The Relationship Between Content Marketing & SEO

The Relationship Between SEO &

Content MarketingCarolyn Shelby

Director, SEO and SEMTribune Publishing

Tribune Publishing publishes a lot of content.

How Tribune Does Content MarketingCase Study: A look at how the Tribune Content Agency uses SEO to do content marketing better.

Tribune Content Agency• Writes/distributes content for external

clients.

• Provides a platform for distribution.

• Provides guidance on structuring campaign.

• Provides reporting to show performance.

• IS NOT THE NEWSROOM/EDITORIAL

Issues• How do we sell this service?

• How do we improve our targeting/messaging to help the client reach their goals?

• How do we determine/select our KPIs?• and, of course, how do we measure those KPIs?

• How do we prove value to the clients?• Beyond just ‘yo, we wrote this for you’?

SEO

SELLS THE CONTENT MARKETING

Issues• How do we sell this service?• Clients want their content to be found via search.

• How do we improve our targeting/messaging to help the client reach their goals?

• Keyword Research!

• How do we determine/select our KPIs?• and, of course, how do we measure those KPIs?

• What is trackable/provable… almost always comes from SEO reporting.

• How do we prove value to the clients?• Beyond just ‘yo, we wrote this for you’?

• Seriously, it’s like all SEO reporting.

The Content Marketing Cycle

Identify Goals and

Benchmark

Select Topics and

Targets

Write Amazing Content

Distribute and

Promote

Run Reports to Show ROI

Identify Goals and Benchmark• What are we trying to accomplish?

• Who are we trying to reach?

• What do we want to happen?

Identify Goals and Benchmark• Pull their current rankings (with KWPs)

• Check the number of pages they have indexed.

• Get access to their GA, make sure you can see YoY data.

Select Topics and Targets

• Identify likely or desired consumer types (personas)• Determine topics based on personas.• Determine best keywords based on KW

research + persona preferences.• Select/time topics based on the above.

Write Amazing

Content

Distribute and Promote• Your mad SEO skillz will help determine

the best places and times to place and promote that content.• Answer questions like:• Who has users that match your target

demographic and when would they most likely be interested in your content?

Run Reports and Show ROI• YOY metrics (or campaign duration over previous

time period)

• Traffic overall (referrers, social, etc)• Traffic to specific content pages

• Increases in total number of pages ranked• Increases in total number of pages indexed• Improvements in existing rankings (if applicable)

Can anyone successfully use content marketing without SEO?

ALIENS.

See the relationship?• You need SEO to guide and inform the process

• You need SEO to help define/refine the message

• You need SEO (and its reporting) to prove the value to the clients

Carolyn ShelbyDirector, SEO/SEMTribune Publishing

Twitter: @cshelEmail: cshelby@tribpub.com

Thank You!