It’s a familiar story and it usually goes like this: you’re a new business owner, or perhaps a more established brand, seeking insights into search engine optimisation and how content marketing can improve your online visibility. But there’s so much information out there. Is half of it even useful? When it comes to the sheer quantity and variety of SEO content types, at best it’s confusing and, at worse, it’s like you’re banging your head against a wall.
We know the feeling. That’s why we’re here to cut through the noise. In this guide, we’ll give you a detailed rundown of all the different types of content for SEO that you’ll need to get a handle on, and the best place to start.
Ready?
Skip to:
- What is SEO content
- How SEO content types fit into growth
- 10 Different types of content for SEO
- Combining types of content for SEO
- Repurposing content
- Final considerations
What is SEO content?
Sounds like an obvious question, right? But make no mistake, it’s important to define SEO content and reiterate the basics.
For the uninitiated, you’ve probably already read plenty of SEO-optimised content without even knowing it! From business blogs and FAQs to videos and infographics, there’s so much online material that makes use of SEO tactics to show up on Google’s search results page.
The fact of the matter is that content marketing and SEO are the backbone of the internet. SEO content refers to any online material created with the specific goal of attracting search engine traffic.
This type of content is strategically crafted to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs) for particular keywords or phrases. By optimising various elements such as meta tags, headings, keywords and internal linking, SEO content aims to increase visibility and drive organic traffic to a website. It’s an incredibly important tool in a marketer’s arsenal.
Bear with me, because I’m going to show you why…
How SEO content types fit into growth
There’s many reasons why crafting compelling SEO content should make up a significant portion of your marketing brief.
As consumers increasingly rely on search engines to find information, products, and services, businesses that invest in SEO content are better positioned to capture valuable organic traffic and expand their online presence.
By strategically creating and optimising various types of SEO content, businesses can:
Increase visibility
Ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant keywords and phrases helps businesses attract more organic traffic to their website. This increased visibility not only boosts brand awareness but also puts businesses in front of potential customers who are actively searching for solutions or information related to their products or services.
Boost local traffic
SEO can also be beneficial on the local level, allowing your website to appear in Google Maps and local search results. This translates into higher levels of foot traffic, in-store visits and, of course, sales.
Generate qualified leads
SEO content is an effective way to attract and engage prospects at different stages of the buyer’s journey.
Whether it’s informative blog posts, in-depth guides, or compelling videos, well-crafted SEO content for lead generation can address the needs and pain points of target audiences, driving them to take desired actions such as signing up for newsletters, downloading resources, or requesting more information.
Build authority and trust
Creating valuable and informative SEO content establishes businesses as authorities in their respective industries, and the go-to source of information for consumers over competitors in your niche.
What makes content impactful?
SEO content is not just about ranking high on search engines; it’s also about providing value to users. High-quality SEO content is informative, engaging, and relevant to the target audience’s interests and needs. It answers their questions, solves their problems, and offers valuable insights or entertainment.
This means that you’ll need to conduct precise keyword research and implement them effectively, whilst staying on top of trends. Then, there’s the art of perfecting your copywriting, videography or graphic design, depending on the material you create.
In essence, SEO content serves a dual purpose: it satisfies both search engines and human readers. By striking the right balance between optimisation and user experience, businesses can create content that not only ranks well but also resonates with their audience, ultimately driving traffic, engagement, and conversions.
10 different types of content for SEO
Understandably, you might not be keen to spread yourself too thin by managing the output of multitudes of SEO content types, but you don’t want to miss those rare lead-generation opportunities.
As such, here are 10 types of content for SEO purposes that you should definitely consider. Plus, some incentives as to why to employ them.
1) Landing pages
These are the entry points to your website, designed to convert visitors into leads or customers. Optimising landing pages with targeted keywords and compelling content can significantly impact conversion rates and drive business growth. And when paired with a tight PPC management strategy, you can make waves in lead generation.
2) Pillar pages
Pillar pages are comprehensive, high-quality pieces of long-form content that serve as the central hub for a particular topic or theme on a website. Unlike traditional blog posts or articles, pillar pages are designed to cover broad topics, providing a comprehensive overview of a subject while also linking out to more specific, related material known as cluster content.
This hierarchical structure not only organises information in a logical and user-friendly manner but also signals to search engines the relevance and authority of the website on the given topic.
Pillar pages are effective and useful for several reasons, but we can sum them up as follows:
- They attract high volumes of organic traffic;
- Serve as a valuable resource for users seeking information or solutions related to the topic;
- Facilitate internal linking by providing a central hub from which cluster content can branch out;
- Help distribute authority and equity throughout the website, improving the visibility and ranking potential of all linked pages;
- Enhance user experience by providing a structured and organised framework for navigating complex topics;
- Get more users on your pages and for longer.
3) Blog posts
Many business owners ask themselves “why write a blog?”. But when faced with the raw data, the answer is obvious:
- B2B marketers receive 67% more leads when they blog
- Companies receive 55% more website visitors when they blog
- Blog posts are the most popular content format, with 9 out of 10 marketers using this strategy to achieve their objectives.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at the SEO content types that fall under the blog post label.
Brand awareness posts
They’re what they say on the tin. Brand awareness posts are blog posts intended for a broader audience at the brand awareness stage of the buying process.
Aimed at increasing brand visibility and recognition among potential customers, these blog posts are oriented towards subtly introducing the brand, its values, and its offerings to potential customers. These articles might answer a wider question, provide ideas and inspiration, or they might simply cover a topical conversation.
Either way, by crafting engaging and informative brand awareness posts, businesses can attract new audiences, foster positive brand associations, and lay the groundwork for future engagement and conversions. Remember to include internal links to more consideration-focused articles and you can continue to lead potential clients down your sales pipeline – think of it like laying a trail of breadcrumbs!
Lead generation-focused posts
Lead generation-focused posts are designed to capture the interest of potential leads and encourage them to take action. These blog posts often offer valuable resources, such as eBooks, whitepapers, or webinars, in exchange for contact information or other forms of engagement.
By providing valuable insights or solutions to common pain points, lead generation-focused posts can attract qualified leads, nurture relationships, and drive conversions further down the sales funnel.
BOFU or decision posts
Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) or decision posts are geared towards prospects who are nearing the end of the buying process and are ready to make a purchase decision.
These blog posts typically highlight the features, benefits, and advantages of specific products or services, helping prospects overcome any remaining objections and finalise their decision. By providing compelling information and persuasive arguments, decision articles can influence purchase decisions, drive conversions, and ultimately, generate revenue for the business.
Guides and tutorials
Guides and tutorials are comprehensive blog posts that offer step-by-step instructions, tips, or best practices on a particular topic or subject matter. These posts aim to educate and empower readers, helping them solve problems, learn new skills, or achieve specific goals.
This is another brilliant opportunity to position your business as a trusted authority in your industry, attract organic traffic, and foster long-term relationships with readers.
PR and news
Of all the types of SEO articles, these are the most topical. An off-branch of brand awareness posts, PR and news articles are timely and relevant blog posts that highlight company announcements, industry updates, or noteworthy events. These posts help keep audiences informed about the latest developments within the company or industry, demonstrate thought leadership, and maintain a pulse on industry trends. Get your timing just right and you can build credibility, attract media attention, and stay top-of-mind with your target audience.
4) FAQs
FAQs are an SEO goldmine. These pages are dedicated to addressing common inquiries, concerns, or doubts that potential customers or website visitors may have about a particular product, service, or topic. By compiling and answering these frequently asked questions in one centralised location, FAQ pages serve as a valuable resource for both users and search engines alike.
But that’s not it. FAQ pages can be easily optimised. After all, one of the primary reasons why FAQ pages are so powerful is their ability to target long-tail keywords and capture specific search queries.
Users often pose questions in search engines when seeking information or solutions – in fact, 8% of search queries are questions – and FAQ pages optimised with relevant keywords can attract organic traffic from these specific queries, allowing you to funnel potential customers into your sales pipeline.
5) Video
If you spend any amount of time online, you probably will have noticed the proliferation of video content across social media and websites. From handy tutorials to short explainers, a video showcasing relevant, important and well-formatted information can go a long way.
And remember, whether you’re optimising it for YouTube or incorporating an embedded video to improve a blog post, ensure that it’s SEO-friendly!
Short form
Short form videos have become a ubiquitous presence across social media platforms and websites, captivating audiences with their brevity and impact.
These bite-sized videos are typically brief, ranging from a few seconds to a few minutes in length, and are designed to deliver quick, digestible bursts of information or entertainment. Whether it’s a captivating teaser, a snappy tutorial, or a humorous clip, short form videos excel at capturing attention, sparking curiosity, and driving engagement in today’s fast-paced digital landscape.
Long form
While short form videos dominate social media feeds, long form videos offer a deeper, more immersive storytelling experience that resonates with audiences on a profound level.
These videos are typically longer in duration, ranging from several minutes to an hour or more, and provide an in-depth exploration of a topic, story, or narrative arc. Whether it’s a documentary, a webinar, or a comprehensive tutorial series, long form videos offer businesses the opportunity to deliver rich, substantive content that educates, entertains, and engages viewers over an extended period.
By investing in long form videos, businesses can showcase their expertise, build credibility, and forge deeper connections with their audience, ultimately driving brand loyalty and advocacy.
6) Podcasts
A perfect accompaniment to your existing B2B content marketing strategy, podcasts have become synonymous with self-directed learning and thought leadership. And capturing the attention of more than 464 million listeners worldwide, it’s ripe ground for reaching new clients and reinforcing customer loyalty.
This B2B marketing channel can also be optimised for search engines; placing highly targeted keywords in your title, description and the show notes. The easiest way to do this is to work backwards, selecting episode topics based on relevant queries with a decent amount of traffic.
7) Infographics
When it comes to visual content, infographics stand out as highly effective tools for conveying complex information in a visually appealing and easily digestible format. This is so important in today’s day and age when almost 30% of the results returned by Google are images.
Another crucial thing to understand is that they’re inherently shareable. Think about blogs you’ve stumbled across – how many of these include an infographic at the top to summarise the content? Often these blogs will have commissioned a designer to create a graphic for them, or they might have even been approached as part of another company’s outreach strategy and given the infographic in exchange for a backlink.
Popular infographics include:
- Checklists
- Mini tutorials
- Statistics
- Comparisons (brand or otherwise)
- Explainers
As the above examples show, infographics can be anything you desire. As long as they’re succinct, visually appealing and convey the information at a glance, they can be pretty powerful.
8) Digital tools
One of the types of content for SEO that is often overlooked is the humble digital tool. From calculators to quote generators, at WebHummel, we’ve worked with clients to optimise these handy features.
For example, we worked with a Yorkshire-based sawmill to improve a fencing calculator; we ensured that it was populated with relevant keywords to draw in traffic and optimised the text to provide the smoothest user experience possible. This way, the client could offer greater value than their competitors and make life easier for their customers picking out materials for their garden fence DIY projects.
9) Outreach articles
Outreach is one of the cornerstones of off-page SEO, and one of the best ways to conduct SEO outreach is by creating content to host on other websites. We briefly mentioned how some businesses use infographics to gain backlinks for little to no cost, but a similar process can be used to gain backlinks through outreach articles.
These articles serve a multifaceted purpose: they introduce your brand to new readers while also generating backlinks to your website and helping you curate new business relationships.
When crafting outreach articles, it’s essential to ensure that the content is relevant, engaging, and offers something of value to the website where it will be hosted. Researching and identifying reputable websites within your niche or industry is key to a successful outreach strategy.
Once you’ve identified potential websites, reaching out to them with well-crafted pitches that highlight the benefits of hosting your content can significantly increase your chances of securing placement.
10) Evergreen content
Evergreen content is especially beneficial to small businesses. It refers to content that remains relevant and valuable over time, making it especially helpful to companies seeking to maximise their online presence.
Unlike time-sensitive or trending content, evergreen content continues to attract traffic and sustainable engagement long after its initial publication. This type of SEO content typically addresses timeless topics, addresses frequently asked questions, or provides valuable insights that remain relevant to your target audience regardless of changing trends or seasons.
Whether it’s in the form of comprehensive guides, tutorials, or informative articles, incorporating evergreen material into your marketing strategy can yield long-term benefits and help drive sustained growth for your business.
So, is there a winning combination of SEO content types?
There’s not a simple way to answer this question. But what we can say is that a content marketing strategy will make use of multiple content formats and put time and effort into each in order to be effective.
While this is a lot to tackle single-handedly, there are ways to make it easier for yourself from repurposing blog content for other channels or complementing one content type with another, for instance, incorporating videos into your pillar pages.
Repurposing content is a valuable tool for driving positive results
According to Optinmonster, around 60% of marketers actively reuse blog content 2-3 times. And at WebHummel, we’re huge advocates for republishing articles and webpages. Why?
Well, for a start, repurposing content allows businesses to maximise the value of their existing assets. Instead of constantly creating new content from scratch, repurposing involves transforming existing content into different formats, making improvements and retargeting keywords in a bid to optimise it in line with changing trends and search terms. This approach not only saves time and resources but also ensures that valuable insights and information reach their full potential.
By updating and republishing evergreen content or creating new iterations of existing content, businesses can signal to search engines that their website is regularly updated with fresh and relevant information. Bam – higher search rankings, increased organic traffic, and improved overall visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) all in the bag!
A few things to consider
Before you log into your website CMS, open a fresh Word Document or make a start on a new graphic, be sure to consider these final tips.
- Have you optimised your website design and technical SEO? If your site isn’t user-friendly, navigable or takes an age to load, people won’t bother to read the content you’ve put your heart and soul into!
- Have you developed detailed and specific content pillars? Whether for social media or blogs, generic content pillars aren’t going to cut it! Make sure they provide clarity, are distinct enough and cover key questions and elements in your niche. “Educational”, “Inspirational” and “Entertaining” aren’t content pillars – they’re intents or objectives.
- Have you done your audience research? Having a general cookie-cutter “strategy”, isn’t going to help you in the long run. Enough with the sweeping generalisations; get nitty gritty with your targeting and speak directly to your customers. Buyer personas will help you with this!
- Have you optimised your content creation workflow? There are so many methods for optimising the way you work. From building an efficient editorial marketing calendar to using automated tools like Asana and using ChatGPT to jumpstart your keyword research.
- Have you invested the right amount of time and resources into your content? Sorry to be a downer, but lacklustre content won’t get you far. It’s obvious to readers from the get-go when SEO content has been churned out. To avoid this, make sure to set aside the time and resources (be it money or bright minds!) to create compelling work.
- Have you taken steps to prevent overstretching yourself? The content game is a tiring one, and it’s easy to get burned out. Especially when you’re balancing daily business operations on top of it. Don’t hesitate to outsource the work if you haven’t the time – content marketing experts can absorb some of the costs of digital tools, implementing their experience to ensure quality assurance.
Build trust and improve your brand awareness with SEO content
Using a variety of stellar SEO content types and formats isn’t an absolute must, but it’s more than just a good idea.
In today’s marketplace, people are chasing quality content that serves them, and they’re more likely to buy from trusted brands that spark human connection.
With the dawning of the AI content era, it’s becoming more difficult to distinguish between authentic content and empty marketing fluff – so make sure you satisfy your audience’s needs with a meaningful, unique and varied marketing output. Then you’ll get a leg up on the competition.
Want more insights from the experts?
Was that enough to whet your SEO appetite? There’s more where that came from.
Explore the rest of our marketing blog for more specialist guides informed by real-life campaigns, or make a ‘beeline’ to our contact page to chat with our team about how we can enhance your SEO.
