Digital marketing isn’t a new phenomenon, buzzword, or a trend for marketers to keep a close eye on, it’s our reality and with everyone from Jake Paul (famous vlogger – 15 million+ followers) to the teenager standing on their chair to get the perfect instagram food pic, you need to know what digital marketing means. As marketers, PR professionals, and content teams are creating, producing, and publishing everything in the digital space, we come across the idea of connecting our content and efforts to the real world through searchability or search engine optimization. There are no excuses for leaving SEO out of the equation when building a content plan, NONE. So as you embark on your journey to create campaigns to wow your fans, engage your clients, write press releases to send to media, and carefully craft blogs like this gem to build our digital personas – keep in mind these 5 tips to make your content the #queen of SEO.
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Plant keywords, Tag, Rename
Unless you’re writing for a major publication how is anyone finding you? SEO, bro. By using key search words that are relevant to what your target readership is looking up, you raise your hand to be noticed. Make your content searchable, accessible, and easier to stumble-upon. Using keywords in your titles is #basic but here’s a #protip use keywords in headers, custom URL’s, image file names (just resave the image and upload it with your description and keyword as the file name), and alt text for images.
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Linking back to your site
You’ve probably heard of ‘em but might not know what they are…backlinks. Backlinks are areas on your page where you link to other relevant content either that you’ve produced (Like this amazing blog from my colleague Hayley all about backlinks) OR better yet, engaging with partners or media outlets that will include links to your content in their blogs/articles! A good backlink game increases your searchability 10 fold (ok not precisely but it’s legit) people can find your company, content, publication, or whatever you’re directing them toward way easier.
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Don’t be a poser
Spam and keyword spam is lame. You look thirsty and unprofessional when shooting out a million emails spamming media with press releases and pitches that have nothing to do with the beat or type of content they cover, the same goes for SEO. Spamming keywords hidden in your website (like writing Kim Kardashian in a professional blog about SEO…see what I did there) that have nothing to do with your company or content will potentially flag your website under most SEO guidelines, but you’ll also look like a poser and people aren’t fond of posers.
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Influencer marketing is influential
Marketers that scoff at Influencer marketing take note. Having influencers share links to your website, social channels and content will make you FAMOUS. Ok ok, not necessarily, but there is a lot of validity in the right type of influencer marketing and influencer marketing partnerships because an influencers relationship with their community is based on trust. And if they share your link, they trust you, and their audience knows that and it’s the like being intro’d by a friend.
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SEO is your pop of color at a white out party
It gives you a fighting chance to be noticed in a sea of content. Even if your content meets “newsworthy” criteria:
– Timely
– Proximal
– Impactful
– Consequential
– Has ProminenceIt doesn’t guarantee you’ll be bopping along at the top of a Google search without jumping on that SEO train in the content itself and throughout your main web presence
So as we’re all turning into content monsters, remember to give yourself an edge by incorporating SEO whenever and however you can make it happen.