Description: SEO and content marketing both are practises which deal primarily with content. In this article, we will focus on the fundamental differences between SEO and content marketing.
Content Marketing
Both SEO and content marketing have become popular to the extent that they alone dictate the discourse of digital marketing. While SEO was the more popular digital marketing practice before, content marketing has slowly gained credence and become the primary focus of many campaigns.
Many working in the field of digital marketing have made the mistake of conflating SEO with content marketing. It is no surprise though that this has happened in the first place. Both SEO and content marketing are two fields largely dominated by discussions on content and it can be optimized to pull in a larger share of traffic.
As similar as the two fields may be, there are fundamental differences between SEO and content marketing. While SEO is the practice of increasing visibility of websites on search engines organically, content marketing essentially prioritizes the experience of readers while reading a piece of content.
Despite these differences, both SEO and content marketing end up overlapping in many different operational avenues. This is because it is content that lies at the heart of both these activities. To be good at either SEO or content marketing, a digital marketing professional has to be very good at understanding content.
From online training modules to a digital marketing course in Delhi, SEO and content marketing are taught in learning programs across the spectrum. In this article, we discuss the key areas where SEO and content marketing differ.
Difference in Approach
The fundamental difference between SEO and content marketing is the different approach to the process of creating content.
In SEO, the aim of writing a piece of content is to make sure it ranks high on search engine results and brings in a large volume of traffic. Each step taken related to content is aimed to further improve search rankings and increase visibility on top search engines such as Google.
In content marketing, the aim of writing a piece of content is to inform the readers and increase engagement organically. High traffic and search rankings are viewed as positive consequences of quality content, and not the goal itself.
Difference in Domain
While content marketing is solely focused on content-related activities, SEO involves many other practices besides content optimization.
SEO itself can be divided into two sub-sections – on-page and off-page SEO. On-page SEO deals with the content optimization aspect of SEO. Off-page SEO, on the other hand, deals with non-content activities such as link building.
Link building is the practice of getting more and more backlinks for a given website. It is accomplished through a number of techniques such as blog commenting, guest posting, social media bookmarking, and so on.
Difference in Impact
SEO impacts the visibility of a website on search engines. An SEO plan executed well can lead to a great increase in website traffic, most visitors coming from search engines.
Content marketing, on the other hand, can have a much wider impact on a typical digital marketing campaign. For instance, content marketing forms the core of strategies governing fields like social media marketing, search ad marketing, email marketing, drip marketing, and so on.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, the three key differences mentioned in this article define both content marketing and SEO as fields of digital marketing. Any professional in the field who wishes to reach the absolute top has to be adept at both SEO and content marketing.