--- title: What is SEO and Why Does it Matter For Inbound Marketing? description: SEO is all about leveraging your content so that it appears as high up as possible in search results and is an integral part of inbound marketing. image: https://www.toddhockenberry.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/seo1-1.png --- [![Todd Hockenberry, Inc.](https://www.toddhockenberry.com/hs-fs/hubfs/2015_NEW_Site/todd-hockenberry-inc.png?width=188&height=75&name=todd-hockenberry-inc.png "Todd Hockenberry, Inc.")](https://www.toddhockenberry.com) ## Welcome to my Blog [Blog Main Page](https://www.toddhockenberry.com/blog) ###### Posted by [Todd Hockenberry](https://www.toddhockenberry.com/blog/author/todd-hockenberry) ● Apr 18, 2012 # What is SEO and Why Does it Matter For Inbound Marketing? SEO, search engine optimization, is all about leveraging your content so that it appears as high up as possible in search results. When dealing with SEO, two terms come up a lot: on-page and off-page. On-page content is what is actually on your web pages. Everything from your home  ![seo](https://www.toddhockenberry.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/seo1-1.png) page to your contact us page is content that search engines look at, and the more content you have the more they have to work with, the better the chances are that your website will show up in a search. Off-page content is generated when people interact with your site while not actually on it. The biggest example of this are social media sharing buttons. If someone tweets about your website, that content is about you but isn't actually on your site. Off-page content lets search engines know that people are sharing and interacting with you, which also increases your chances of being found. The key to effective SEO is to combine on and off-page content so that your content ranks highly in search results. How do you do that? The first step is to optimize what you can control, on-page content. When looking at your on-page content you need to ask yourself if you have both branded and non-branded content. Branded content is content about your business. If you run ABC business, your branded content is all the information specific to ABC. Non-branded content is content about your industry or field. If ABC is an industrial distribution company, "ABC was founded in 2001" is branded content while "what kind of barcodes withstand harsh environments" is non-branded content. You should aim for mostly non-branded content. ![seo](https://www.toddhockenberry.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/seo-1.png?width=571&height=358&name=seo-1.png) Branded content about your business is important, however. Creating content about who you are, what you do, and what you offer will help you rank highly for searches about yourself. If someone searches for "ABC Industrial", ABC Industrial should be the first search result. Branded content is one way that you make sure that is the case. Non-branded content, on the other hand, is a big part of how your business makes its way into search results not specifically for you. It's one thing to show up when someone searches for "ABC Industrial", but you also want to show up when people search for "metal marking." Non-branded content about general information and topics in your industry help your business to be found for non-branded search terms. One rule of thumb for non-branded content is to write what you know. If you are an industrial distributor, write about industrial distribution and topics for your target industry's issues and leave general or non-industry topics to others. But how do you know what search terms are worth writing about?  What isn't so obvious is whether "industrial distribution" or "distributors of industrial products" is a better term to use. Which term has more searches monthly, locally, and nationally? This is where a keyword strategy comes into content generation. 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