The relationship between SEO and content marketing can always feel a bit complicated – specifically in how the two fit together. Do they get along? Are they at odds with each other? If so, is it possible to ever make them work together?

If you’re trying to grow your qualified search traffic, you can’t do it with only one; you have to combine your SEO efforts with engaging content.

But what’s the most effective way to do this?

One way to look at the relationship is from the perspective of SEO making requests of content marketing (although their synergy isn’t as aggressive as that sounds).

Let’s look at three essential ingredients SEO requires – keywords, backlinks, and a technical site audit – and how SEO and content work together to help you achieve your digital marketing goals.

1. Keywords Can Help You Generate Content Ideas

There is no such thing as SEO without keywords, and the most astute content marketers understand that the best content helps your rank for the terms that are most related to what your consumers are already searching for – which is why every effective content strategy starts with keyword research.

A comprehensive keyword research session starts with some simple brainstorming. Think about the main goals of your site and jot down some keywords. From there, expand this list with the help of keyword tools.

2. A Diverse Backlink Portfolio Is the Direct Result of Engaging Content

Google uses links to measure relevance, authority, and trust of websites. So producing lots of linkable content will help boost your rankings.

3. A Site Audit Can Reveal Where Your Content Falls Flat

A comprehensive site audit allows you to take a closer look at the more technical aspects of your site (e.g., are sitemaps and redirects setup properly, are the URLs and title descriptions unique for each page and properly formatted, is your internal linking useful?)

But what this audit can also do is reveal which pages are falling flat – which is where engaging content comes back into play.

Read full article in 3 Ways SEO & Content Work Better Together