SEO stands for search engine optimization. This is the process of affecting the online visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural”, “organic”, or “earned” results. SEO is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to a website through organic search engine results. This is an extremely important aspect of marketing, as the earlier and the more frequently a website appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users, and these visitors can be converted into customers. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, video search, academic search, news search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. This gives a website or web page quite a bit of exposure and thus a higher chance of sales. With the increase in global competition, businesses are always trying to find a new way to get ahead. Organic search traffic is a key factor in a company’s success, and thus the demand for SEO is continually growing.

Digital marketing is the marketing of products or services using digital technologies, mainly on the internet, but also including mobile phones, display advertising, and any other digital medium. This term can cover a wide range of marketing activities, but all of which involve marketing online. This allows a business to use various strategies to build customer loyalty and increase revenue. Marketing has always been about connecting with your audience in the right place and at the right time. Today, that means you need to meet them where they are already spending time: on the internet. This is why online marketing is so crucial to a business’s success in the current business environment.

Importance of SEO services

When you consider that 85% of purchases start with a search engine, you realise how important it is to rank well in search engines. This is not just with purchasing products and services. It includes trying to inform people as well. When someone is trying to find information online, they will often start with a search engine. If they key in a few words regarding what they are looking for, if it is information they seek, then it is more likely that the person will click the links that are on the first page of the search engine results. This is yet another reason how SEO services can benefit a website.

Seo services are important to the modern business person. It is the only method to gain high rankings in search engines, and therefore get more visitors to your website. The reason we have websites is to gain traffic and to communicate information or to sell products and services. Without SEO, your site will be buried deep in the search engine result pages. A good content marketing SEO can bring higher rankings in result pages. High rankings equals more traffic to your website, which will result in achieving the goal, whether that goal is to inform people about something, to sell them a product, to provide a service, or to have people become aware of your brand. High rankings can achieve all of these goals.

Definition of content marketing

Content marketing is a marketing technique that involves creating and sharing content in order to acquire and retain customers. The basic idea behind content marketing is that the creation and sharing of valuable content will attract a defined audience, with the objective of motivating a change in behavior profitable to the customer and serving the public interest it focuses on. The key word here is “valuable.” It’s what changes it from one thing to another. Many people are often turned off by the word “marketing.” It sounds too much like “advertising.” Marketing is more than advertising. It’s a big picture, strategic idea that works with several smaller ideas. Advertising is one of the smaller ideas. Ads are often thought of as interruptive, something that gets in the way of what you are doing. But content marketing shares valuable information with the consumer which will ultimately make him/her an informed buyer. When the consumer is ready to buy, he/she is more likely to think of a company that provides valuable information – a company that was recommended. This is what content marketing looks to achieve. A good way to look at it is to think of it as a product itself. If a company consistently delivers information that is valuable to the consumer, they are doing something good and it will, in turn, bring a return. This return could be increased awareness of the company, a sale, a good lead, a new customer, etc. The end goal doesn’t change: do something that ultimately improves the condition of the company.

Benefits of Content Marketing in SEO Services

Now that we know what content marketing is and why it is useful, let’s examine how content marketing can benefit your SEO strategy. This is important as SEO success is the goal of any marketing, but it is important to ensure that the work being done provides lasting value and is not just a short-term fix. If you understand the impact of content marketing on your SEO, then you will understand the value of the work and can justify a potentially increased budget for content efforts.

Content marketing can serve all levels of your sales funnel. It can be utilized to build your brand or to generate potential sales. The reason it works in both cases is because content reinforces familiarity with your brand and keeps your company top-of-mind when it comes time to make a purchase. This is a marketing strategy for today and the future. It takes many forms and goes by various names but at its core, it is using content in a strategic fashion to achieve a specific business goal.

Increased organic traffic

Content marketing can improve your organic traffic because it improves the visibility of your brand. When you have valuable and relevant content for the audience, it can give them answers to their questions and provide solutions. When you post your content on a blog site, it can attract more website visitors because they want to read your blog content and find information about their questions and solutions. This is an opportunity to improve your organic traffic because a blog is a part of a website. Having high-quality content also indicates more indexed pages on a search engine. When all of the pages are indexed, it could increase the probability of gaining organic traffic. High-quality content is also more likely to be shared on social media or other websites. If your content is shared, that means someone has referenced your search. This is called a backlink. A backlink is a good way to increase organic traffic and it is the core of content marketing. When another site gives a reference to your site, it can also have a positive impact on your brand and increase brand visibility, which also improves the possibilities of organic traffic. Because content marketing is a long-term strategy, it is relatively cheaper than using paid search. While you may need to initially invest a high cost to create content, the content will give you an everlasting positive impact for your brand if you have the right content marketing strategy. High-quality content can keep your audience revisiting your site. When internet users find out that your content is trustworthy and provides them with information, they may revisit your site to look for recent updates. This can build trust and there is a possibility that an audience can become your loyal customer.

Improved search engine rankings

Improved search engine rankings – One of the most distinguishing features of online content is that it can greatly improve a website’s search engine rankings. This is an important aspect of internet marketing which should not be taken lightly, as according to studies, 93% of online experiences start with a search engine (Munson, 2014). The goal of any search engine is to provide users with the most relevant and informative content based on their search query. By providing the content that your website visitors are searching for, you have a better chance at improving your search engine rankings and in turn directing more traffic to your site. It’s common among marketers to create content with the sole purpose of improving search rankings. While this can be done, it’s not the best use of your time and resources. You should be creating content to fulfill your customer’s needs. If you create high-quality content that your visitors want to engage with, you won’t need to worry about search engine rankings; they will come naturally. For new websites, it is much more difficult to directly improve search engine rankings solely through on-site optimization. Depending on the industry, on-site optimization could only carry you so far, and at worst could be a waste of time if the wrong keywords are targeted. The best chance at improving search engine rankings is by consistently creating high-quality content. Whether you’re creating blog posts, whitepapers, or just webpage content for visitors, the best chance at improving search rankings is by putting time and effort into content creation. An interesting trend noticed by many search marketers is that social media has an ever-growing influence on search rankings. Although it’s still unclear to what extent, social media signals may very well be the future of search rankings. The only way to effectively promote your website through social media is with high-quality content that viewers will want to share. This content can be hosted on your site or as guest posts on other high authority sites with a link back to your site.

Enhanced user engagement

Writers of quality content would like to believe that the higher the quality of content, the higher the level of user engagement. Although there are no steadfast rules as to what makes a quality piece of content that users will engage with, it is safe to assume that a piece of content with the primary purpose of giving the user information or knowledge (i.e. not sales-oriented) is one that can be engaged with. This is especially true when the user is searching for something specific. For example, if a user searches “how to stop snoring,” he is more likely to engage with an informative article on the topic than a page selling a product. In short, informative content that meets the users’ queries is the type of content that can be engaged with and therefore, it is the type of content that content marketing should aim to promote.

According to Epstein (2010), user engagement is the glue that ties the success of search and content marketing. It is strongly implied that user engagement with content is a positive signal that can directly and indirectly improve search engine rankings and increase organic traffic. However, given that this is an emerging concept, it is often undervalued and therefore, it is necessary to discuss why user engagement is important and how content marketing can be used to enhance it.

Strategies for Effective Content Marketing in SEO Services

Keyword research and optimization is a crucial step when creating content. Having a clear understanding of the target audience and knowing what they are searching for is the first step to relevancy. Try to put yourself in the shoes of the consumer, what would they search for? What would bring them to your site? Understanding how your target audience searches is an important aspect and will help to very closely match the keywords used. Focusing on a core set of keywords will have a higher ROI than trying to rank for everything. What is the consumer looking for when they search that keyword? What is their intent? The keywords used should align with the intent of the consumer. For example, if they are looking to buy something, informational keywords would not be a good fit. Optimizing content is not just limited to using the right keywords, it’s also about compelling writing. Writing with strong emotion, or trying to induce it, can greatly affect whether or not consumers take action. It’s a well-known fact that using the right trigger words will increase conversion rate. Oftentimes, it’s better to speak to the consumer directly. What are the needs of the consumer? What is the consumer looking for? What will the consumer do with the product? How will it make the consumer feel? These types of questions should be answered within the content. But be careful not to actually sound like a salesman, the consumer will have a higher trust for the site if the content is informative and not constructed for the sole purpose of selling a product. High quality writing should also be paired with a strong call to action. If you’ve helped the consumer make a decision through the content, what should they do next? A clear call to action will guide them in the right direction.

Keyword research and optimization

Depending on what has been agreed in the initial contract, SEO services can range from onsite copy improvement to content marketing. However, unless you do it organically for your own content, improvement always starts at the basics. For organic content uptakes in your website, an excellent keyword research is a must. Keyword research is the primary step in SEO. It is what the consumer uses to find your content. The whole point of it is to find popular words, terms and phrases people use in search engines with the aim of optimizing content around those searches and getting higher rankings. Keyword research will commonly involve the use of keyword tools (which can be free or paid) that discover, measure or forecast which keywords are more valuable to use. After the keywords have been found, a decision on the best ones to get used to get more traffic can be made. The very evaluation of the keywords can make or break a campaign; so it is paramount to choose keywords that are within the right topic, have a certain search volume, and are not too hard to compete.

Advertising and marketing have been the priority of business trends, big or small. There are numerous methods that people adapt; using digital content is one of them to attract the public eye. However, attracting attention is just a small part of the bigger picture. For any business to stand the test of time, sustainability is a virtue; and what better way there is to ensure sustainability other than taking every measure to get a higher ranking in search engine results? According to some research, 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. SEO services is the answer; however, it is not as simple as it sounds.

Creation of high-quality and relevant content

There are several effective strategies to carry out successful content marketing in the context of SEO services. They are related to the processes of creating and promoting high-quality, relevant material. High quality is always in demand, and well crafted, informative, and entertaining content will be widely read, shared, and commented upon. Such engagement will naturally improve its visibility in search engine results. The better the content, the easier it is to optimize for keywords. Keyword density is an important aspect of on-page search engine optimization, and it is far easier to edit an article with well-integrated keywords than to create an article to fit them in. High-quality, keyword-focused content will always have an edge over optimized content. Critical to modern SEO is the utilization of social media for promotion. Any content that gains visibility and attracts links will add value to its parent website, but content that is shared in social media circles has a chance to go viral and bring in many links in a very short space of time. Learn to write linkbait: content that is designed to attract links from other websites. Usually, the more informative, entertaining, controversial or simply useful a piece of content is, the more likely it is to be linked. This will improve both its value and visibility. Bear in mind that creating good content can be time-consuming and may require larger resources. If it is not something that is easy for your business, consider hiring a professional content writing agency to handle it.

Utilizing various content formats

Video and audio content can also be used as a means to convey information in a more dynamic manner. However, their large data size can make for slow loading times and a high bounce rate (visitors leaving a page). This can affect the page’s quality rating and thus its search engine ranking. Providing a transcript is a good means to add text to a page, and this, along with the use of a sitemap to define video content, can enable normal web crawlers to index the video content. While there is no denying the advantage in user experience and potential rankings boost, expenses in video production mean it is often left as a side project in SEO.

Images are an important aspect in conveying information on certain webpages. Some pages have graphics as their content, while for others, it is a blog post. An image might speak a thousand words, but it will still need an alt text attribute to avoid being missed out by crawlers. Alt text attributes are one of the few non-visible data types for which search engines will award rankings. Providing an adequate file name followed by a description will also add versatility and even the option of image search SEO. However, one must bear in mind that loading an article with too many images will affect the quality of text, which is still the most important factor in SEO.

The internet is primarily a text-based medium, but SEO service can greatly benefit from utilizing various content formats. Images, Flash files, video, audio, and PDFs each have their own pros and cons, particularly in relation to how they are crawled and indexed. Any attempt to do SEO on such files should begin with an assessment of the technical capabilities of search engine crawlers in relation to the media in question.

Incorporating social media promotion

Social media promotion will be an effective strategy to further distribute company content. According to Wyner (2010), “social media and SEO are a perfect fit. Adding social media factors to SEO can take your business to the next level.” To begin, the simplest way to use social media is to share. Share content on various social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn). This allows for easy distribution of content and near-immediate feedback on content engagement. One can track on each platform what type of content gets readers’ attention, and then modify or further that content. Re-sharing old content is a great way to stay relevant and drive traffic to content that was popular. SEO best practices should be utilized, with strategic keyword placement and optimization in social media content. For more advanced social media usage, consider creating and promoting industry-related infographics. Infographics are a highly effective way to condense and create an easily digestible form of content. Colorful and interesting infographics can attract links and the potential to go viral. Incorporating social sharing badges directly on content, whether they are blog or website posts, will provide easy ways for visitors to share content. The easier it is for visitors to share content, the more likely the content will be shared. It’s a simple probability. By adding a call to action to the sharing badge, as shared by Lost (2014), there is an increased chance the call to action will be done. This could include simple requests like “share this if you found it useful,” to more complex requests like campaign announcements for charity events or product launches.

4. Case Study: Sotavento Medios – A Digital Marketing Agency in Singapore

Seeking to increase user impressions online, Sotavento Medios provides advice and services for developing comprehensive strategies to exploit mediums such as search engines and other online advertising models. This can have a profound impact on a client company’s business, as more and more consumers turn to the internet to gather information on products and services. Sotavento Medios has worked with a variety of clients from differing industries. These include MNCs, non-profit organizations, and SMEs.

Key services offered by Sotavento Medios

Sotavento Medios is essentially a digital marketing agency that offers a range of services spanning from web development and design, content marketing, and media & public relations. Before delving into the respective services offering, they take the onus to understand and connect with their clients’ needs and requirements, building upon relationships and working as a team. This has to be considered as the starting point of any engagement with a client. On the basis of this understanding, starting firstly with web consulting, Sotavento conveys objective, professional advice to all businesses who are looking to make a significant impact with their online presence. This advice helps them to initiate, upgrade, and further augment their websites. Studies have shown that it takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website, determining whether they’ll stay or leave. This is a significant amount of influence, and Sotavento aims to make that impression a lasting one for any website visitors. Through the Line is an integrated suite of web solutions that ensures a bold and lasting brand impact. Here, Sotavento delivers solutions amalgamating both online and offline brand marketing to increase brand visibility and equity. This includes but is not limited to external/internal communications that stick to the brand’s image, events, and PR and the like.