Marketing Magic: The Intersection of SEO, Content Marketing, and PR

Eric Eden: 1:01

All right, all right, all right. Welcome to the Remarkable Marketing Podcast. We are here today with our guest Allison Verhalen. Allison is a content marketing and SEO expert. She has run a content marketing business for a decade as an entrepreneur and she has also written a book called Content Marketing Made Easy. Welcome to the show.

Alison Ver Halen: 1:27

Thank you so much for having me.

Eric Eden: 1:29

All right. So I think that you have a story for us today. You've done a lot of great content marketing in your career. I think you have a story for us today about some of the best content marketing and SEO that you've done, perhaps in conjunction with some of your clients, that you can share to inspire some of our listeners.

Alison Ver Halen: 1:49

Yeah, absolutely. So this story was actually for a company that had a really cool medical device that they were using in conjunction with physical therapy so it was a team-up of technology and physical therapy practices and they were not ranking. They had this really cool tech, they were the only ones in the US to have it, but they were not ranking anywhere and Google didn't know who they were or what they were doing or what was going on, so people who were looking for them could not find them when they were looking for them. So I was actually brought on by the PR company that they hired to get the word out about them in earned media, but they also wanted help with the SEO. So the PR company brought me in to work on their website and help with all of that. And I looked and it looked really good, but it was really thin. There was very little content on there. They had gotten some earned media already. They had some blog posts up. They were good about promoting their earned media, but it was just not a whole lot of content on there and not a whole lot about the company. It was like a one-pager Every. I don't even think they really had content about their team members. The founder had a paragraph and that was it, and it was a good paragraph, story-wise. The thing about marketing is, especially from an SEO perspective, is you have to combine the story aspect, the marketing aspect, with the SEO. You had the story aspect, not so much of the SEO, especially for a medical company. Anytime you're dealing with people's health and wellness, you have to make sure that you are convincing Google that you are an authority in the industry, because Google does not want to point people towards content that could potentially hurt their health and wellness. So there are like extra hoops that you have to jump through there. And they were not even trying to clear those hoops. It was like, okay, first we got to beef up your content, so we did that. I wrote bios for all of them, got a blog going for them once a week. That was. All of them were really long, in-depth blog posts that were answering people's questions that they had related to that industry and again positioning them as an authority in the industry. So Google had a lot of content to work with and could get a better idea of what this company was all about and that they were an authority in their industry. And then, along with the authority was a link building campaign. So anytime we put out a new blog post, there was a bunch of emails going out to relevant people in the industry and related industry saying, hey, we have this new article, you might want to share it in your content. So that was another way to drive traffic organically, but also, again, get Google's attention and say hey, people are using this as a resource, they're pointing their audience to it because they're an authority. So that was really what that revolved around was A the creating the content, beefing up the content as well as actively pointing people towards. Then I was able to work with the PR company, which was super exciting, because I don't get enough opportunities to do this, but I do think it is awesome for SEO when you have that earned media. If you can get links in that earned media back to your website, that is also great for SEO because again, you're getting your name out there and people are talking about you, not because you're paying them, not because it's content that you own, but because you have something of value to offer to their audience, and then they link back to your website. So that is awesome. Again, just for general awareness. Organically, it gets more people to find out about your company and what you do. But it was also a great way to get that link juice, if you will. So that was what we did. So that exploded their visibility and got them much more higher rankings. They were actually showing up in Google. People were actually showing up and then we're getting butts and seats. Which was the end goal was that when they had an event, they wanted people to actually attend the event because they knew about it, they were excited about it, they wanted to be there. So we were able to drive people towards that ultimate goal and really just explode their visibility. So that was, and like I said, not just visibility, but positive visibility. So when people thought about them, they thought about them in a positive manner and knew what they did. So that was our super successful campaign and I love that I got to work with someone in the PR space. I always love collaborating with people who do marketing or marketing adjacent work. That's not quite what I do, because, especially with SEO, it really all works when it's working together. I can do what I do on my end with the content and the SEO, but at the end of the day, if you don't have other pieces in place. There's only so much I can do. So that was our story and it went really well and I was really excited with the results that we got for that client.

Eric Eden: 6:52

So the key is the trifecta, or the hat trick, if you will, of SEO, content marketing and earn media PR drove some really great results for the client in terms of visibility, awareness, getting people to their events and, ultimately, winning more business. Those three things together were the magic formula for them seeing success. Do I have that right?

Alison Ver Halen: 7:23

Yes, absolutely.

Eric Eden: 7:26

So you've been doing content marketing and SEO for a long time and you have the book on content marketing made easy. Is it easy, is it really easy or is it hard? I'm just curious.

Alison Ver Halen: 7:41

Yeah. So the idea from the book came because so I got started in this industry through the content side. I was writing blog posts for a law firm and I think at that point, if you had told me I would need to learn SEO in order to be successful because, like I said, you need that trifecta, you need the earn media, you need the SEO, you need the content it all has to work together. And if you had told me that when I was starting out, I think I would have been too intimidated to even try. I would have been like no, that's too scary, ended up just falling down the rabbit hole of SEO and actually found that it was fascinating and that it's one of the most fun parts of my job and that I really enjoy it. So that, combined with the fact that, knowing there are a lot of other people out there doing their own marketing who are scared of SEO, because there are a lot of people out there talking about it like it's like rocket science or black magic or something that only the elite few can understand and I always look at it from this perspective of, yes, there are technical tips and tricks you should be doing to get Google's attention, make them happy, but at the end of the day, google is really just looking for content that answers their audience's questions. So if you are doing that, if you have your target audience dialed in, you're answering their questions, you're creating high quality content, you've got your funnel figured out. That's really all you need. So I wanted a book that would explain that essentially in a lot more pages, a lot more words than that but explain to people how Google works, how they can harness content marketing for themselves and just make it super accessible and not scary.

Eric Eden: 9:18

So in leading teams doing content marketing over the years, the most interesting thing from my perspective has been the balance between the effort to create the content and the distribution, and I think that's what's at the intersection of the SEO and PR, like you mentioned is the distribution. I've worked for companies that had a million dollar a year content strategy and the question was what are we going to get from that? And the goal was if 5 or 10% of the people who read the content become a lead for the sales team, it makes sense. The question that I have for you is with, in particular, seo, because I've seen this with content marketing, it is really the ultimate distribution, because you get into Google and that content gets to be visible. People find it in Google. What have you found to be the most interesting thing about the intersection between the content you generate and SEO, getting that distribution in Google. What insight you have there?

Alison Ver Halen: 10:33

My favorite part of SEO is you get in front of people when they are actively looking for you. As opposed to even earned media, social media, any kind of advertising. You're pushing your content in front of people and saying, hey, look at me, pay attention. Seo is inbound marketing. People have a question. They're taking steps to find an answer to that question. They go yes, there are options other than Google, but let's face it, 90-some percent of us use Google when we are searching for an answer to our questions. If you don't show up, you might as well not exist. But if you're really losing out on an opportunity if you don't show up there, because then whatever company they do find that answers their question, now they become the authority in the prospect's mind and they have an opportunity to lead them through their funnel. So when they're ready to buy, they're going to buy from that company. So that is really what it's all about. For me, it's the inbound. It's so much easier, I think, to draw people in that way and educating them. That's the other problem that we run into is, we have a lot of prospects coming to us who think they know what we do and they really don't have any clue unless they've read our content, not misinformation online, not what some friend of a friend told them. But if we have the chance to educate them on what we do, then by the time they've read a bunch of content. A again, they see us as an authority. They're ready to buy from us, but they're also more educated, which makes them a better client for us. So, yeah, that's content and SEO, but yeah, like I said, that's my favorite part is getting them when they're looking for you, so you're drawing them in instead of going out and chasing them.

Eric Eden: 12:17

So getting to people when they're in buying mode, that's a key insight, because the conversion on those visitors would be much higher. And that's probably why a lot of marketers argue that organic traffic at the intersection of SEO and content marketing converts much higher than other channels like paid advertising, because you're hitting people when they're in buying mode and they're looking for that very specific topic, and then, just to put the icing on the cake, you come across as the expert on it, right.

Alison Ver Halen: 12:56

Yeah, absolutely.

Eric Eden: 12:57

All right. Thanks for joining us today, allison. I encourage all the listeners share this story with your friends. People should know about the magic that happens at the intersection of SEO, content marketing and PR Rate review and subscribe for us online so that we can have great guests like Allison come on the show and share their insights like this. Thanks for being with us today, allison.

Alison Ver Halen: 13:19

Thanks so much for having me.