Next generation marketing channels have been taking over by storm. Millions listen to podcasts on a daily basis while video streams across all sorts of platforms are widely used for entertainment and information. Text messaging is becoming a popular way of communicating, and the best way to find new products to try? Just look to your favorite influencer for some recommendations.
These are strategies that are not only growing in popularity, but also shaping the way marketers hash out their campaigns. So, what does SEO have to do with these forms of content creation and communication? Don’t discount the impact that search efforts can have on these marketing channels. Search engine marketing is still a key component to an overall strategy and can do a lot for brand awareness and visibility.
Why Search Engine Marketing is Important
SEM involves managing your brand’s presence on search engines. The SEO aspect works towards organically ranking better within a search engine’s algorithm while the PPC side focuses on paid messaging with quick results. Here’s the breakdown of all the good that comes from employing both tactics:
SEO
Quality SEO can take your brand far. This is because the work you put into researching relevant keywords to fuel good content builds credibility for your brand. Stuffing keywords is frowned upon and doesn’t do much for the audience once they make it to your site. However, creating informative, entertaining, or well-thought-out content that actually benefits the reader can earn you a thumbs up from search engines.
Trust is an important focus especially when you’re just starting out. This isn’t something that can be bought and requires intentional efforts within organic search to nurture. What you end up with is a reputable background and that goes a long way with your audience and potential customer base.
PPC
Paid efforts sit on the other end of search engine marketing to bolster areas where SEO has less impact. While PPC also provides traffic to your site, this is only sustainable as long as you are paying for ads. However, the plus side is that PPC marketing tends to get more clicks than organic ads due to the “above-the-fold” space it’s given on a search page.
These ads are managed by you and your team rather than being placed by the whim of search engines and algorithms. As a result, you have control over the copy, the call-to-action, and whatever else is displayed whether that’s a product picture or an event promotion.
Next Generation Marketing Channels
Search can easily be incorporated into your next gen marketing strategy. With PPC, it’s as simple as using ad space to promote new partnerships or content. New podcast episode? Use some of your advertising budget to promote it in the days leading up to the release or have a long-running ad that broadcasts your schedule. “New podcasts every Tuesday.”
SEO and organic search will require a different set of skills and work from relying on your influencers and their audiences diving into keyword research.
Influencer Marketing and SEO
Have you ever given your link profile much thought? If you’ve been trained in search engine marketing, you know that backlinks and internal links are crucial to building your presence and credibility. The best types of links are the ones that are connected to high-authority domains. This is not an easy feat to accomplish but influencers can help.
When you work with influencers, generating high-quality backlinks can happen in a number of ways whether that’s through an influencer’s website or through their content and social media. Word of mouth has always been a powerful form of marketing and influencers is what that looks like in this day and age.
Don’t forget that it also goes beyond one influencer and their audience when a link is shared. Yes, having their audience viewing it is great for exposure, but it can also lead to additional shares from there. Anyone in the audience could also be backlinking to your content and the more popularity it gains, the more likely higher-authority domains will pick up on it.
SEO for Podcasts
While SEO may not be at the front of your mind when it comes to podcasting, it can do a lot for optimizing your content and helping you score better ranking in search engine results. If your goal is to drive more visitors to your content and site, then including keyword research in your podcast strategy will help you accomplish that.
Here are a few tips and tricks to incorporate into your podcast routine:
- Have keywords for each episode. Picking words that are relevant to your target audience will help search engines pick up on your episodes organically. You want these to get featured in search engine results so be sure it’s the audience you have in mind and not just you when you carry out your research and analysis. Important places to insert keywords include the title of your post, subheadings, URL, file names, ALT attributes, or page content.
- Incorporate keywords throughout your script. Podcasts are very conversational, making it easy to insert your keywords here or there as you’re speaking. The content should also target the audience and be high quality.
- Include a transcript. You’ll have higher chances of ranking when written content is paired with your podcast uploads. These can be full transcripts of the audio which is not only great for search engines to pick up on but also great for improved accessibility. Maybe your podcast is extremely long, or you don’t plan on including a full-length transcript. In that case, write out some notes that include a summary of your podcast with descriptions of key points and information.
Video Marketing SEO
Like podcasts, videos have a lot of potential for SEO optimizations. There’s already plenty of traffic that videos have the potential to bring in on their own which is a great boost for your overall SEO ranking. When it comes to videos, creating great, SEO-driven content with strategic keyword placement in combination with backlinking efforts will help you reach a larger audience.
Anytime your content is promoted, Google or other search engines take note and the better your content is, the better your rankings get too. Remember that good content will always earn you more points. Videos are a useful tool to get people to spend more time on your website. Those that are well made and keep people engaged will prove the value of your brand and content to search engines.
The Takeaway
Digital marketing tactics are always expanding. Who knows what channels will dominate the marketing world in just a few years? Dipping your toes into next gen channels is a fun way to refresh your content with relevant media and can help you reach out to new audiences.
SEO and PPC are more effective when combined. While they come with their unique pros and cons, it’s obvious they create a major impact on marketing efforts when they’re both being utilized. Regardless of the new channels you’re playing around with, it’s always important to bring back traditional strategies and incorporate them where you can in order to optimize campaigns. A bit of the old and a bit of the new can work together to create some powerful campaigns which means SEM strategies are a must when exploring new ideas.
Want to supercharge your search engine marketing? emfluence can help! Reach out to us at expert@emfluence.com.
