Advertising, Content, and SEO for Growing Inbound Marketing

Listen On:

Podcast Content

In this podcast episode of The Virtual CMO, Hamlet Azarian, CEO and Founder of Azarian Growth Agency speaks with host Eric Dickmann about advertising, content strategies, and SEO for growing inbound marketing.

Hamlet provides valuable insights on how to work with early-stage startups and learn about customer pain points. He shares his views on inbound marketing and the different stages of the buyer journey.

If you’re struggling with content creation and SEO, Hamlet is here to help. He reveals common mistakes that companies make when creating their content strategy and provides tips on how to generate organic traffic.

Hamlet emphasizes the importance of search intent and introduces the pillar and spoke strategy to help businesses improve their SEO.

Tune in to this podcast episode and discover how to create a successful content strategy that will help you generate organic traffic and improve your SEO.

The Basics of Inbound Marketing Crafting Buyer-Centric Content Retargeting and Paid Advertising Key Takeaways for Founders Final Thoughts

What We Discussed

The Basics of Inbound Marketing: How to focus on building relationships with customers by providing educational, problem-solving content at every stage of the buyer’s journey.
Crafting Buyer-Centric Content: Strategies for creating impactful content such as whitepapers, webinars, and blogs that address audience pain points and highlight solutions.
Common Mistakes in Blogging and SEO: Why many companies fail with blogging and how to develop an SEO strategy that focuses on search intent and user needs.
The Three Pillars of SEO: Hamlet explains on-site SEO, technical SEO, and off-site SEO, and how balancing these elements drives organic growth and authority.
The Pillar-and-Spoke Content Strategy: How to structure content in clusters around a central topic to build topical relevance, guide audiences, and improve SEO performance.
Retargeting and Paid Ads: The importance of using pixels, retargeting ads, and sequential content to nurture leads and move them through the sales funnel.
Experimenting with Paid Advertising: How to test headlines, creative themes, and customer triggers to optimize ad performance while maintaining a consistent investment in paid campaigns.
The Role of Marketing Experts: Why working with SEO and advertising experts can save time, minimize costly mistakes, and ensure campaigns are effectively optimized.

The Basics of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing revolves around building relationships and offering value rather than interrupting consumers with sales pitches. Unlike outbound marketing, which aims to grab attention, inbound focuses on guiding potential customers through the buyer’s journey by:

Identifying their pain points and providing solutions.
Educating and informing them based on where they are in the decision-making process (awareness, consideration, or decision stages).
Offering content that aligns with their needs, such as blog posts, whitepapers, and webinars, to help them make informed decisions.

Hamlet emphasizes that inbound marketing is not just about getting to the sale; it’s about nurturing long-term relationships that build trust and loyalty with customers over time.

Crafting Buyer-Centric Content

Hamlet advises businesses to focus on creating content that educates, solves problems, and adds value, rather than aggressively selling. Key types of content include:

Whitepapers and Guides: In-depth resources that define a problem, explain solutions, and showcase the company’s expertise.
Webinars: Interactive sessions that educate audiences and address specific pain points in real time.
Long-Form Blogs: Detailed blog posts, such as “Ultimate Guides,” that provide comprehensive answers to audience questions.
Contrasting Solutions: Demonstrating both the hard way of solving a problem (e.g., manual methods) and the easier way (e.g., using your product), showcasing the value of your offering.

Hamlet also stresses the importance of authenticity. If a potential customer isn’t a good fit for your product or service, guide them to an alternative solution. This builds credibility and trust, which often leads to better long-term relationships.

The Three Pillars of SEO

Hamlet breaks down SEO into three critical components:

On-Site SEO: Focus on keyword research, search intent, and creating content that addresses audience pain points. Ensure content is engaging and relevant to what users are searching for.
Technical SEO: Optimize site performance, including fast load times, mobile responsiveness, schema markup for rich search results, and adhering to Google’s Core Web Vitals standards.
Off-Site SEO: Build authority by earning high-quality backlinks from relevant industry websites. Forge relationships with key influencers and thought leaders to amplify your brand’s credibility.

The Pillar-and-Spoke Content Strategy

Hamlet introduces the pillar-and-spoke content strategy as a way to organize and optimize content for SEO:

Pillar Content: A central, comprehensive resource on a broad topic (e.g., “The Ultimate Guide to SEO”).
Spoke Content: Supporting pieces that delve into subtopics related to the main pillar (e.g., “How to Conduct Keyword Research” or “Technical SEO Best Practices”).

This strategy not only improves topical relevance and SEO rankings but also guides users through related content, encouraging deeper engagement and increasing the likelihood of conversions.

Retargeting and Paid Advertising

Hamlet explains how retargeting works and why it’s essential for nurturing leads:

How Retargeting Works: Once a user visits your site, a pixel (a small snippet of code) tracks their activity. Retargeting ads are then used to serve relevant content or offers to these users on platforms like Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn.
Sequential Ads: Build a journey through retargeting. For example:
- Serve an educational blog post first.
- Follow up with a downloadable resource or guide.
- Show customer testimonials or case studies.
- Highlight press mentions or industry recognition.

The Importance of Paid Advertising Consistency

Hamlet emphasizes that consistency is key in paid advertising. Businesses need to allocate a minimum budget to allow for testing, learning, and iterating:

Start Small: Run initial experiments to test headlines, creative themes, and messaging to find what resonates most with your audience.
Scale What Works: Once winning strategies are identified, gradually increase ad spend to maximize ROI.
Be Data-Driven: Use analytics to monitor performance, identify trends, and refine campaigns.

Key Takeaways for Founders

Inbound is About Relationships: Focus on educating and guiding customers rather than aggressively selling.
Create Buyer-Focused Content: Address audience pain points at every stage of the buyer’s journey with valuable resources.
SEO Success Requires Balance: Ensure your strategy addresses on-site, technical, and off-site SEO for maximum impact.
Use Pillar-and-Spoke Strategies: Organize content into clusters to build topical authority and improve user engagement.
Consistency in Advertising: Invest consistently in paid ads to test, learn, and scale effective campaigns over time.
Focus on Long-Term Value: Build relationships and trust with your audience by being authentic, transparent, and empathetic.

Final Thoughts

Marketing success lies in building authentic relationships, solving real problems, and providing value to your audience at every stage of their journey. By creating thoughtful, buyer-focused strategies in SEO, content, and advertising, businesses can achieve sustainable growth. Don’t shy away from experimenting, learning, and iterating—great marketing is built on a foundation of continuous improvement.