When we talk about SEO in the context of inbound marketing, what we are really discussing is Search Engine Optimization or the various techniques and methods a website uses to attract traffic or visits from search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Search engines are designed with the specific purpose of looking for websites that contain content that is most relevant to the term or phrase that was originally typed into the search field by the user. A search engine will do this by combing through all of the content on the internet using complicated algorithms to find the most relevant group of sites that contain information most likely to help the user.

SEO isn’t what is used to be

In other words, the results you see after you ‘Google’ something are ranked according to how relevant the SEO algorithm found the site based on several different factors, and the essence of those factors boil down to the expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness of the domain and content of the website. Therefore, the way you market your content online and the way that search engines like Google work nowadays days, are related and connected in the sense that they are both about giving the audience (i.e., the user of the search engine or visitor to your site) exactly what they are looking for; ultimately search engines are looking for what your business should be creating, which is a website that is reputable and trusted as a leading authority in your respective industry.

How do you build your business’s reputation and authority in the industry?

One of the critical components of a successful inbound marketing strategy that uses content marketing and SEO to the fullest is to publish and promote content that generates trustworthiness and a real sense of your industry expertise amongst the community. Simply writing a blog post, creating an eBook, or posting on Twitter is only half of the equation; content marketing relies heavily on how well you can create content that is not only seen, read, and consumed by the right people, but is also regarded by search engines as authoritative in the industry based on how likely your page or site is to help a search engine user.

When you continually post valuable blogs that provide readers with information that has helped them, then they are much more likely to trust your business in the future should they want or need your services.

Use of links and SEO to build industry authority 

For the purposes of this topic, there are two important aspects of SEO as it applies to links on your website; first, the use of consistency when naming your links (i.e., the keywords need to be the same for every avenue that a piece of content is linked to), and second, the inbound links to your site must be both reputable sites, as well as relevant to the optimized keywords in the content piece)

—Links, both those coming to your site and those which you use within your pages, are about quality not quantity! Search engines take the reputability and authority of your links into account just as much as they do other key aspects of your content.

The bottom line is this: no matter how complicated the SEO algorithms may become or what specific words are being searched for by your target audience, the most dependable way to build the industry authority of your business when it comes to SEO is to consistently practice marketing efforts that create and maintain the trust and reputation in the eyes of your customers.

Written by Cassie Sohn