For years, marketers looked to SEO as a method to automatically deliver website success irrespective of the nature of the website or the quality it offered. In truth, though, SEO and quality content cannot be separated – SEO cannot succeed without high-quality content.
The idea of focusing on content quality in order to deliver search engine success is an idea that’s been around for some time. Lately, though, it has attracted a great deal of attention. Experts now feel that the idea deserves to be established as an all-new concept in its own right. These days, it goes by the name search content marketing, or SCM. In many ways, SCM describes the concept behind SEO far better than the familiar SEO term does.
SCM is SEO’s latest avatar
SEO was never about simply gaming the search engines to quickly and cheaply obtain a top ranking on a search results page. For anyone other than a click marketer who wants nothing more than to make a few dollars overnight, this type of SEO approach is of no use.
Real businesses need search engine optimization to help their business websites come up in the search results pages when a potential customer or business partner searches for them. For this type of genuine optimization, the approach has always been about giving the visitor a top-quality experience with excellent information, ready answers to every question, and a long tail keyword campaign that comes from each one of those questions so that sales and leads are generated.
SCM is simply SEO as it was always meant to be. The marketing world needs to rename the familiar SEO term simply because it has been overused and co-opted to mean all kinds of unpleasant things.
How exactly does search content marketing work?
To begin, SCM includes SEO: Providing users with great content and a great website experience is central to SCM. It also includes keyword optimization and other techniques that traditional SEO deals in. Many marketers today consider it fashionable to dismiss SEO as a spent force. SEO is completely relevant, though, and at the center of marketing on the Internet. It’s only the spammy methods that no longer apply.
SCM needs SEO to be useful: Giving consumers content they are interested in is an excellent way to keep them coming back. It is traditional SEO that makes sure that consumers find the great content that SCM provides to begin. SEO and all traditional online and offline marketing methods ensure that SCM gets the traction it needs to work.
Looking ahead
Searchable content marketing will be the future of SEO in 2015, Content needs optimizing for the way people search for it. Consider the following successful content titles:
An ASN nursing degree vs. BSN — your ROI: This article is a winner for two reasons. To begin, it clearly addresses a question that many students thinking of the future in nursing have. The fact that the article clearly pits one choice against another in a versus format is a great formula for success, too. Versus articles tend to do well. This article, then, clearly combines SCM with SEO.
What it costs to buy a motorboat: Consumers love to read about what exactly something will cost them. Yet, far too many articles fudge when it comes to talk of dollars and cents. An article such as this quickly attracts reader interest. It is also good for SEO, because it closely follows the format that people use to search for this type of information.
The idea of taking up the term SCM over SEO is not to demonstrate that SEO is no longer relevant. It is only meant to demonstrate that SEO has evolved.
Sorcha Mullis is a marketing maven of many years. Although she likes to work behind the scenes, she hopes to help others by sharing her insights on the Internet. You can read her helpful posts on a variety of today’s top websites and blogs.
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