Content is relevant outside what the SEO experts say

11 years ago

Following on from pointing out the popularity of content doesn’t mean it is useless, I thought I’d tackle the problem of resentment towards content creators by SEO experts.

It bemuses me a whole heck of a lot to see SEO experts all pooh-poohing content- via their blogs mind you, and their social.

“Pssst… wanna hear a secret? Not everyone finds what they want simply by clicking through on the first page on Google.”

The standard answer to that is “More people can find my content because I know SEO.”

It’s like saying “more people can find McDonalds, so no other cafe or hamburger joint is worthy”.

As someone who hasn’t eaten McCrap for over a decade, I call bollocks.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe SEO definitely helps. If you and the content creator next to you are level pegged in terms of usefulness to your intended audience, that Google ranking is a distinct advantage if a customer has 6 possible choices and can only be bothered making a shortlist of 2 or 4.

Here are a few areas where the SEO experts argument falls down

It implies we all use the internet via search engines only

But we don’t, do we? We uncover a lot of content, gifts, opinions and content through social media, returning to the same sites we know and trust, peer recommendation, bookmarking, Reddit and forums, word of mouth, clicking from one site to another, newsletters and a whole bunch of other ways.

What counts is the content itself, not how well it rates in a search engines eyes.

We’re not that organised

There is an assumption we’re only persuaded to engage with a website when we’re ready to buy. But we’re not.

Anyone who has ever walked out of a shopping centre with an unplanned purchase knows it is entirely possible to be attracted to and invest in something outside of what their original intentions were. How that six degrees of separation moment plays out isn’t down to SEO alone in cyberspace.

In fact, sometimes SEO has sweet Fanny Adams to do with it.

This gives us the opportunity to market to people and persuade them. There’s a limit to search in that we don’t always know what we are looking to engage with next.

MARKETING TAKES TIME

It’s pretty rare that your marketing will hit the spot straight off the bat.

Marketing has to have multiple touch points. The average person will usually encounter an advertising campaign in 4 or 5 different formats prior to making a purchase.

Content gives you a greater ability to create that chain of events for your customers.

But just because you know SEO doesn’t mean you know how to effectively create a strategy in order to make sure that happens. SEO experts need to open up the world a little more and look at ways to create those touch points.

This is why you should worry if the SEO experts in front of you are saying that social media doesn’t matter because it’s not a direct SEO signal. It may not be, but the distribution of your content via social media using key phrases aids in human recall. It’s that recall you want.

It’s a subtle difference, but one worth noticing.

Content has its own technical requirements

A lot of SEO experts promote the idea of content in service of the keywords. But content marketing has technical specifications of it’s own that should be used to the best advantage.

What is produced as the end result of content is the tip of the iceberg. Behind each blog is research, personas, buying cycles, scheduling, re-purposing, social promotion, community management, newsjacking, style guides, product management, product storytelling, customer service, customer relationship management and a bunch of other things that are a heck of a lot more involved that “Duh, I fink I is gonna write today!”

You have to balance the storytelling and marketing needs of content with SEO to make it effective.