Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to be getting quite an ill fame these days. More and more companies spring up daily professing to know the tricks and the algorithms to make Google and other search engines fall in love with your website. Sadly, these claims are often at least partially true, and websites that have no information value or possess no real advantages over others in their fields suddenly jump to the first pages of search results. I'm not sure that most of us can do anything about this epidemic at the moment, but I know for certain that this is not the time to give up on quality content marketing as the opposite of tricky and unethical practices we are being force-fed today.
Isn't content marketing the same thing?
You are justified if you are finding it difficult to differentiate between legitimate content marketing and questionable online marketing practices. In fact, those promising to turn backward websites and blogs into world leaders over a 24-hour period would love it if all of us stopped seeing the difference between these things. After all, online marketing is still the daily bread of thousands of honest professionals out there, so those violating business ethics would like to be associated with the good people and trusted business practices. Content marketing is, however, not about keyword stuffing and SEO ranking - at least, that is not its main purpose. First and foremost, content marketing is about attracting humans, not robots, to websites and platforms that have something exciting or unique or unusual to share. Content marketing is about advertising products, companies, organizations, campaigns and services through language. Not manipulating people's minds and playing tricks, mind you. I, for one, am proud of being a content marketing professional - over the years, I've helped some great people and teams reach their customers and expand their reach through original and interesting copywriting. I will continue doing so in the face of the ongoing onslaught against the very notion of the Internet as an equal and open information space.
