Top Educational Resources for Content & SEO Team Alignment

The difference between good and great organic marketing? A highly cross-functional team. But it’s not always easy to blend diverse disciplines, let alone find ways to integrate them successfully. A basic understanding of SEO is key for any content marketer who wants to produce engaging content, and aligning with the SEO experts on your team creates an environment that allows agility while ensuring your content strategy is aligned with your overall organic marketing strategy.

Regardless of the size of your content team, learning more about SEO will only improve cross-collaboration with the SEO experts that you do interact with. By breaking down silos between your SEOs and content marketers, you’ll find that your team can produce more successful content faster.

If you don’t weave SEO best practices into your content, you’ll eventually see lower search results rankingsRankings
Rankings in SEO refers to a website’s position in the search engine results page.
Learn more. Over time, low rankings lead to a decline in organic visitors and pageviews to your site, reducing your brand’s visibility online. Implementing SEO into your content development process will enable expanded keywordKeyword
A keyword is what users write into a search engine when they want to find something specific.
Learn more research that helps you better articulate your customer’s voice, questions, and needs in your content. By effectively integrating this research into your content, you’ll see more success when it comes to climbing search rankings; proving the value of content and SEO working hand-in-hand.

Top Educational SEO Resources for Content Marketers

To ensure your content isn’t missing out on traffic and visibility—or an opportunity to build trust with your audience—we created a list of go-to educational SEO resources for content marketers. These resources cover everything from the basics you need to know to keyword research tips and more. Get ready to rise in the ranks.

SEO Basics for Beginners

The world of search engineSearch Engine
A search engine is a website through which users can search internet content.
Learn more optimization may be complex, but learning the basics doesn’t have to be. Even a small amount of knowledge can make a big difference in the content you produce.

• Moz’s  Beginner’s Guide to SEO : Find seven steps to successful SEO, broken down by chapter for easy reading. Moz’s guide is best for content creators looking to learn all major aspects of SEO, from finding keywords to building links and tips on how to ensure your content is friendly to search engines. 
• Conductor Academy: Our free SEO courses are taught by search marketing experts that cover the basics, as well as next-level skills. For anyone just getting started, we recommend our SEO Basics course, where you’ll learn what SEO is, how it works, and how vital of a role it plays in content development— in just 90 minutes.
• Search  Engine Journal’s SEO for Beginners : There’s a lot of excellent information shared in SEJ’s eBook. While it’s dense, it’s also incredibly resourceful. Learn the basics of SEO and how to develop an SEO strategy to dominate your competitors. It’s a great resource for those looking to learn a lot over time. 
• SEO 101 Podcast : Prefer podcasts? Learn SEO from square one by getting helpful information for beginners, without the overwhelming technical details. Plus, the podcast is favored by Google’s Search Advocate, John Mueller , so you know it’s good.
• ContentKing’s Frequently Asked SEO Question Hub: ContentKing answers the most-asked questions ranging from technical SEO to Google Search ConsoleGoogle Search Console
  The Google Search Console is a free web analysis tool offered by Google.
  Learn more, SEO reporting, and more in this comprehensive piece. This is a great educational resource to use when you’re looking for quick SEO insights and answers.

Keyword Research

The foundation of organic marketing is knowing what keywords your target audience is using most often so you can optimize your content accordingly to boost your search visibility and rankings. Keep reading to build a successful keyword research strategy and to learn all you need to know about keyword analysis.

• Keyword Research Methods & Best Practices Guide: Gain a general knowledge of what keyword research is while learning top methods and best practices in our recent guide. Bonus: You can find more SEO guides and eBooks like this in our learning center.
• Search Engine Journal’s How to Do Keyword Research for SEO : This eBook contains eight chapters ranging from keyword research tools to common mistakes to avoid. It’s a great read to help elevate your keyword research process.

SEO Content Writing

The most critical part of writing content is making sure it gets found by your target audience. How can you guarantee that? By incorporating SEO into your content.

• SEO Content Creation Process: A How to Guide: Not only does our guide include nine steps on how to create optimized content but it also shows you how to integrate your SEO and content goals together seamlessly.
• Neil Patel’s Duplicate Content Guide : Neil Patel—ranked as one of the top 10 marketers by Forbes—walks you through exactly what duplicate contentDuplicate Content
  Duplicate content refers to several websites with the same or very similar content.
  Learn more is and how it affects your search rankings.

SEO Content & Content Strategy Optimization

Just because you have great content doesn’t mean that it’ll rank. To do so, make sure your content is set up for SEO success by regularly reviewing and updating your content to reflect the most-searched terms. You also want to ensure that nothing on the technical side is broken or that a page somehow became nonindexed. Here are some more tips:

• Databox’ s 25 Tips for Updating Old Blog Posts for SEO : Over 150 marketers share their tips with Databox on how to update old blog posts for SEO to improve the content and reader experience, along with boosting organic traffic.
• How to Create a Blog That Ranks: We break down the 10+ factors to take into account when creating a blog to ensure that it’s set up for success in SERPs.

A Content Marketer’s Guide to SEO

The resources below are specific to content marketers who are new to SEO or are looking to brush up on their skills.

• Your Guide to an Effective Evergreen Content Strategy: Evergreen content often gets overlooked, but it’s an important piece of the puzzle when it comes to your overall content strategy. Creating evergreen content can have a meaningful impact on your SEO strategy, and this article will show you exactly how to do so.
• ClearVoice’s Simplified SEO: A Resource for Training Newbies : Our partner ClearVoice shares eight SEO fundamentals in this quick-start guide that will give you all the SEO fundamentals you need to get yourself, or the newbies on your team, up to speed. 
• The Art & Science of Content Collaboration : In this guide on content collaboration, we provide four in-depth chapters on the steps to take to break down silos between teams and integrate SEO expertise into the content creation process so you can increase the reach of your content. 

Top Educational SEO Resources for SEOs

You may be an SEO pro, but there’s always something new to learn in the ever-changing world of search—so we’ve broken down resources to bookmark and refer back to on your SEO journey.

Latest SEO News

You can’t be an expert if you’re not up to date on the latest SEO news and updates. We’ve got you covered.

• 30|30 Webinar: Our award-winning SEO webinar is hosted by Conductor’s VP of Digital Strategies, Pat Reinhart . Every month Reinhart breaks down updates in search, technical SEO, and content marketingContent Marketing
  Content marketing is a marketing discipline with the goal of increasing awareness and scope for products and brands in the desired target group with content published on the web and offline.
  Learn more over 30 days.
• Search Engine Land’s Google PageRank & Algorithm Updates : Google changes its search algorithm 500-600 times a year —that’s somewhere between 1-2 times a day. Search Engine Roundtable provides a daily Google algorithm update letting you know of the latest changes so you can stay in the know.
• The Past, Present, and Future of Google’s Core Web Vitals Update: Are you wondering what changes Google has already implemented that you may have missed? Are you prepared for what’s to come? Conductor’s Manager of SEO Support and Senior SEO Success Manager breakdown everything you need to know in this Webinar. 

Technical SEO

Ensuring your website meets the technical requirements of search engines is key in order to ensure increased findability and improved organic rankings.

• ContentKing Academy: A content hub of insightful information related to SEO and content marketing. Categories include: Get Google to Index Your Site, Controlling Crawling and Indexing, Website Migrations Guide and more.

• Search Engine Journal’s Advanced Technical SE O Guide : Search Engine Journal provides over 21 chapters on the key technical SEO strategies every practitioner needs to know. 

SEO Career Development

Whether you’re looking for a new role or looking to hire on your team, these resources can help.

• Search Engine Journal’s How To Write A Standout SEO Resume : Conductor’s very own SEO Manager Lauren Carel gives all the details on who’s hiring, what skills they’re looking for, and how to write a stellar SEO resume.
• SEO Specialist Job Description Template: Start with our job description template if you’re looking to hire SEO support for your team. We’ve done the work so you don’t have to. Plus, it’s easy to customize with key duties and responsibilities for your company.

To succeed in search today, SEO experts aren’t the only ones who need to be well-versed in SEO best practices. Content marketers can use these resources to expand their SEO knowledge and better align with the SEO experts on their teams (and vice versa). For more SEO and content marketing news, subscribe to The Dispatch—our monthly newsletter that brings you the latest SEO, content marketing, and industry updates to help you stay one step ahead of your competitors.