What is SEO Marketing?

Most marketing professionals have heard of the term SEO marketing. However, many of them do not understand what SEO marketing is or how it can benefit their business. If you’re in this camp, this short post will give you a quick run down of search engine marketing and how it’s used.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a technique that website owners and marketers use to bring traffic to their websites. These techniques include using meta tags, location indicators, like a business phone number, and address and specific keyword combinations.

These keywords or keyword phrases are word combinations that people using search engines type into the search box to find what they’re looking for, according to Search Engine Land.

For example, someone needing a pediatrician would type words like “pediatricians near me” or “pediatricians in [my town]” into the search bar.

If you were a pediatrician and decided to use these same word combinations on your site, then your website would come up in a search for local pediatricians. Additionally, the more relevant your site’s content is to the search, the higher in the search rank your webpage is likely to be. In other words, it’s more likely to be closer to the top of the page.

Search Engine Marketing

SEO marketing, (or as it is sometimes called search engine marketing or SEM) is the use of SEO techniques, like keywords, in order to market your business via your website. The keyword used may be on a company’s “About Us” page or another more marketing specific page, like a lead generation landing page.

Let’s go back to the example above. If you were a pediatrician who was hoping to get new clients, then you might create a free informational PDF about childhood orthodontics. You’d build a landing page intended to attract parents who want to look into braces for their kids.

Once these parents land on your landing page, they could download your PDF about orthodontics. In exchange for the PDF, you could ask them to give you their email address. This is one way businesses generate new leads.

Content Types

Many marketers wonder if they should focus all of their SEO efforts on straight marketing (as opposed to informational blog posts, for example). However, the choice can actually be quite simple.

If you’d like your website to be an authority site, then you can post both informational content and marketing specific content. Additionally, the introduction of certain website elements like a newsletter popup reminder turns any (and possibly every) page on your website into a landing page, according to HubSpot.

Additionally, most people won’t buy your goods or services on the first try. They usually need to be exposed to your brand a number of times before they decide to go with your services or to buy products from you.

In this respect, adding industry-specific content to your website helps you establish you as an expert in your industry. Once you do that, people begin to trust you and will be more inclined to buy from you down the road. This is why it’s important to have both marketing and informational content on your website.

Final Thoughts

SEO marketing techniques allows you to turn your website into a lead generator. By adding specific keyword phrases to your content, you’re more likely to attract people who would be a good match for your goods and services. Finally, content marketers who post both informational content relevant to their industry and marketing content stand the best chance of turning website generated leads into sales.