyal business customers.  

So yes, I gather (as you probably do as well) that content marketing is kind of important (insert sarcasm).  But if you’ve been in the digital marketing space for even just a month or so, you understand that no one practice, strategy, tool, or tactic is the end-all, be-all, and that this is an industry that survives on the constant progression toward a more and more holistic online strategy. 

 

Keeping that in mind, there are most certainly overlaps between content marketing and SEO while also significant differences.

Differences========================================

One of the major points of contrast between the two is that while SEO makes decisions based on search-driven data and analytics, content marketing surrounds its’ overall strategy on more audience-driven data and general content creation knowledge.

Tools Used for SEO:


• Google Keyword Tool:

This free tool every SEOer knows is one that is used in the preliminary stages of a campaign when one is either trying to decipher which keywords to select out of a given list based on search volume and competition metrics or when exploring some other keyword ideas with a given stem list to start with.  

Since this tool is used with a more data-focused purpose in that you are relying on search volume and competition metrics to determine the results of your keyword research.  For SEOers, keyword research is your bread and butter being that it sets the foundation for later optimization efforts including on-page as well as off-page efforts.


• Open Site Explorer:

OSE is a classic SEO tool that can be used to gather benchmark data for websites in terms of how many backlinks they have acquired and how much room for growth they have.  We’re all aware of how we can view competitor’s backlink profiles as well with OSE, thus we have the opportunity to get a peep into what their linking strategy might be as far as which sites they have had success with acquiring a link, anchor text used, top pages on their site, etc.


• Cognitive SEO:

Cognitive is one of the fresher tools out there and has nifty features such as their instant-export capabilities (click right on the graph), breakdown of backlink profiles, and link previews for inbound links.  It can be argued this tool is suitable used for content marketing as well, but the focus on linking opportunities that is emphasized with their service offering reiterates that it’s predominantly used for the SEO link building strategies.

Tools Used for CM


• Forums:

Forums, more specifically Quora, are great gold mines for researching popular (and no so popular) topics and opinions.  You can find discussions about everything from how Ashton Kutcher prepared for his role as Steve Jobs in the highly anticipated Joshua Stern film to the most awesome SEO material you can lay your hands on.  If people are interested in it and there’s enough buzz around it, I guarantee you it’s on Quora.


• Survey Monkey:

As if it wasn’t stressed enough before, personas are absolutely crucial in developing a successful marketing strategy.  Survey Monkey is an online survey tool that allows you to create a 10-question survey with 100 responses per survey (more if you’re willing to pay for it).  

Since having a well defined audience is key, a survey for existing customers is worth considering when trying to gain a better understanding of the critical tasks, influences, wants/needs, etc. associated with your persona.


• Piktochart:

So let’s just say you discover through your research that the types of content that appeal to your target persona the most are infographics.  Piktochart offers a quick solution to create and share infographics for non-designers for those situations that come up all too often where you don’t have the time or budget for a decent one.  The goal here being to make something interesting and engaging enough to earn social shares and comments, thus further fostering brand awareness.  And the best part about it?  It’s free.

 

Similarity

In general, the substantial similarity these two strategies have is that the content produced or modified for both is done so by interpreting the gathered data.

Tools Used for Both


• Buzzstream:

This CRM software helps assist with both SEO and CM when referring to building and sustaining relationships with webmasters and bloggers.  From the SEO side of things, you are making these relationships with the end goal of improving your authority and hopefully acquiring a link in some sort of fashion from their site.  From the CM side of things, there is a reason you are going after these particular webmasters/bloggers, and it’s probably because you feel they appeal to an audience that lines up with the audience you yourself are indeed targeting.  After a relationship is initiated and a content agreement has been solidified, you can provide the webmaster/blogger with a valuable, linkable asset.


• Google Analytics:

Not only the tracking software to use when measuring these online marketing efforts, it also offers valuable insight into which queries are bringing searchers to your site as well as which keywords have the highest conversion rates.  This sort of research is what is needed to piece together more of the puzzle when defining personas, a pivotal part of having any successful marketing campaign.


• Ontolo:

Typically, this link prospecting tool is geared more toward SEO (hence “link prospecting tool”), but in terms of finding guest posting opportunities there is a content marketing component present.  This is the part where you’ve had to do at least some research into what discussion topics are trending by using forums like Quora, taking note of what your competitors are writing about, keeping up with the industry news, etc.


• Ahrefs:

Ahrefs is a fantastic tool for both SEO and CM.  Not only does it provide similar insight as OSE does for SEO, it offers a ways to determine what your competitors’ linkable assests and RCS are by displaying them in the top pages tab on backlink reports. Once you find these you can investigate even further their success by viewing their social metrics such as shares and likes.  As for SEO purposes, this tool quickly identifies the technical issues with your site as well as missing or duplicate meta data.