Inbound Marketing & SEO: How They Are Related

Digital marketing encompasses many different strategies and techniques.

A powerful approach is inbound marketing, which, contrary to outbound advertising techniques, draws internet users’ attention and allures them to take a closer look into your brand - instead of chasing after them with paid ads.

One of the most essential tools of inbound marketing is SEO - the organic ally that facilitates pages to stand out in search engine results in front of the right people - so that they can potentially start the customer journey on your website.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy that aims to attract and engage prospects via online channels, such as social media or search engines, by providing valuable content and brand experiences tailored to their needs. Over time, this creates a steady flow of qualified leads and loyal customers.

Unlike traditional outbound marketing that works with cold calls or advertisements, the inbound approach solves user problems, establishes trust, and builds relationships.

How Does SEO Impact Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing relies heavily on SEO. While the former revolves around creating high-quality and relevant content, the latter ensures that this great content is discoverable, optimized for search engines, and aligns with searches made by your target audience.

So that your potential customers can quickly find you at the top of SERPs during the so-called research and decision-making stages.

SEO is a vital tool of inbound marketing that helps digital marketers enhance their brand’s visibility and attract more qualified leads.

Inbound Marketing And SEO: Which Is Better?

Inbound marketing and SEO are two distinct approaches - yet they’re complementary. You don't really have to choose one over the other.

So, imagine you have this great content hooked back on page 2 of SERPs. Or that, thanks to your SEO, you rank in the top 3 for your favorite search term - but your visitors bounce away.

Bottom line?

Inbound marketing produces great content that engages visitors, meets their informational needs, and urges them to take the next step via inviting CTAs, email follow-ups, or various lead magnets.

But it is SEO that finds all the right terms you should rank for and brings visitors to your pages organically. These are visitors that are likely to qualify as leads.

Inbound Marketing And SEO: The Differences Explained

Inbound marketing is a broader approach than SEO.

The 4 Stages Of Inbound Marketing Strategy

1. Attract

Draw visitors to your pages by providing the right content when they are looking for an answer to their questions or a solution to their problem.

This is the first stage of inbound marketing, where you aim to reach strangers who could be interested in what you offer and also grow your brand awareness. You can use well-researched blog posts, social media posts, or paid ads.

2. Convert

Turn prospects into leads as they look for more in-depth information. There are various ways to start converting your new potential customers.

For example, add a ‘catchy’ call-to-action at the end of your blog posts or show other CTAs in various prominent parts of your website.

Lure your visitors into giving you their contact details in exchange for a free offering - like an e-book, a helpful guide, or a case study. Then, you can add them to your e-mail marketing lists and lead them to the third stage of inbound marketing.

3. Close

Here, you basically urge your leads to become customers by facilitating their decision-making process and capitalizing on the trust you’ve established in your brand.

Email marketing is a useful tool in this phase. It allows you to segment your mailing list and send the right message to the right people who are at different stages of the sales funnel or who have different interests and needs.

4. Delight

Provide a great product, exquisite support, and a bit of pampering to make your customers repeat a purchase and turn them into brand advocates.

A steady presence in social media, after-sales surveys, exclusive offers, great customer service, a well-rolling website, and fresh content are some good ways to delight your customers.

So, you can keep reaping the fruit of your previous marketing efforts and spread the word about your brand in a natural way.

Now, SEO is actually an indispensable tool for inbound marketing.

How SEO Helps Marketers

1. Identify The Right Keywords

Among the millions of searches your potential customers could perform, SEO identifies the ones that can bring the right traffic to your pages. It helps you find the best keywords to target to see some fast rankings, or that are missing from your competitors’ pages.

2. Align Your Website To The Right Keyword Topics

Via thorough keyword research and marketing-oriented keyword mapping, you can pinpoint the most suitable topics to include in your website.

For instance, if you have a parcel delivery company, what would your ‘services’ page called? Parcel delivery, parcel shipping, courier services, parcel transport?

SEO helps you make the right decision by analyzing what the users are actually looking for and how other companies use each of the terms above within your target market.

3. Create Supporting Content

SEO helps you identify and employ a wide range of related keywords used in your niche. This will help you expand your domain relevance, spread your message, and establish your brand as an authority in your industry.

4. Optimize Pages End-To-End

SEO fuels your entire inbound marketing strategy by presenting the right content - flawlessly. It ensures that your pages load fast, adapt well to all screens, stay updated and secure, and much more.

How Can SEO And Inbound Marketing Work Together?

SEO and inbound marketing mostly work together to create the ‘best’ content that’ll help you reach your marketing targets. It goes without saying that each piece of content should be worded in terms that users actually type in the search bar.

Once this is done, inbound marketing ensures that each piece of content is unique, informative, valuable, and presented in a way that invites the users to take more action on your website and that creates a good impression for your brand.

In short, optimized content attracts traffic, educates users, and makes them come for more.

Plus, it keeps your brand at the top of SERPs, making it easy for prospects to spot you and keeping your brand status high in the eyes of your leads and existing customers.

Technical SEO is another key factor for a pleasant user experience. A website must be smoothly running and well-built, with no intrusive pop-up messages, and easy to navigate on the tiniest screen - all are essential for your inbound marketing efforts to pay back.

Finally, link-building helps you establish a good backlink profile, which, in turn, establishes you as an authoritative source for search engines and other websites and spreads your message even more.

SEO & Inbound Marketing: Ready To Work With The Pros?

At Atropos Digital, our SEO experts collaborate with your marketing team to elevate your brand in search results and ensure that your pages reach the right people flawlessly and effectively. Call us today to book a free consultation.

FAQs - Inbound Marketing SEO

What Is Inbound SEO?

Inbound SEO is a digital marketing strategy that uses SEO techniques to create and optimize a website’s content in order to attract prospects and engage leads in a natural, unforced way. It aligns keyword research with user intent and provides targeted answers to the questions of your potential customers.

Is SEO Inbound Or Outbound Marketing?

SEO is one of the tools used in inbound marketing. It actually applies various SEO principles, especially keywords, to attract users to visit a website and turn them into prospects. Then, it provides the right keywords to create content that’ll turn these prospects into leads and eventually into repeat customers.