Many online business persons simply believe that SEO is nothing but an unethical way wrong-intentioned web marketers game the system. Following the “unfriendly” Google Panda and Penguin updates in 2012, many others joined this bandwagon of ostracizing anyone that claims to be an SEO!

But is search engine optimization really such a bad thing?

Is it the strategy that is wrong or the way businesses have used it over the years?

And, don’t you think you need SEO web content for your online marketing strategy?

SEO Web Content Is Your Best Friend When It Comes To Marketing Online!

The word search engine optimization may appear to be a misnomer but the truth is that optimizing your marketing content is the best thing you can do for your online marketing business.

I am among those who believe that instead of referring to it as search engine optimization it should really be termed web content optimization since you are not really optimizing for the search engines alone but also for your human prospects.

But not minding the nomenclature, search engine optimization (since that is what we have come to know it, unless you want to apply for a name change now! ) helps your business in many ways. And I want to say, if you’re not doing SEO then you are definitely doing your online business much harm.

Here are some reasons why you should SEO optimize your web marketing content.

1. Search Engines Remain The First Place Of Call When People Need Information Online

There is no doubt that social media has become very popular today. Besides, news sites offering breaking news and online information portals offering news alerts now abound online. But with all of these available, 90% of the people still depend on the search engines for information. Whenever they need any information about a particular topic, they turn to the search engines!

Recommended: How to Optimize Your Digital Content Marketing for Effective Traffic Conversions!

Now, you must understand that the search engines have a way of working. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website looks. It doesn’t matter how many times you update it in a day. It doesn’t even matter how great you can write. For your site to rank high in the search engines for those people searching for information to find you, it must have those basic elements that help the search engines to place in the right place in the SERPs.

This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. without the basic knowledge of what the search engines want, you will NOT be able to create the content that will appeal to the search engines. And when you cannot do this, your beautifully written content would be left in the “not-qualified” basket when the results are presented!

2. Social Media Profiles Need Optimization To Rank High

Many online marketing professionals knows the importance of optimizing your social media profiles if you truly want to drive traffic through social media platforms like Twitter.com, Facebook.com, Google plus and LinkedIn. Simply having a presence on these social media sites is not enough. You want people to find you when they search on these sites or when they use the search engines, like Google.com.

For example, many clients discovered my web content writing service through my LinkedIn profile. This did not just happen by chance. It happened because I have consciously optimized my LinkedIn profile for certain keyword phrases.

From the insights available to me on the page, you can see that in the past15 days my profile page has shown up in search results 18 times! This is a powerful way of promoting your business using your social media profiles.

Remember that the search engines also crawl and index social media profiles. And if this is so, you will want to optimize your social media profiles for them to rank high on the search engines.

Truth is a carefully optimized social media profile, promotes itself!

Recommended: Top 3 Reasons Why You Should Use SEO Content For Your Online Marketing!

3. Search Engines Drive The Most Valuable Leads Ever!

Why, as a business, do you create web content for your marketing needs? Is it not to gain the attention of prospects and customers? Is it not to help you market more of your products and services?

Now, which type of traffic would you love to visit your business site? Is it not the traffic that is truly interested in what you are offering on your site? I’m sure you have heard of targeted traffic, right? Of course, you want targeted traffic all the time. Now, the search engines can actually help you drive the most valuable traffic that are targeted at your products or services.

Whenever anyone does any search on the search engines, they are actually looking for a particular information at that time. And the search engines are built to help searchers with the most relevant sites that matches their queries. If anyone finds you on the search engines therefore it means that that person is interested on what you have to offer on your business site.

4. Search Engine Traffic Is Free Traffic!

Ok, I know that you can also use PPC (pay per click) to drive traffic using the search engines however, SEO content helps you to drive traffic from the search engines for free! And as we have seen above, if search engines traffic is highly targeted and you can get it for free, this is a big plus for your business. You are actually saving a whole lot of money not only advertising cost, but also making more money doing so!

5. Search Engines Are Facilitators Of Inbound Marketing

There is a general agreement amongst marketers today that the years of “push” or outbound marketing are over. Marketers are now focusing on “pull” or inbound marketing tactics.

Now, the premise of inbound marketing is that you should position yourself in the market in such a way that when prospects and customers go looking for information related to what you are marketing, they would find you. This way, the prospect would be the one running after you instead of you running after her as in the days of “push” marketing.

Recommended: How to Create a Constant Flow of Good Content for Your Retail Business Blog!

As we have mentioned earlier, search engines and social media are today the top places go to for information on any subject of their choice. Getting your marketing content on any of these is simply positioning yourself so that the prospect will find you when she is searching for that solution. So, Search engine optimization actually helps you to position your business to be found online.

Marketing Takeaway

Love it or hate it, SEO optimizing your web content is essential if you truly want to reap the gains of your marketing content. You can decide to write your own web content or hire some professional to do it for you but the fact is, if that content is not optimized for the search engines you will only be wasting resources.

Now, I will not fail to inform you that not everyone who writes web content that knows how to create SEO optimized content. If you want truly optimized content that will appeal to both the search engines and your human targets, then getting qualified professional SEO web content writers to create your content for you is the best choice.

NOTE: Be wary of content writers who speak ill of search engine optimization. No matter how flowering they may sound, the fact stands that they know nothing about search engine optimization and therefore would not be able to give you what you want when it comes to SEO web content.

As a business you want content that will help you with your ROI and not just content that occupies your web page. SEO web content, carefully crafted with your marketing need in mind, will give you that expected ROI. So, go for professional SEO web content writers.

Check out our SEO content writing packages here. They are specially designed to give you what you need to increase your online visibility, inprove traffic generation and increase lead generation. SEO web content indeed pays the right dividend!

Alright, I know most marketers think content marketing is just about creating quality content and distributing it through different online channels to your target audience.  They argue that as long as your target audience love your quality content and goes on to share it with their online connections, you will succeed as a content marketer.

Besides, they contend that you don’t really need SEO content since, to them, search engine optimization is long dead and buried with the recent Google Panda and Penguin updates.  To them social media is now the new SEO!  And with this they believe that creating your marketing content with the social media in mind will give you the desired results!

FACT: Google Did Not Kill SEO But Rather Re-Enforced It!

As much as I want to agree with the above arguments I also want to say they are only half truths. And, as you may have known, half truths can be damn dangerous!

Agreed, social media is today playing a big part in traffic and lead generation and also in building brand awareness and loyalty. But, simply writing a good piece of content and sharing it with your social media connections or using it on your business website is not enough.

Beyond creating quality content, your content should be expertly optimized for the search engines. It should be able to score good points with the search engines, helping it to gain higher rankings in the SERPs. The trick is being to do this while also appealing to your human audience for them to eagerly share it online!

It doesn’t matter whether your content is social media updates, blog articles, web content, case studies, etc. SEO optimizing your content with your target keywords will give them a better chance of achieving your business and marketing goals.

The following are just a few reasons why you must consider SEO content when marketing with content.

1. People still depend on the Search Engines to get information online

Despite the growth of social media and people depending on recommendations from friends to make buying decisions, the search engines still remains the most popular and easiest means of finding any topic of interest on the internet. Just think of what you did in the recent past when you wanted some information about a topic. Where was the first place you looked? Did you fire up your Facebook page or profile and prowled through the content there to see if you can get what you wanted or, you went to Google, or any of search engines of your choice, and keyed in your request?

I’m sure the answer is obvious.

Now, can you see why you mustn’t ignore the search engines in your marketing content creation? You must understand that the search engines remain the biggest resource about any subject today. And to retrieve any information from the search engines, searchers use keywords. it is the keyword phrases used by searcher that the search engines use in determining the results shown. They will never dig into their data bases and return the best written content!

SEO optimizing your content – writing your content with the right keyword phrases in the right places – is what will help your marketing content to get good placements in the SERPs! It’s just plainly the simplest way to position your product or service on the search engines so that when a prospect goes to the search engines looking for information in your market, you will be right there!

2. Most people never look beyond the 1st page of the SERPS!

Now, think again about when you used the search engines to locate some information. How many times did you care to look beyond the first 3 pages of the search results?

None? A few times?

Do you think others are caring to do so? (Well, I particularly got curious about a rare case which I wrote about on my internet marketing blog here!) But apart from such rare cases, I believe most people who use the search engines only care about the ten top search results in the first page.

Knowing this, it is important, if you want to drive traffic from the search engines, to put your web page on the first 10 results, better still, among the top three! And, you can only do this if you are using SEO content. Simply creating quality content will not catapult that content to the top. It is SEO optimization that will do that.

So, in creating your web content, SEO optimization must be taken into consideration. QED!

3. Organic search traffic have always proven to be more targeted than any other traffic

With search engine optimization you’ll not only get the benefit of generating just a high traffic volume but also traffic that is more targeted to your offerings. If you’ve done the right thing with your search engine optimization and not just a matter of keyword stuffing, then the chances of people, who are looking for just what you’re promoting, finding you are much higher.

I know that there are many sources of traffic online but most of these are not really what you need for your business. For example, traffic from social media sites most times are nothing but useless. For one most are just social connections looking to socialize and not doing business. But are you there to socialize?

Again, maybe you are driving traffic to your sites from blog commenting which is a good thing. But then you must understand that most traffic from blog commenting are nothing but bloggers seeking a reciprocal visit or a back link from their blog comments. Such traffic may just be useless to you also

If you truly want better results from your traffic then focus on those who are actively searching for your products or services. If anyone has a need to be met and goes to the search engines to do a search and finds your site, that prospects is more open to generate a sale for you than a blogger or a social media friend  who comes around for his/her own benefit.

Marketing Takeaway

Using SEO content for your online promotions is something you should really focus on. You should create good, quality web content always but in doing that never forget SEO. Writing SEO optimized content may not be your specialty but if you truly want to receive some good results from your content marketing, then getting SEO marketing content (even if it means using freelance services like we offer here) is something you must consider.

So, what do you think? Disagree with this article or is there something you want to add? I’m always glad to hear from you. Share your thoughts with us in your comments below.