A smart digital marketing campaign consists of two very important factors: paid ads and SEO. Anything else (social media management, email marketing, website design, etc.) comes secondary to these two impactful strategies. Many brands find that hiring a digital marketing agency like Drive Traffic Media to do their ads and SEO work is necessary for maintaining consistent traffic and generating leads.

While ads and SEO work together to form a strong marketing strategy, they are very different from one another. The first is pay-to-play with instant results while the second is establishing a long-term base of organic traffic and reputation for a brand. Search engine optimization is one of the hardest games to play. It requires patience, intelligence, and creativity. In this blog, we will examine the various ways in which SEO is best utilized in the industry and how it has changed from its first origins. 

Content Over Backlinks

Search engine optimization is not as easy as plugging in high-ranking keywords into every piece of content you produce. In fact, Google will expressly penalize companies for these lazy tactics, decreasing their ranking and credibility. Since it’s not enough to just build a bunch of backlinks, good SEO requires the production of good, unique content. Google uses algorithms to examine the quality of your website’s content to ensure that it is adding some level of value. SEO experts in Los Angeles strongly emphasize the importance of quality versus quantity. It doesn’t matter how many blogs you’re churning out if they’re not meeting Google’s standards of readability and originality. This is why many digital marketing firms have a team of in-house writers to create the kind of content that will shine for their clients.

What’s Trending?

When optimizing a site for SEO, marketers need to utilize Google search tools to find which keywords are ranking. This requires a fair amount of strategy. Some keywords are ranking on a national basis while others are more local, niche phrases. This also means that certain keywords will have a greater amount of competition and may be harder to rank for. A smart digital marketing campaign will strike the right balance between using low-competition keywords that still have a relatively high search volume to generate consistent leads. In many cases, it can be beneficial to create a list of evergreen target keywords, that is, keywords that are always ranking. Some keywords may change with the season or around certain holidays. Other keywords are relevant to people all year long and, therefore, will draw more consistent leads. 

SEO is Here to Stay

Many experts consider search engine optimization to be the backbone of marketing. Why is this? Well, for one, it continues to be a necessary, unwavering factor in establishing a brand’s reputation. Paid ads are everchanging, whether it be the initial cost or the relevancy of the platform they’re on. They are also a changing factor in a company’s business model. Depending on revenue changes and yearly budgets, an ad campaign may have to shift gears from month to month. On the other hand, SEO remains a consistent and long-term measurement of a brand’s status in the market. SEO builds like a rolling snowball, while ads grow and shrink and fold like a malleable piece of dough. Search engine optimization may be a long journey, but the results are a large stabilizing component in a business’s long-term goals.