Have you ever wondered why SEOs and content marketers don’t talk to each other and why nobody does anything about it?

I’ve come to the conclusion that by-and-large, SEOs are scientists and content marketers are artists.

And artists and scientists don’t tent to socialise in the same places.

In theory, SEO, Content and Social should be best of friends. They should have each other’s backs. Great content and relevant social discussions can have a strong positive impact on SEO. And a fast, efficient, well-structured site that makes good use of microdata can certainly assist with content sharing and good social vibes.

But in most present scenarios it’s not like that. Rebecca Lieb, one our recent guests on “This Week in Organic” said that after interviewing around 70 marketing leaders and asking them what their content marketing priorities were, only one of them mentioned SEO. That’s a shocking statistic. She also went on to say that many senior marketers “have their eyes on bright, shiny objects, very much at the expense of the fundamental toolkits.”

The problem seems to me is that SEO is perceived as being a dark art. It’s perceived as having an objective of tricking both users and search engines. That’s unfortunate, because it’s not really true.

SEO is about assisting web pages to appear for relevant search results and optimizing both a user’s and a search engine robot’s experience when visiting the site. Without SEO, life for site users, search engines and content sharers would be much more difficult.

The problem is that in the past it as very easy to trick search engines; and take advantage of search engines to drive traffic towards low-quality or even irrelevant web pages. And these types of activities have given SEO a bad name. But content marketers need to be aware that SEO isn’t defined by this sort of activity. SEO helps great content to be found more easily. It produces nicely formatted social media cards to make the content easier to share and it helps search engines to understand the context behind the content on a web page. SEO has grown up and smart content marketers need to embrace it as part of their toolkit.

But even if we intellectually understand that SEOs and content marketers should work more closely together, it still doesn’t happen that often. I think that’s because in general, the personalities of SEOs and content marketers are very different indeed. SEOs are obsessed by detail. Content marketers can’t find the on-switch for their computer. SEOs can’s think of anything else. Content marketers struggle to focus on the one thing they should be focusing on. SEOs can’t stop. Content marketers often can’t start. To steal an analogy from a certain John Gray, SEOs are from Mars and Content Marketers are from Venus!

To continue John’s analogy, SEOs need to understand that although content marketers crash-landed on their planet and now live in the same world, they were originally from a different planet – therefore, content marketers and SEOs will never think the same! If they just accept each other’s differences they might have a better chance of working more effectively together!

The big challenge in organisations is that because SEOs are by-and-large technical in their thinking, they find it hard to articulate themselves in a boardroom. Content marketers find it easier to justify what they do in this scenario. This could by why according to Rebecca Lieb, so many senior marketers just don’t consider SEO to an important part of an effective content marketing strategy.

So what needs to be done? I think it’s down to the SEOs and the software tools that they use.

Somehow SEOs need to get better at articulating their message strategically to all levels in a business and producing reports that all C-level executives understand; and more importantly feel that they need. 

What do YOU think? We’d love to hear your opinion. Do you agree? Are SEOs and content marketers really that different?

 

By David Bain, Head of Growth for Analytics SEO.

If you want to hear more from David and Analytics SEO, join them at the Digital Marketing Show 2015 for free! Book here now. 

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