Focusing On SEO Alone Just Isn’t Enough. Here’s Why.

Over the past two years, consumers have seen their work and personal worlds continue to change.

Simplicity demanded in increasingly complex times, consumer behaviors have changed, search engine algorithms continue to evolve, and so must the strategies that surround and support SEO.

While SEO is crucial, relying on research alone to reach your market is not a winning strategy.

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Instead, the importance of digital-first strategies that are connected and dynamic—as adaptable as they are to the consumers they aim to engage—is now abundantly clear.

Understand that the consumer journey is no longer linear.

To interact with consumers effectively, marketers need to step back and rethink strategies, building dynamism into the foundation of the customer experience approach.

Although SEO alone is not enough – the challenges within the sector are many and varied.

But in short, it’s fair to say that SEO is complex and constantly changing – SEO insights provide a real-time picture of the changing consumer voice, which can be leveraged to inform any number of digital strategies.

Starting with these insights, marketers can create comprehensive plans that are multifaceted and free, and connect with consumers through multiple channels and touchpoints.

In this post, we’ll explore why the most effective marketing teams don’t put all their eggs in one basket — because they know that focusing on SEO alone isn’t enough.

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Content marketing

Why content marketing?

Quality content remains key to visibility. It is a crucial component of the integrated plan of the modern marketer.

Really great content is naturally engaging. It answers the questions that occupy our minds throughout the consumer lifecycle, and are sought after by consumers across any number of platforms.

From ebooks and podcasts to how-to videos and feel-good social posts, content marketing evolved from blogging alone.

When marketers and communicators work closely with SEO, using insights from search terms and putting consumers at the center of their content strategy, they have the best foundation for success.

Consumer journey mapping—and digital touchpoints at every stage—provides an opportunity to build a customer experience strategy supported by high-quality content that connects with consumers across platforms, in multiple channels, and touchpoints.

The scope of content marketing is limitless, and so is the ability to customize, and that’s a recipe for winning.

Creating a comprehensive strategy that links content marketing and search engine optimization is very important.

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Digital Advertising and Pay Per Click (PPC)

Since SEO is constantly changing, and every business is different, investing time and effort to figure out what works best for your business can be costly.

Remember, while SEO and PPC have separate channels they share a common goal, which is to get consumers to your website.

Approaching search holistically, making sure your SEO and PPC complement each other will help you navigate the changing environment, and pivot as needed in real time.

By combining forces and sharing knowledge, your team will have the opportunity to drive growth and improve budget efficiency in the process.

The creation of integrated dashboards that provide insight into organic and paid search results supports a comprehensive view of keyword trends.

Leveraging the right data can support the discovery of key insights, offering real potential for performance improvement.

The example in this article looks at how PPC and SEO data can be combined to apply a cost saving lens to marketing budget cuts.

By combining organic performance metrics, such as impressions with PPC conversion data, performance improvement opportunities can be visually identified using charts and graphs.

Identifying keywords with high CPC (cost-per-click) and low organic visibility, and then combining that data and insights can provide the foundation for a strategic pivot that sees you reduce budgets in areas where you can maintain shrinkage while supporting performance with strong organic visibility.

Relevancy is key, and when we step back and look at the trends we can set based on SEO data, we can start to think about the value SEO data can bring to digital advertising through targeting.

When we think of advertising in the traditional media space – OOH (Out of Home), print, radio and TV – we talk about reaching specific demographics.

But the demographic groups are large and diverse. The Gen Z audience, for example, ranges from 5 to 25 years old. And what may be appropriate for a particular individual within a broad population will vary greatly.

a Study conducted by Google and Ipsos In 2020, video ads based on consumer intent were found to have a much greater impact than ads based on demographics.

Providing consumers with relevant ads, focused on their needs and wants, rather than demographics alone, leads to higher engagement, brand lift, and ultimately sales.

Social media

The numbers are clear: With over 1 billion monthly active users across the top seven social networks, social media presents amazing opportunities to engage consumers around the world.

There is no doubt that social networking sites are very reliable, as creating branded profiles via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter has the potential to secure additional search results, supporting your SEO goals.

Beyond SEO, whether your social media goals are to increase brand awareness, build engaged communities, or simply sell products and services, social media platforms provide an important way to share information and promote business.

If you’re rethinking your social strategy, consider these recommendations for where to focus your attention for 2022.

If you’re just starting out, plan the integration from the start and think about strategies that support your SEO performance.

Whatever your goals, continuous performance tracking is key – social media testing, learning and moving should be an ongoing process.

It is arguably much easier to create a flexible social strategy than dynamic planning in other marketing and advertising spaces. Social media channels offer a plethora of targeting options, with both free and paid options, and settings can simply be changed – so there is no need to set it and leave it.

Take advantage of flexibility!

Brand management

Every interaction a consumer has with your business, whether it’s marketing, communications, virtual or in-person engagement, contributes to the overall perception of the brand.

In the digital space, managing your reputation is especially critical.

If you do not manage your online reputation, your SEO efforts will be wasted. Why? In short, consumers trust user-generated content.

Online reviews help you build a good reputation, return SEO, and this is very important for local results.

Let’s think through the search.

When a consumer searches for your brand, product, or service, your website may be one or two of the displayed results.

Other search results may include social and review sites that display what other people are saying about you, whether that be negative or positive.

Proactively managing your online reputation, specifically through review sites and social platforms, allows you to control the narrative.

Mistakes happen. How a company responds to consumer feedback has the power to change consumer perception.

By engaging in conversation, you have an opportunity to correct any misinformation, and accept responsibility when issues arise.

If you are not monitoring search results with your brand’s reputation in mind, you are simply missing out on an opportunity.

Email marketing

Great email marketing provides an opportunity for brands to engage consumers in their space in their time, and foster relationships with potential, current and past customers, in a highly controlled environment.

The segmentation options are basically endless, from interests to demographic details or trigger based user experience. You are only limited by the creativity of your team and the data you have collected.

You can choose to publish emails based on what’s trending at the moment and again, it’s easy to keep your pulse on leveraging your SEO data as the voice of your customer.

You may also want to send emails based on the customer life cycle.

Both options provide a highly customized and customizable experience.

Emails can be triggered based on any number of interactions with your site (helpful “You left something in your cart” emails come to mind!), or you can choose to set and forget a time-based strategy that sees permanent key content from your site push for new subscribers.

Whatever your strategy, email marketing provides a simple and cost-effective opportunity to drive traffic to your site.

Additionally, as with social media platforms, the ability to test and learn presents an opportunity to maximize spending based on proven results.

And that’s just the kind of dynamic strategy that we like.

To take your email marketing to the next level (and boost your SEO efforts in the process), check out these top tips.

conclusion

Building customer-centric strategies means meeting consumers on their terms.

By starting with the voice of the customer, and leveraging real-time SEO insights, marketers can reimagine what is possible, connecting with consumers across channels—digital and otherwise.

An integrated digital marketing strategy has the potential to increase brand awareness through a strong digital presence.

It can improve conversion rates and increase real value by connecting content and brand messages across platforms, resulting in higher and faster returns on investment.

Today’s current consumer is online. Shouldn’t your business’s customer experience and marketing strategies be, too?

More resources:

• 10 Digital Marketing Essentials Every SEO Professional Should Know
• How to integrate content marketing and search engine optimization
• SEO for Beginners: An Introduction to SEO Basics

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