Content Marketing and SEO: How to make your website visible in the long run

Content is king. But what’s the point of exciting, entertaining or relevant content if no one can find it? Whether you’re an entrepreneur, blogger or online store owner, if you really want to score with your target audience, you need to be present in the online world with high-quality content. Here, we show you how to make your website visible in the long term with the dream team of SEO and content marketing.

Content marketing – A definition
What are the benefits of content marketing?
What does good content marketing look like?
Content marketing and SEO
All measures at a glance

Content marketing – A definition

Today’s advertising methods are very different from the past. Direct response marketing has been replaced by a completely new form – that of content marketing. In the past, potential customers were approached directly and invited to respond (e.g., via letters and catalogs). Today, on the other hand, the focus is more on brand building and long-term customer loyalty, for example.

With content marketing, varied content is made accessible to the selected target group. Because the readership is individually different, the content must be adapted to their respective interests and needs. To get the attention of the target group, there are different types of content:

• Text content (e.g. blog)
• Audio content (e.g. podcast)
• Visual content – i.e. image content (e.g. graphics) and video content (e.g. explainer video)

What is the benefit of content marketing?

With efficient website hosting, your own website is up and running quickly – all that’s missing is the right content. Good content entertains, informs and broadens the mental horizon. Thus, it always has a direct benefit for the readership. In addition, content marketing pursues the following commercial goals.

Brand positioning

For a brand to be effective, it must be positioned in such a way that it sticks in the minds of customers. To do this, you should define what consumers can expect from the brand in each case.

The more targeted and comprehensible your texts, slogans, videos or images are, the more likely the brand will be remembered. If, at the same time, it adapts to the personal ideas and expectations of the customer, nothing stands in the way of successful brand positioning.

More website visitors

Once the website appears on the first two pages of the search results (SERPS), it can actually be found by Internet users. To do this, you should optimize the content for the search terms of the selected target group. By using frequent search terms on the website, Google will ideally classify the page as relevant and suggest it to the user.

Customer loyalty

Once customers have bought something on the website, that’s not the end of it. It is now important that you keep satisfied customers in the long term. With high-quality content, you can provide added value – even after the purchase.

Additional information about the purchased product, such as ideas for creative use or application examples, will certainly score points with customers. For example, cooking enthusiasts are delighted to receive new recipes after purchasing a food processor. Musical customers, on the other hand, are probably thrilled to get useful tips on reading music after buying a piano.

What does good content marketing look like?

You can do good content marketing in many ways. From regular content maintenance to the use of social media to high-quality content: All this and more characterizes today’s successful advertising measures. Below you will find important characteristics in detail.

• Target group: Who do you want to address with your content? Only when you have clearly defined your target group can you start thinking about the content. After all, the content is always aimed at your selected readership.
• Topics: What do you want to inform your readers about? What do you want to inspire them with or make them think? When finding topics, it pays to know the individual interests of your target group. After all, your content will only resonate if the topics are relevant to the respective audience.
• Social media channels: To get your content out there as quickly as possible, you can turn to social media. However, not all content is suitable for every channel. For example, choose Instagram for image collages and photo albums, Facebook for regular, text-heavy posts, and YouTube for professional videos.
• Content maintenance: Content costs you a lot of time. A one-time content creation is not enough. You have to keep it up to date at all times. Otherwise, it won’t be considered relevant by search engines or your target audience.

Last but not least, effective SEO measures are what make successful content. The following 6 tips show you how to make your content search engine optimized – only then it will be visible for your selected target group in the long run!

Content Marketing and SEO

You probably have a lot of content pieces that are just waiting to be read, seen or heard. In order for your content to be discovered by your target audience, the interaction of SEO and content marketing is essential.

With SEO (search engine optimization), your content can be designed to appear as high as possible in search results. If users find your online presence on the first page of search results, it can become successful. So, content marketing and SEO go hand in hand: creating high-quality content meets optimizing it.

1. Include the right keywords

The texts on your website are only search engine optimized if they contain relevant search terms – so-called keywords. For this reason, every SEO text is always preceded by an extensive keyword research with certain tools. The better you integrate the keywords in the individual headings and in the body text, the higher the chance of a better ranking position in the search results.

You should not place keywords randomly in the text. Google and Co. will only give importance to your article if keywords are specifically positioned. Keywords must appear in the H1 and H2 headlines, as well as near images and videos. It is also important that you optimize your post for combinations of keywords – so-called special long-tail keywords. After all, users often enter several terms simultaneously in search engines. Semantics is also essential for search engines. With the help of semantic keyword research, you can find out relatively quickly which words increase relevance – get yourself some help with WDF*IDF tools. The use is important because the context of keywords can be understood more easily by the search engine algorithms.

2. Create meaningful URLs

Cryptic URLs consisting of numbers and letters leave a bad impression. Users do not know what to expect on the website. Therefore, create a URL for your site that speaks for itself. The following points are important for an SEO-optimized URL:

• Concreteness: You should avoid unnecessary filler words – they only complicate the URL.
• Findability without special characters: You can use underscore, hyphen, plus and comma in your URL, but you should stay away from special characters. They often have a specific function. For example, a space can interrupt the URL and the website is no longer accessible.
• Relevant keywords: This makes your website even more likely to be displayed by search engines and thus found by your selected target group.
• Reader-friendliness: Your URL should explain what readers will expect when they access the page.
• HTTPS protocol: In the past, the so-called SSL certificate was only important for sites with sensitive data, such as online banking. Today it is necessary for all websites. After installation, the HTTPS protocol is enabled. This is visible to the user by the green security lock in the address bar next to the URL.

3. Exploit your Meta-Description

The meta description is part of your metadata. It’s a short description that summarizes the content of the HTML document. With this text, you can motivate users to click on your page. For an ideal meta description, you have to pay attention to the character length and the content.

The length of your meta description should not exceed 150 characters. However, with mobile optimization it will be cut off after 128 characters. So you should pay close attention here. With the help of dots or exclamation marks, you can ensure that your description remains complete. Insert the corresponding punctuation mark after 128 as well as after 150 characters to make sure that the description is complete on mobile and desktop. The punctuation marks tell Googlebot where to cut off the meta description.

To be appealing, the content must be designed to attract attention and generate interest. Finally, the description should motivate to click and – depending on the content of your website – trigger an incentive to buy. For this, a so-called call-to-action is recommended – a clear call to the user to buy a product or use a service.

4. Plan a simple website structure

Internet users like it simple: the less they have to think about, the better. Therefore, you should structure your website simply for the selected target group. Website visitors should be able to easily understand the structure of your site and not have to search for desired content for a long time. With a reasonable website navigation and a footer many problems can already be prevented.

5. Set links

As soon as users land on your website, the first hurdle is cleared! But of course you want them to stay on your site as long as possible – that’s why internal links are worthwhile. In addition, external links are important to achieve important backlinks sooner or later.

Internal and external hyperlinks are among the most important ranking factors and therefore give you a better position in the search engine results. Through linking you can be rewarded with a better ranking and at the same time create added value for your readership.

6. Update content

Content makes little sense if it is completely outdated. For this reason, it is important that you update your online articles at regular intervals. This way, your content will automatically be considered relevant by search engines and will rank higher in search results. There are many ways to keep your content up to date (e.g. integrated blogs and competitions).

All measures at a glance

Good luck with content marketing!

In order to be able to celebrate long-awaited online successes, you must be able to hold your own against your competitors on the web. In content marketing, exciting content that arouses the interest of your selected target group is important.

However, it is even more important that your content really gets noticed. With the 6 effective SEO measures described above, you can significantly increase the visibility of your website. With the help of skillful seeding and content outreach, you can then additionally increase the reach of your content. Nothing stands in the way of successful content marketing!