How to create a modern SEO content strategy
The term “content strategy” broadly refers to planning content that supports a goal. It could be your blog process, how you plan viral social content, or how you choose a mix of content mediums to support marketing teams. In this article, we’re focusing on SEO content strategy.
A lot has changed in SEO - and quite frankly, the popular pillar model is dead. If your current SEO content supports the older algorithm, it’s time to explore newer, efficient tactics that align with Google’s content helpfulness guidelines.
This article covers:
Old SEO content strategies: a single user journey
Modern SEO content strategies: multiple user journeys
Old vs. new SEO content strategy
Where does AI fit into content strategy?
5 steps to build an SEO content roadmap
Key takeaways on SEO content strategy
Old SEO content strategies: a single user journey
At a high level, older content strategies drive users to “pillar pages” where they convert (i.e. download gated content, reach out for a consult, or purchase).
The user journey is simple, but the process to drive traffic involves mass producing blog posts and backlinks. Let’s take a look at the full breakdown of this mass SEO content production.
The pillar content method
A topical pillar page, popularized by HubSpot, is a lengthy piece of content housing a conversion. It’s usually a product page, service page, or an ultimate guide including a download.
Your blog and resource pages are designed to support this pillar page above all else.
SEOs lean toward high search volume, topically relevant keywords for blog posts that support pillar content.
An example of a pillar content model
How to get rankings with the pillar model
In this method, link building is a key piece of getting your pillar pages to rank. SEOs can use blog posts for backlink outreach, paying for or exchanging links with other blogs.
But the key here is that the blog posts link back to their topically respective pillar content, passing the link authority through to a single page. Each blog post might only have 1 backlink, but the pillar page will benefit from multiple.
Conversion rate optimization and pillar content
Using pillar content, CRO is separate from the content process. Optimizing pages for conversions includes CTA placement, design changes, and A/B testing.
How do we drive more people to the pillar page throughout the blog? How do we help people convert on the pillar page with optimal CTAs? Oftentimes, this work falls on designers.
Google’s old algorithm and pillar content
The pillar content method played into Google’s older algorithm, which was heavily based on backlinks to evaluate content authority. Today, Google is more advanced at reading and analyzing your content to assess its quality and usefulness, so we can use more efficient strategies to rank.
Modern SEO content strategies: multiple user journeys
Since Google is more adept at understanding your content, we don’t have to rely on backlinks. Instead, modern SEO content involves zeroing in on the marketing funnel and creating pages to support.
The marketing funnel content strategy method
A full-funnel SEO strategy starts with keyword research and understanding how buyers search throughout the customer journey.
By driving traffic for high buying intent terms, people will convert on the blogs and resource pages themselves. Thus, you’ve created micro user journeys for each of these pages.
As you saturate the mid to low-funnel terms with high buying intent, you can also use lower buying intent terms to build your pipeline.
Modern SEO best practices for content marketing
Instead of acting as a backlink tool, blog posts become awareness, lead, and revenue generators. You can see how this strategy is put into practice through the marketing campaigns below:
How to get rankings throughout the marketing funnel
Link building is still a method to get your blog posts to rank, but focusing on content quality is easier and more conversion friendly. Since your goal is to actually drive traffic to your blogs (and not the pillar page), your blogs need to be top notch anyways. Outsourcing and mass producing shorter content probably won’t cut it.
Here are some guidelines to produce content that ranks based on sheer quality:
Research keywords that are relevant to your personas and their buyer journey (whether or not it’s topically relevant)
Offer a unique, original perspective with your own research, internal company expertise, or being first-to-market with a trending topic
Solve a persona pain point that isn’t widely discussed
Quote and link to authoritative sources (.org, .gov, and .edu websites)
Organize content with thoughtful headings in an outline-like format
Reduce fluffy or shallow content, and use clear facts and examples to support a thesis
Incorporate original graphics to illustrate your points
Conversion rate optimization and the marketing funnel
In this content method, keyword research is your best friend to optimize for conversions. By choosing terms that indicate someone is ready to buy, you are technically baking CRO into the writing process. Any additional CTA placement and UX updates are icing on the cake.
Google’s current algorithm and the marketing funnel
As Google’s algorithm strives to provide a variety of content on page 1, writing for an original perspective is a top ranking factor.
The increasingly advanced algorithm can understand your content, its originality, and its usefulness without backlinks. In fact, by using the content quality tactics mentioned above, Content Land has zero backlinks and plenty of rankings in a competitive space.
Backlinks are still helpful, but they are rarely the most efficient way to get rankings. Use them as a supplemental tool to give content a boost.
Old vs. new SEO content strategy
Take a look at the evolution of SEO content strategy with a side-by-side comparison of older practices vs. modern methods:
Where does AI fit into content strategy?
Should you use a Chat GPT content marketing strategy? That depends. If your content strategy revolves around producing 1000-word blog posts including specific keywords, AI can help you. However, this practice is outdated and probably won’t produce rankable content.
If you’re following content quality guidelines (originality, speaking to pain points, reducing fluffy content, etc.), Chat GPT will not give you a ready-to-post blog.
Instead, lean on AI for brainstorming, persona research, introduction and conclusion text, and finding examples to reference within your blog.
5 steps to build an SEO content roadmap
Follow these steps to build an up-to-date SEO strategy (primarily meant for your blog and resource pages). By finding gaps and reviewing data, you can build a strategic content roadmap.
Step 1: Content inventory
First, create a content inventory by generating a list of pages. You can create this inventory in a few ways:
Export a landing page report in Google Analytics. Ideally this will compile URLs and their respective organic traffic, organic conversions, and organic revenue. If you don't have appropriate conversion tagging for leads and revenue, simply work with traffic.
Copy/paste desired pages from your websites sitemap (hint: it's probably website.com/sitemap.xml or website.com/sitemap_index.xml). This method will not include any data, unless you manually add columns for traffic, leads, etc.
As a bonus - add a column for each page's ranking keywords. This will help you see if blogs are driving traffic for relevant terms, and it will help you gauge buying intent in the next step.
Step 2: Content audit
Next, score your content and add manual details. Include columns for information like:
Marketing funnel phase / buying intent
Related topic cluster
Target persona
Associated product(s)
Step 3: Content analysis
It’s time to start a report on your findings with a content analysis. In this document, you'll cross-reference the content audit columns and performance metrics.
Identify trends - What do top lead-generating blogs have in common? What do top traffic-generating blogs have in common? What do top revenue-generating blogs have in common?
Identify gaps - Is most of your content high-funnel, surrounding a specific topic, or targeting a single persona? Does it target people who buy your most expensive products?
Identify keyword relevance - If you were able to add ranking keywords column, note if pages are ranking for desireable terms.
Identify content to refresh - Any older top-performing content warrants a refresh. A refresh includes updating examples, adding new sections, and changing the publish date to a recent day.
Step 4: Strategic topic ideation
Next, consider your analysis to plan topics and writing prompts. If you found that blogs surrounding a certain topic drove most of your leads, plan more content in that topic. If you found that resource pages outperform blog posts, plan more resources. If you want blogs that target a new persona this year, plan content for these personas.
Each point in your content analysis should be a catalyst for blog ideas.
Try the Content Ideation Worksheet to get new ideas and choose topics based on the buyer journey.
Once you build a robust log, do some keyword research to see which topics have high search volume.
Step 5: Build a roadmap
You’re almost done! At this stage, you should have a spreadsheet of topic ideas, relevant keywords, and search volume. Add rows for content you'd like to refresh, and add a column for the type of web page (ex. case study, blog post, resource page).
Organize this information into a simple roadmap with sections for each quarter (or by listing a publish date for each topic).
Now you have an easy-to-follow plan of exactly which content to produce.
Key takeaways on modern SEO content strategy
Even though content pillars are outdated, a blog that was built on a pillar model is a solid foundation! It’s well-organized to show Google a cluster of relevant content with an internal linking system. And, you probably have some backlinks from previous efforts. It’s time to go back through blogs and refresh them to improve quality and speak to a buying audience.
If you’re starting a new blog, focus on low-funnel keywords for now. They are the most direct, efficient path to revenue. Just remember, product pages need to rank for the broader ready-to-buy terms (like “seo software” or “content marketing agency”). Back your way through the funnel over time as you saturate ready-to-buy topics.
Best of luck building your full-funnel, SEO-optimized content strategy! You now have a plan to produce quality, top-ranking content that speaks to buyers and their needs.
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