Content strategy and SEO are often considered distinct digital marketing disciplines, but the truth is that neither can succeed without the other. In today’s digital landscape, it’s nearly impossible to see significant traffic without ranking in search engines. According to Backlink.io, less than 1% of searchers click on anything from the second page of Google results—but the No. 1 result in Google garners approximately 28% of all clicks.
Even the most well-written blog post accomplishes nothing if no one sees it. Similarly, content that prioritizes optimization but ignores quality won’t be served to searchers, either, and will be rendered obsolete. The most successful digital content combines SEO best practices with quality writing to rank higher in search engines and deliver the answers shoppers are seeking—and the conversions companies want. In this blog, I’ll share some helpful tips and best practices for writing great content that ranks. But first, let’s talk about why alignment matters.
Why Alignment Matters
When SEO and content strategy aren’t aligned, you get great content that no one sees—or low-quality content search engines won’t rank. Instead of thinking of SEO and content strategy as two separate disciplines, think of them as two parts of a whole.
- Content strategy is how you plan to use content (often, blog articles) to attract customers to your business.
- SEO is about structuring and optimizing that content so that it is able to reach the right audience.
The benefits of aligning SEO and content strategy can be significant, from increased organic traffic and revenue to an expanded backlink profile and greater brand visibility. Focusing digital marketing efforts on a combined objective can help you maximize results—but first, you need to understand how Google ranks content.
Understanding How Google Ranks Content
The first step to improve your SEO with content marketing is to understand how Google ranks content. Search engines consider several factors when choosing what to surface on the SERP, including:
- Relevance: Is this content relevant to what the user is searching for? Keywords are the most important way to signal relevance.
- Quality: Does the content demonstrate E-E-A-T (Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trustworthiness)?
- Usability: All else equal, is this content more accessible than others? This might include factors like page-loading speed, mobile friendliness, or even formatting.
The Problem With Poor Content
Search engines penalize poor content, whether it’s AI-generated or written by a professional. Content that is duplicated, thin, or riddled with errors will likely lead to lower rankings and reduced visibility—for the content in question, and for your site as a whole. Here’s how:
- Poor User Experience: Low-quality content contributes to a poor user experience, increasing bounce rates and lowering time on site—two key ranking factors.
- Fewer Backlink Opportunities: Backlinks are essential for establishing authority and trustworthiness, but external sites are less likely to share low-quality content.
- Reduced Authority: While high-quality content establishes your authority, low-quality content achieves the opposite, negatively impacting your brand’s reputation.
How To Increase SEO Ranking With Content Marketing
It’s clear that quality and optimization are important when it comes to creating content that earns a coveted position on SERP. But what does merging content strategy with SEO look like in practice? Here’s how I approach writing great content that ranks.
1. Develop Content That Supports Your Business Objectives
Understanding your business objectives can help you home in on topics that deliver results. Start by identifying topics that support what you’re trying to achieve—this is the content strategy part. Does your company want to increase form submissions inquiring about a software product? Or perhaps you’re launching a new collection of kids’ bedding, and you want content to support that.
You’ll likely need more than one blog post to support a singular objective. To establish authority and expertise, look at the topic at hand from a variety of angles—what we call content clusters.
2. Identify Key Queries Searchers Are Asking
Once you have an initial list of topics that support your business objectives, it’s time to do keyword research and see if they provide value. The best keyword isn’t the one with the highest search volume, especially when you’re talking about developing optimized content for a blog. Instead, look for long-tail keywords that have reasonable search volume and high degree of relevance—and that meet the business objectives you determined above.
Queries like how to wash bed sheets, how to keep fitted sheets in place, or what is the best bedding for kids are all a good basis for a highly optimized, high-quality piece of content. Then, you can build upon your primary keyword with supporting terms that will allow you to add heft and weight to your content.
3. Implement Keywords Strategically
Once you’ve narrowed down your primary and secondary keywords, you’ll want to implement these terms effectively—without offerstuffing. This means including the primary keyword in the:
- URL, Page Title, and Meta Description
- H1
- Opening sentence or paragraph
- Throughout the copy
Secondary keywords should be included in H2s and H3s, and throughout the copy. Let these key terms drive the structure and focus of your piece, but don’t be afraid to add more context or value where possible. (More on that later.)
SEO best practices are always evolving, but right now, I like to look at each target keyword as a query in need of an answer—whether or not it is phrased as such. In this way, the keyword cotton vs. linen sheets becomes are cotton or linen sheets better?, and the term benefits of premium financing signals I need to tell the reader why premium financing is important. I can then frame the sentence, paragraph, or blog post I’m writing in a way that allows me to provide a clear, succinct answer to the key question.
4. Match Structure to the Searcher’s Query
This SEO best practice makes content writing strategic. Rather than simply providing the answer, let what the searcher is seeking inform how you structure your content. For example:
- Craft how-to content that clearly tells the reader how through numbered, step-by-step instructions.
- Build a buying guide with bullet points or clear headings to signal key factors to consider when shopping.
- Clearly demonstrate the benefits of one product versus another with a table or chart that highlights key differences and similarities.
Matching structure to intent makes your content more accessible to readers. Bonus: It also makes it easier for Google to pull that content for featured snippets, on-page SERP features, or AI Overviews. This increases visibility and gives you another leg-up over the competition.
5. Use Links Strategically
As my colleague Daphne covered in this recent blog post, internal linking signals to search engines that another page on your site is important. Strategic blog content gives you the chance to add to this web of internal relationships on your website and further establish your authority. When you link from a blog post about how to choose bed sheets to a bed sheet category pages with quality footer copy and ranking content about linen versus cotton sheets, you’re illustrating to Google that your site offers comprehensive expertise on the topic at hand.
6. Go Deep
Don’t just tell readers which product is best; tell them why. Adding context signals to readers—and search engines—that your content is trustworthy. It’s also a way to differentiate your blog from AI-generated content, which is often either highly repetitive or only scratches the surface of the topic at hand. But Google is looking for content that is helpful. When you give the readers what they need and then some, they won’t have to search elsewhere for an answer, and they’ll be more likely to come back to you next time they have a query.
7. Update Content Regularly
SEO takes time, and a successful content strategy is never complete. For our longest-standing clients, we’re constantly auditing existing content to see where we can update and improve. These improvements can be small or significant, and may include:
- Updating keywords or structure to match current SEO best practices
- Removing old or broken links and replacing with links to new content or categories
- Updating statistics and external links with more recent sources
- Revising content to better address new queries, emerging competitors, or new information and facts
Where Does AI-Generated Content Fit In?
Of course, that leads us to the hot topic on the tip of marketers’ tongues: What about AI-generated content? While we have seen instances of AI-generated content ranking, it’s important to note that Google and other search engines, as well as generative search, have all indicated they plan to deprioritize it in the future. The emphasis remains on creating high-quality, unique content that provides value to the searcher—not on taking SEO shortcuts that, well, fall short.
At Eight Oh Two, we use AI to help with content brainstorming and outline generation, but we leave it to our writers to do what they do best—write. After all, LLMs only draw on what already exists, and if everyone begins to use them exclusively, the search landscape will be filled with a bunch of same or similar content, without any value added. (And, as a copy editor, I can attest that AI-generated content often requires significant retouching to meet the standards we hold our writers to, meaning it likely falls short of that quality standard.)
The good news? The best practices for ranking for generative search are nearly identical to SEO, so professionals who are already following SEO best practices for ranking content can just keep on keeping on.
The Bottom Line: Ranking Content = Well-Written Content + Strategic Optimization
Ranking content requires a solid strategy behind it, one that takes into consideration the quality of the copy itself and how it is optimized. The difference between good content and ranking content is often that extra step—adding more depth to a key answer, or consistently updating content to reflect current trends, priorities, and queries.
If you’re ready to start publishing great content that ranks well, reach out to Eight Oh Two today. Our content team is well-versed in drafting top-quality, keyword-rich content that delivers impressions, clicks, and conversions to boost your business’ bottom line.
