← Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast
Integrating SEO Into The Content Creation Process
00:15:48
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- [00:00]
Podcast Announcer
The Voices of Search Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast, I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iheareverything.com welcome to the Voices of Search Podcast. A member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network, ready to expedite your company's organic growth efforts. Sit back, relax, and get ready for your daily dose of search engine optimization wisdom. Here's today's host of the Voices of Search Podcast, Tyson Stockton.
- [00:43]
Tyson Stockton
Hey, what's going on? My name is TYSON From Previsual IO and joining us today is Ruchika Batra, who is the Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Bird Eye. Birdeye is the highest rated all in one reputation and customer experience platform for local businesses and brands. Yesterday, Ruchika and I talked about SEO challenges in content marketing, and today we're continuing the conversation by discussing integrating SEO into the content creation process.
- [01:13]
Podcast Announcer
This podcast is also sponsored by Ahrefs. What if I told you that you could monitor your website's SEO health backlinks and organic rankings at no costs? Sounds too good to be true. Well, it's not, because my friends at Ahrefs just launched Ahrefs Webmaster Tools. Ahrefs new Webmaster Tools product quickly helps you improve your site's visibility by pointing solutions to over 100 technical issues that might be holding your search performance down. Plus, AWT monitors for backlinks so you'll know the most linked to pages and how those links are affecting your rankings. And AWT shares what keywords your website ranks for and compares how you stack up against competitors for key metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and traffic value. Look, monitoring your website used to require multiple expensive tools, and now, thanks to Ahrefs, that's not the case anymore because AWT will help you monitor your SEO health, backlinks and keywords for free. And no, it's not one of those 14 day free trial offers. It's a powerful site audit tool that will keep working for you for free. So check out Ahrefs webmaster tools@ahrefs.comAWT that's a H R E F S.comAWT all.
- [02:32]
Tyson Stockton
Right, here's my conversation with Ruchika Batra, Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Birdeye. Ruchika, welcome back to the podcast.
- [02:41]
Ruchika Batra
Happy to be back again?
- [02:43]
Tyson Stockton
No, today we're jumping right into integrating SEO into the content creation process. And yesterday we kind of left the listeners with one, I think, really valuable recommendation or insight as far as looking for ways of repurposing and kind of drafting off things that are going on within an organization for content opportunities. And today with like integrating SEO into the process, where's the starting point? Like, is it something else is happening and then SEO is jumping into it? Is SEO leading it? Like, is there even a definitive starting point?
- [03:26]
Ruchika Batra
No, not really. It can be either or literally, like I mentioned yesterday, it could start from an SEO need to address a need that they have identified and the content is created because of that. Or it could be that the company has a bigger goal and SEO works to make that a reality. So it could be, it could start from, and the content marketer can come up with one big brainwave and say, hey, this is what we could do and SEO provides support for that. So it could be either or no.
- [04:07]
Tyson Stockton
As far as, like, say, like, it's SEO, you know, drafting off things that are already happening. It's already on the content roadmap and it's on the content calendar. It's happening. Where would you see the best, the most natural fit of bringing SEO into it? Like, is it before the initial content creation, is it coming in afterwards, kind of more pointed in like that creation side? Like, when does SEO come into play?
- [04:38]
Ruchika Batra
Great question. So what happens here is, like I said, if SEO has identified a certain gap that we can create content on, they can definitely come up and make suggestions that, hey, we need to create content around this topic. And you know, there is a lot of, lot of value we can derive from it. And a lot of content is, gets its direction from SEO, because if you're not creating newer content, you're upgrading, right? And upgrade is being done with respect to what's happening competitively, as far as the algorithm changes are happening, so there's a constant cycle of content creation and upgrade that's happening. But at the same time, when the objective is not led by SEO, the objective is really coming in from the overarching goal of the company. What are we trying to achieve in that given month, in that given quarter, and content that is going to be created to support that. And I think this is where content and SEO need to work more closely, because SEO folks, the SEO team may not have a full visibility into why that piece of content is being created, what it is expected to achieve, but by bringing them on right at the planning stage itself, you can, the content marketer can get the SEO inputs even before they start. And that's a good place to to be rather than retrofitting SEO at a later stage.
- [06:24]
Tyson Stockton
Absolutely. I feel like it's so frustrating being on the SEO side if you're constantly trying to play catch up as far as like. And it also seems like too there's you're often met with a little more natural resistance or frustration. Like if you're the last one to the party and then you're trying to change the party, it's a lot more difficult. And so I, I like to the you're kind of calling out hey, there's no perfect scenario. And it's not like hey, it's always going to be one set way. But I think for the SEOs looking for those opportunities to provide value to the other stakeholders, partners within the organization is really can be like a beneficial piece. And like maybe it's not coming in and you know, trying to say hey, it has to be exactly like this. But if you can see the things on the content calendar and then maybe be helping prescribe like if there's a seasonal element to the search demand around topics that they have or if you can provide additional tangent topics to a leading topic that they're looking to promote. Like there's so many different ways that I think SEO can offer value in that and one of the things that I feel like is often underutilized by SEO is tapping into the, the capabilities of the tools we have by being able to show search demand. You can also provide consumer demand or change the wording of how you're saying you don't have to call it search demand, but you can also call it consumer demand or whatever terminology resonates like within the organization, like to try to typically step away from the SEO jargon. But I think that demand side is a great way to offer some value and then allows you to be kind of brought into the process a bit more maybe with that. And I like from your experience that you're and we said even like off off record before this episode that it's like you've spent so much time in both content and SEO that separating the two or it's like in your experience and in the way you look at both that they're just completely intertwined. I feel like it's the right place to be in like to get to that point within your organization. Was it something that naturally evolved in that way or was it like a deliberate action of the organization of like. No, these two pieces belong together.
- [09:21]
Ruchika Batra
I think it's always a hit and try but for me as an individual, as a content marketer, I became a content marketer first and I was really an accidental SEO, because really speaking, one cannot survive without the other. A content marketer would be an author or a novelist if it doesn't have the SEO element attached to it. So they are so intertwined, so integrated, and that's how they have. It's a partnership between the two. And this is something I learned very early on. I remember the first I was helping my team put together a. You know, we had some sort of a target in terms of the content we needed to create and one of our writers was unwell. So I had, I started writing and this was in the very early years, right? So I started writing and I think I'm so ashamed to look at it. Like if nobody had bothered to go and upgraded it, I would be totally ashamed to look at it and see it on our blog because it had no SEO element, no SEO consideration. True, it was giving all the information that the reader would like to read, but it was all over the place. And I think that having that SEO lens helped put structure to it, put a logical order, making it more usable. And so like what I'm trying to say here is it's a partnership between SEO and content marketing. One cannot exist without the other.
- [11:03]
Podcast Announcer
Time for a one minute break to hear from our sponsor, Pre Visible. So you're looking for SEO help and you got a couple of options. You could start replying to spam from agencies that claim they can get you to rank number one on Google. You can pay an hourly rate for a consultant who will inevitably nickel and dime you with hourly charges. Or you can work with a cookie cutter agency to quickly launch a strategy less project with low success rate. None of those sound very good now, do they? Well, that's where Pre Visible's integrated consulting model comes in. Pre Visible draws From a collective 40 years of SEO and digital marketing experience to unlock your organic growth opportunities. They build custom solutions that combine strategy, technical expertise, content and reporting to effectively operationalize SEO for your business. Pre Visible's four stage approach ensures that your SEO programs thrive by starting off with a strategy first approach. Then they support you in your efforts to create quality content, help you identify technical issues, and most importantly, they'll work with your cross functional teams to integrate your SEO strategies to make sure that your SEO budget actually drives results, not just your agency's bottom line. So join brands like Yelp, eBay, Canva, Atlassian Square, all who rely on the SEO consultants at Pre Visible. For more information, go to Pre Visible IO. That's Pre Visible P R E V I S I B L E I O.
- [12:31]
Tyson Stockton
Well, and I like to that you're, you're highlighting that in your experience you found like SEO gave structure to it. And I think like that's an interesting one because yes, it has like the purpose and value of helping that piece or that effort succeed in organic search. But I feel like also to like the previous points is it seems like too like with some additional kind of structure framework, there is also the potential to providing more valuable or to be more valuable to the end user in the sense that maybe they're able to navigate through the article or you know, maybe like in the same way of helping a search engine understand the content, maybe it also kind of gives, you know, a little bit to the user as well. And that's where I feel like there is this natural intersection where Google's chasing the user, content marketing's chasing the user, SEO's really chasing the user, not necessarily just the algorithm. And so I think there are just so many natural overlaps that SEO and content marketing should have, being that both, you know, ultimately should be targeting to provide value to the user with whatever information that we're putting out there.
- [13:59]
Ruchika Batra
Sure. And may I add one more thing to this? It's also when I talked about SEO providing that structure. Right. A lot of that structure is commonsensical. Don't have a long paragraph, break it down into a couple of sentences, put things in bullet points, all those things that probably we learned in high school and conveniently forgot after that. Those are very commonsensical things. If it's a run on 2000 word blog post, Paste it out with some images. There are people on the other side of the world or this world who are differently abled, may not be able to view the image in the same way as you do. Give them, you know, alt text, tell Google you know what you're sending them to some other part of the website. Tell them, tell Google, Google and the reader, what is it? Where are you guiding them? If it's Google reviews you want them to read about, so say Google Reviews and then put a hyperlink. They're very common, sensical way of putting any content out there. So SEO really is not rocket science. It is using in a way that makes it easy for someone to read. And when we say helpful content, it is precisely that you're making it easy on the eye. We have very little patience with words these days. Like we just want everything in three seconds and move on to the next best thing, give it to them. Which is why I say these are two, not two separate things, they are one and the same.
- [15:33]
Tyson Stockton
Absolutely. And I think, I would say, honestly think that sums up the, I think the main, the main purpose of the conversation so much like in, you know, bringing it back to integrating SEO into the content creation process. Well, it is the same process and it should be viewed as just part of, and it's a tool in which, that we can use to extend the reach of it. But the, the initial purpose behind either of these is one and the same. And I think that's really valuable insight, you know, for the listeners out there. And maybe people are already like, yeah, we've been doing that for a while. Fully support it and continue with that. If you are in an organization that has this clear distinction or separation, you know, try to, try to look at ways of partnering closer, find ways of providing additional value early in the process, provide additional value to one of your recommendations yesterday on repurposing efforts that are being done. And so I think regardless of where you're looking at the entry point, the collaboration and how SEO and content or even SEO and other parts of the business, there shouldn't be a clear like, oh, it's just at this stage. And I think the more that you can look at being valuable, like partner to the business as a whole and the more that you can connect SEO to what each individual team is taking on, the more buy in, the more integration that we can have across like the entire organization. And with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Thanks to Ruchika Bhattara, Director of Content Marketing SEO at Birdeye, for joining us. If you'd like to content Ruchika, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in our show notes or head on over to her company's website@birdeye.com and.
- [17:48]
Podcast Announcer
A special thanks to Ahrefs for sponsoring this podcast. Monitoring your website used to require multiple expensive tools, but that's not the case anymore. Thanks to Ahrefs because they just launched their Ahrefs Webmaster Tools product which monitors your SEO health, helps you keep track of your backlinks and and gives you the insight into what keywords are performing for free. So check out Ahrefs webmaster tools@ahrefs.comAWT that's Ahrefs a h r e f s.comAWT.
- [18:21]
Tyson Stockton
Just one more link to our show Notes to tell you about. If you didn't have a chance to take notes while listening to this episode, you can head over to thevoiceofsearch.com where summaries of all of our episodes, contact information information for our guests, and you can also send us your topic suggestions, SEO questions, and apply to be a guest speaker on the Voices of Search. Of course, you can always reach us on social media, where our show handle is voicesofsearch. Or you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn TysonStockton. You can find me there. And if you haven't subscribed yet and want a daily stream of SEO and content marketing insight sites in your podcast feed, we're going to publish a new episode every workday. So hit that subscribe button in your podcast app and we'll be back in your feed in the next business day. And that's it for this episode. We'll see you tomorrow on Voice of Search.