SEO Challenges In Content Marketing

Summary

Voices of Search Podcast: SEO Challenges in Content Marketing

Episode: SEO Challenges In Content Marketing
Release Date: February 3, 2025
Host: Tyson Stockton
Guest: Ruchika Batra, Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Birdeye
Podcast Network: I Hear Everything

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Introduction

In this episode of Voices of Search, hosted by Tyson Stockton, the conversation centers around the intertwined relationship between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Content Marketing. Tyson welcomes Ruchika Batra, the Director of Content Marketing and SEO at Birdeye, to delve into the challenges and strategies that professionals face in harmonizing these two critical aspects of digital marketing.

Balancing SEO and Reader-Centric Content

Key Discussion:
Ruchika highlights a common pitfall where content marketers become overly focused on keyword optimization, often at the expense of the reader's experience. She emphasizes the importance of creating content that not only ranks well but also genuinely serves the reader's needs.

Notable Quote:

"There's a reader at the end of the content. You have to have content that suits the reader. That reader is really looking to get from your content."
— Ruchika Batra [03:37]

Insights:

• SEO vs. Reader Experience: Striking the right balance between optimizing for search engines and creating engaging, readable content is crucial.
• Avoiding Over-Optimization: Overemphasis on keyword density and placement can make content rigid and less appealing to readers.

Evolution of SEO: Toward User Engagement

Key Discussion:
Tyson and Ruchika discuss the evolving landscape of SEO, where the focus is shifting from mere keyword placement to enhancing user engagement metrics. They explore how search engines like Google are increasingly valuing metrics such as click-through rates, time spent on pages, and overall user interaction.

Notable Quote:

"The more that you can lean into that aspect, the more embedded you can also make SEO within an entire organization rather than trying to operate it as a single channel."
— Ruchika Batra [18:34]

Insights:

• User-Centric SEO: Emphasizing content that resonates with users can lead to better engagement metrics, which in turn positively impact search rankings.
• Sophisticated Search Algorithms: Advanced understanding of language and user intent by search engines reduces the reliance on rigid SEO frameworks.

Integrating SEO with Content Creation

Key Discussion:
Ruchika shares her approach at Birdeye, where SEO and content marketing are integrated from the outset. Starting with an SEO brief, the team ensures that content aligns with user search behavior while maintaining quality and readability.

Notable Quote:

"We do start with an SEO brief because that's where we understand where the, what people are searching for."
— Ruchika Batra [07:05]

Insights:

• SEO Briefs as Foundation: Utilizing SEO briefs to guide content creation ensures that articles are both discoverable and valuable to readers.
• Flexibility in Content Creation: Allowing flexibility in word counts, keyword usage, and heading structures facilitates better readability and user experience.

Metrics and Evaluation in SEO and Content Marketing

Key Discussion:
The conversation delves into the different metrics used to evaluate success in SEO versus content marketing. Ruchika points out that while SEO metrics are straightforward, such as traffic and rankings, content marketing often falls into the trap of quantifying success by the number of pieces produced rather than their quality and impact.

Notable Quote:

"The metrics that SEO brings with it are very black and white and they provide the right direction... the value still remains with the metrics that SEO measures."
— Ruchika Batra [11:29]

Insights:

• SEO Metrics: Focus on traffic rankings, keyword performance, and engagement metrics.
• Content Marketing Metrics: Shift from quantity to quality, ensuring each piece of content serves a purpose and adds value.

Leveraging Organizational Assets for Content

Key Discussion:
Ruchika emphasizes the importance of leveraging existing organizational assets and initiatives to enhance content marketing efforts. By integrating SEO with broader business goals and campaigns, content becomes more impactful and gains additional value across multiple channels.

Notable Quote:

"When you create content to support that larger goal and then use SEO as a tool to improve that content or to make that content more powerful, that's like a win-win for everyone."
— Ruchika Batra [15:34]

Insights:

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Breaking down silos between departments to ensure content aligns with overall business objectives.
• Repurposing Content: Turning webinars, reports, and other initiatives into various content formats such as blog posts, ebooks, and social media campaigns to maximize reach and impact.

Identifying and Capitalizing on Content Opportunities

Key Discussion:
Ruchika advises SEO and content marketing professionals to stay attuned to their organization's content calendar and ongoing initiatives. By identifying opportunities within existing projects, teams can create multi-purpose content that benefits multiple facets of the business.

Notable Quote:

"Keeping our eyes and ears open to what content is being created, what is the objective behind the content and how many."
— Ruchika Batra [20:18]

Insights:

• Proactive Opportunity Identification: Regularly reviewing upcoming events, webinars, and campaigns to find content expansion opportunities.
• Content Multiplicity: Creating various forms of content from a single initiative to enhance authority and attract backlinks.

Conclusion and Future Directions

As the episode wraps up, Tyson and Ruchika underscore the importance of integrating SEO with content marketing to drive organic growth effectively. They hint at upcoming discussions on further integrating SEO into the content creation process, promising deeper insights in future episodes.

Notable Quote:

"Good quality content is always like tough to come by in an organization where it's like if you're producing it, there's a timeline to it."
— Tyson Stockton [14:09]

Closing Remarks:
The episode concludes with an encouragement for listeners to stay connected through various channels and anticipate the next installment, where the integration of SEO into content creation will be explored in greater depth.

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Key Takeaways

1. Balance Optimization and Readability: Ensure content appeals to both search engines and readers by avoiding over-optimization.
2. Focus on User Engagement: Prioritize content that enhances user interaction metrics, aligning with modern SEO trends.
3. Integrate SEO from the Start: Use SEO briefs to guide content creation, ensuring alignment with search behavior and user intent.
4. Shift from Quantity to Quality: Emphasize the creation of high-quality, impactful content over producing large volumes of content.
5. Leverage Organizational Initiatives: Utilize existing business assets and campaigns to create multi-purpose content that serves various channels and goals.
6. Stay Proactive in Opportunity Identification: Continuously monitor organizational content plans to identify and capitalize on new content opportunities.

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Additional Resources

• Guest Information: To learn more about Ruchika Batra, visit her LinkedIn profile or the Birdeye website.
• Sponsor Mention: This episode is sponsored by Ahrefs. Explore their new Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for comprehensive SEO monitoring and site audits.

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For more insights and daily SEO and content marketing wisdom, subscribe to Voices of Search on your preferred podcast platform and visit thevoiceofsearch.com.

Transcript

[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.

[Tyson Stockton]

Hey, what's going on? My name is tyson from previsual IO and in today's episode we're going to be talking about SEO and content marketing. 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.

[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 cost? 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 [e-mail] that's a H R E F S.comAWT and.

[Tyson Stockton]

With that, here's my episode with Ruchika on SEO challenges in content marketing. Ruchika, welcome to the podcast.

[Ruchika Batra]

Hi Tyson. Nice to be here.

[Tyson Stockton]

It's great, great to have you. Obviously, content SEO go hand in hand. I think, you know, depending on the organization or who I'm talking, you know, sometimes is SEO within content marketing, sometimes it's content marketing within SEO. So I think you have this kind of natural overlap or you have this natural partnership between SEO and content and you have experience in kind of coming up from the content side and then, you know, being kind of thrown into the SEO world. And so I'm hoping from the conversation too, you can, you know, help gain, give us a little more perspective on the world of content and how we should be thinking about that as SEOs from it. So maybe to start things off for the listeners, from your experience, what are some of the greatest challenges that SEO has within content marketing from an SEO perspective?

[Ruchika Batra]

I think most content marketers end up with, hey, I need to create content around this keyword and primary keyword, secondary keyword. They sometimes get too technical with the content in terms of having the right number of keywords, having the right frequency, having at the right places. What they forget, I guess, is there's a reader at the end of the content. Right. You have to have content that suits the reader. That reader is really looking to get from your content. So I think that is one of the biggest challenges in terms of what should be the balance between optimizing the content for SEO and optimizing it for, for the reader.

[Tyson Stockton]

Interesting. And from that answer, it sounds too like some of the same frustrations could exist from coming from like the content marketing side, where maybe it's, you know, wanting to resonate and kind of land with a given, kind of like consumer group and SEO, you know, trying to apply, you know, certain frameworks or best practices into it. But it seems like, I mean, at least from my side, it's like, I guess I would be advocating that like, good SEO should be in line to hitting more of the user versus kind of like leaning into the algorithm. Like, how, how do you see that from kind of like your perspective? Do you feel like oftentimes like SEOs are a little too rigid in following what tool outputs are or like, like. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that separation of like, SEO and content marketing?

[Ruchika Batra]

Sure. So what happens is, see, at the end of the day, we have to understand that even when we are trying to rank a typical content piece, what are we trying to do? We are trying to provide the best user experience we provide, trying to help provide as much helpful content to the user. Now what happens is when I do agree to a certain extent, SEO tends to make things a little rigid and which is why looking from a content marketer's perspective, making it palatable or making it easy for someone to read and have A great experience is extremely important in my organization. That's something we do very often with all our content. Our content. We do start with a SEO brief because that's where we understand where the, what people are searching for. And then we look at what is this person who want what, what would this person need from this content, what information is currently not being fulfilled. And then we have to have a healthy mix of the two. And in that sense, SEO does need to be a little flexible to allow for word counts, keywords, having keyword in the subtitles. You have to have seven of them, eight of them, you know, kind of keeping it easy on the reader.

[Tyson Stockton]

Yeah, no, I, I completely agree with that and I, I feel like too with how SEO has been evolving, I guess my hope would be too that the north star of what both are shooting for is getting closer and closer. And so as search engines are evolving and their understanding of language is becoming more and more sophisticated, know we should be moving further away from the use this keyword X number of times in this article to more of like what is resonating, what are the users searching for? And I think if, and maybe from like the SEO side, you know, there's a lot that we can gain from the content marketing efforts being that it's like they're already aiming at that same audience and if they're doing their job and connecting with that audience, making it engaging, providing a value, then I would expect and I would kind of hope in this new kind of wave of SEO that it's like you're going to see improvements on user engagement metrics that Google could be picking up on the, you know, how long people, what the click through rate to your actual pages, how long people are staying on your pages, how engaged they are, you know, and that playing back into being like an SEO value.

[Ruchika Batra]

Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. I mean with AI and SGE coming in, Gemini ChatGPT is giving you instant answers. I think the role of search is going to evolve into something very different. So the ranking, the way we optimize for that search is also going to change as we move forward.

[Tyson Stockton]

Absolutely. And I think like we have this, you have these evolution points from both the tactical standpoint and in like the landscape of where we are competing and how we're driving traffic. Working with kind of like both sides too. Like what advice would you have for the SEOs out there in working with content or content marketing teams?

[Ruchika Batra]

For SEOs, mainly working with content teams, I would say give them the metrics that you are evaluating the content the length, you're evaluating the content through traffic rankings, engagement metrics and all that and allow them to create content which helps the user get the information that they are getting. So let me take a step back here with the helpful content update that Google had. The one thing that they've emphasized again and again is create content that is helpful to the reader now or reader or user right now. What they also say is remove unhelpful content. So unhelpful content can be, in the terms of that rigidity that we talked about that SEO brings with it, I think removing that part of it would be a good step to making it more digestible, more something that will work better, perhaps.

[Tyson Stockton]

Absolutely. And I think, I mean, I would share that. I feel like that is much more of the direction that we're heading in and I think we'll see a wave of people, I think, moving further from the more traditional, say X amount of keywords, X amount of times. It's more on this topical authority that we can create and we can kind of like build off of within kind of content marketing. And I think it's maybe helpful too because you've had the opportunity to work, you know, hand in hand in both areas, both content as like a marketing channel and also kind of like SEO on the bridge, kind of like between the 2 for maybe SEOs that have not had as much experience with content marketing. Are there inherently different metrics that are, that are being used to evaluate performance in content marketing that may not be as present in SEO?

[Ruchika Batra]

I think I can go with my experience here. I feel that the metrics that SEO brings with it are very black and white and they provide the right direction. The content is the way it's performing. Right? When we look at content in terms of, from a content marketer's perspective, if we did not have the SEO side of things, the other metrics that we see businesses have often is, hey, we need to publish 200 blog posts in this quarter and 50 of them. So it becomes a numbers game. And in today's day and age, the numbers game is not going to take you too far with AI. You know, you can have gazillion words being produced by AI every second. So it cannot be a numbers game in terms of number of blog posts, number of videos, number of pieces of content that you're generating. I think the value still remains with the metrics that SEO measures. I'm a firm believer of that.

[Podcast Announcer]

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[Tyson Stockton]

So regardless if we're talking, you know, from a more traditional SEO camp, content marketing and it's certainly like the barriers on content production I would say are, you know, being lowered a bit with some of these advances in like AI. But I feel like still like good quality content is always like tough to come by in an organization where it's like if you're producing it, there's a timeline to it. You're investing in writers, you're investing within AI tools, in the production, the QA of that. And so it's like regardless I think where someone's sitting, it's like content is such a valuable asset in an organization. One thing that you know, I've seen in the past and I usually like to tend to recommend to SEOs is like trying to tap into things that are going on with the organization for it. From your experience, what's your perspective on leveraging different assets for the content or multi purpose content within different things that are going on with a business? Like maybe what recommendations would you have for SEOs or content marketers to better leverage things that might already be going on in the organization?

[Ruchika Batra]

I'm happy you brought this point up because even though we work in the same organization, we tend to work in silos, right? Everyone has their own Goals and metrics that they have to achieve. Sometimes the larger goal of the organization is left by the site. For instance, there is, let's say there's a launch happening of a product or the focus. The theme of the quarter is, let's say, a certain product. Now SEO is not something that you end up pivoting, right? SEO is SEO. You cannot say that. Product A is my theme for this quarter. And therefore there'll be SEO efforts only for that SEO. Good SEO practices, once they are employed, they continue to work till you make a change or the algorithm changes. So I think from where I sit, it's important to keep the company's larger goals in mind. Where are we heading with it? And when I say goals, I'm not only talking about leads, revenue, MQLs and so on. I'm talking about, I want to position product A as this in the market. I want this product to be the leading product in its segment and so on. Right. And when you create content to support that larger goal and then use SEO as a tool to improve that content or to make that content more powerful, that's like a win win for everyone. So where I'm going with this is, I mean, I like to explain it with an example. We recently Bird Eye is a reputation management company and that's how we are known as the leading. We've won several G2 awards and so on and awards in other categories as well. So what happens is we have this access to tons of Data. We've got 150,000 plus customers and we have reviews data. So every year we look at that data and come up with certain trends and produce what we call as a state of online reviews. So whenever we release this, not only does it have the lead gen impact, for instance, it goes through nurture emails, it goes through, it's there on the website, creates the sense of authority that the stats are used by other blogs, other websites. So you're getting a lot of valuable backlinks from that initiative itself. And you're having a webinar on one side, you're having a podcast, you're having an organic social campaign along with it. This is so much you can do from that one little initiative where you've put in that time and effort and resources. An SEO at the end of the day becomes only small part of it. The SEO does benefit from it, but so does the rest of the demand gen channel as well.

[Tyson Stockton]

Absolutely. I think that's such a critical point that you're making is I think at almost any organization that I've worked with, there's always some sort of limits on what SEO like whether it's the budget being given to SEO, the resources being given SEO, and I mean in really any function, like you're always going to be met with some sort of limits. And one of the recommendations that I also like to give that, you know, I feel like is a core piece of what you just said where you're looking for additional value beyond just SEO or organic search. And the more that we can align our SEO initiatives to these items that have multiple impact potential is one, the more likely they're going to be able to be picked up. But it's like more value being derived to the business which then is only going to help with future requests and future pieces. And so it's like even if SEO isn't the front runner, but it's more of a companion to another initiative, you're going to have so much more impact by being able to work with these other teams maybe like on that point because again, I feel like it's such a great point that you bring up. Would you have any tips for the SEOs or content marketers listening of how do you spot and how do you identify those opportunities? Like is it just experience and intuition when stuff comes up or are there certain elements that you would say like look out for things like this?

[Ruchika Batra]

Yeah, so I think one is definitely keeping your eyes and ears open. Right? Like what are the opportunities? The other part of it is being completely cued on to the content calendar. What events are being scheduled? Is there a webinar? What topic of webinar is coming up? Is it, you know, state of search or the AI Success series or whatever. Will it completely cued on to what the content calendar looks like? That is very important. And from there figure out how many legs you can give to that content, that typical content. So if it's a webinar, for instance, can we get some testimonials from that webinar and put it in different blog posts, relevant places? So it's original content, it's first party content, something that will enhance the overall value of blog posts or any other content that's out there. If there are some stats being mentioned, those stats can be put them at a visible place and get significant inbound backlinks. Can we do that? Probably, yes. Look, I mean, keeping our eyes and ears open to what content is being created, what is the objective behind the content and how many. I mean typically, definitely in our organization we try not to look at a campaign, a piece of content in isolation. It's always a campaign, mostly a campaign myself there. So if it's, it's a webinar we see we can be create a cheat sheet. Can we create a guide? Can we create a ebook out of it? Can we create a blog post out of it? And of course it's not the same content that's going. It's a different angle, a different take on the points of discussion that you've had on that webinar and vice versa. If you have something moments back before I talked about the state of online reviews, there is a report where lot of effort would have gone in. Can we convert that into another piece of content like a webinar, like a, like a LinkedIn Live? All of these are helping and can help the overall brand per se.

[Tyson Stockton]

Absolutely. And I think with that too, it's like the message is clear where it's like we have to be keeping our eyes open for not just what we can lead and direct of, hey, I want a piece of content on whatever topic, but to draft off and build upon what's already existing and in motion and then just being able to further leverage and expand upon that instead of trying to go completely across the grain and then pioneer something completely on your own. And I think that's, yeah, such a valuable insight and recommendation to SEOs, and especially younger SEOs out there is the more that you can lean into that aspect, the more embedded you can also make SEO within an entire organization rather than trying to operate it as a single channel. And with that, that wraps up this episode of the Voice of Search podcast. Thanks to Ruchika Batra, Director of Content Marketing at SEO at Birdeye, for joining us in part two of this conversation, which we'll publish tomorrow. Ruchika and I are going to continue discussing content and SEO, but we're going to dive into integrating SEO into the content creation process. If you can't wait until the next episode and you'd like to learn more about Ru Chica, you can find a link to her LinkedIn profile in the show notes or visit her company's [e-mail].

[Podcast Announcer]

And 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 gives you the insight into what keywords are performing for free. So check out Ahrefs webmaster [e-mail] that's ahrefs a hrefs.comawt just one more link.

[Tyson Stockton]

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 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 insights in your podcast feedback, 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.