SEO this SEO that, so much tallk around SEO and so little talk around SEO content which is by the way the backbone of your SEO. There is so much in the SEO content realm that it would take a few weeks to cover all of those aspects, stay tuned because I am going to cover all of it, starting with the types of SEO content.
Surprising isn’t it that SEO content also has types, who would’ve thought. Well, you come across all of the types of SEO content but often fail to notice it. But today, I am going to make you notice all of it with examples, and also how these content pieces individually add value to your SEO strategy and business.
Types of SEO content I bet you didn’t know about!
This list of types of content for SEO is expansive, so pull out your pen and paper to make notes while I tell you why you need a variety of SEO content.
Every type of SEO content listed below has its own benefits and no one kind is better than the other. You decide and choose the one that fits your SEO strategy to give you the best results.
Blog Posts and articles
This piece of SEO content you are reading right now is an article or some might call it a blog interchangeably. They are not entirely wrong but there is an articulate difference between the two and that is of the kind of research done to write the both.
Articles are mostly in-depth, it’s a common notion to believe that anything with more than 2,000 words is an article or else a blog. In my opinion, it truly depends upon how the piece of content has been written, what is the purpose of it, and most importantly who it is written by.
Anyone can write a blog, but only an expert can write an article once they have had a thorough experience in a particular field. Either way both of these fall under the same category of SEO type of content and have further segmentations as well which are common for both.
Educational
Let’s keep it simple, anything written with the purpose to educate you is an educational blog or article. Those articles are focused solely on providing information to the reader and rarely have any ‘salesy’ content in them to sell a product as service.
For instance, in the image below you can see that Badger Maps has written the blog on sales pitch tips solely for the purpose of educating their audience.
[Source – Badger Maps]
I know what you are thinking, and you are thinking right – currently what you are reading is also an educational article and I have no intention of selling anything to you at least not yet XD.
“If that’s the case then why should I invest my time in this type of content?”
That’s a fair ask, so here are your reasons for the same.
- Your audience needs to know that you are aware of what service or product you are providing and you are also an expert on it.
- It spreads awareness about your brand. When you’re competing with the giants in SEO, these are the kind of articles that would let the audience know that your brand exists.
- No matter what type of SEO content it is, there is always an opportunity to promote your product, you just need to find the right tone and content to do so – you can do the same with educational articles as well.
Authoritative
Alright, let’s play a game. Consider that you have a website that sells stationary materials and you have relevant landing pages as well to sell your products. But beyond that you do not have much content on your website.
Yet, Google will not rank your pages for relevant search queries. Why?
Because there is no content on your website that establishes you as a stationary products providing brand. Thus, you have no authority either in that particular niche and that is why your product pages are not showing.
Authoritative content is the one that establishes your brand in a particular niche. That tells Google that this is the industry you are working in and they should rank you for queries related to it.
Since ZeroAdo provides SEO and one of the best link building services along with other marketing services so our content is always focused on that niche. That way, we have been able to establish our authority in the mentioned niches in the eyes of Google.
[Source – ZeroAdo]
Hate to say it, but you need to become the star in the eyes of Google because of your customers so we need to serve Google pretty much everything it asks for. And if you see forma different perspective, it is also fair to your customers too, after all they should know in depth about what you do and provide.
Long-form
As the name itself suggests, the long form content is well – ‘long.’ But why should you care about this? Because it is the best SEO content and suits almost all types of SEO strategies.
In long form content you cover the topic in as much depth as possible with as many details as possible. For instance, consider you are writing content on lipsticks and you start by addressing what lipstick is and then get in depth of it by explaining the ingredients of it, benefits of using it, ways to use it, and more.
Long form content usually ranges between 7,000 – 10,000 words however it totally depends upon the topic you are covering. Since it is so in-depth this kind of content also has a lot of potential to get backlinks and it also presents a lot of opportunities to promote your content within it.
Thus, making it every SEO folk’s favorite kind of content.
Checkout this blog on website pop-up examples where the author has listed 82 types of pop-ups! Now that’s what we call long form and helpful content!
Lead-generation focused
Ah! Here comes the spice, among all the types of SEO content this one is one of the most difficult ones to frame but it is highly rewarding. This kind of content is written with the help of highly targeted buy-intent keywords.
You know that a reader is searching for those queries only when they are willing to buy that product or service. So you need to write these kinds of blogs and articles very carefully since they have the ability to convert the readers into customers.
Here are a few examples of keywords based on which you build the lead-generation focused content.
- Checklist to buy a new car
- Best items for home decor
- SEO agencies in Mumbai
- Top productivity tool
- List of team management tools
Checkout this blog on checklist of buying a house from one of ZeroAdo’s client that is ranking in top 10 on Google and have been curated from the perspective of lead generation.
You can only imagine the number of leads this blog is providing them with. If you get one such blog ranking, that one blog alone would be able to provide significant growth for your business.
Landing pages
Every page that you come across a website which is not a blog or article is a landing page. Now in landing pages as well there is not just one time. There are plenty of them that support different aspects of your SEO. Some are built for branded SEO, some for awareness, while some for solely selling your product.
Let’s get into all these types of SEO content landing pages.
Product led pages
Checkout this page from Trello, what do you see here?
Hardcore details about their product. You will find answers to all your questions about their product here and also all the details and functionality of it.
Such pages, that talk in detail about just the product, are called product pages. These pages mostly talk about the product in multiple contexts even though the product is the same. Why? Because people are searching for a solution for different purposes so you need to cater to all through your product pages.
For instance, Trello has a product page where they talk about their product in content of how marketing teams can use it, then they have other pages for design teams, engineering teams, remote teams, and even startups.
These product pages help you position your product in multiple ways as one product can be used for several purposes.
Just like this, e-commerce websites also have a dedicated product page with all the product information. only how the copies are written is different.
Checkout the example below of coffee mugs, all the mugs that are ranking are from e-commerce websites and SEO content on each one of these have been curated to give all the details of the product using keywords.
For instance, if I would search for earthy cups, or Borosil coffee mug, then the results would be different depending upon the content written in product details.
Service-led pages
Instead of products, if you are providing services, then service-led landing pages are the SEO type of content that you would be designing. However, how the content is being presented will be very different from product-led pages.
Instead of product details, you now need to give your service’s details based on the keywords data that you have with you. These pages are fairly easy to write but very difficult to rank for since the competition is cut throat because they represent high buying intent of the user.
The above page is ranking for the query – “ai consulting services” and you can see how these pages are designed. Here, this service page has been designed for a very generic query and then further segmented into other child services since AI consulting services are very vast.
Each service page has to be curated very carefully based on who you are trying to be found by.
Pillar pages
Think of a tree trunk. It is thick and huge and there are several branches coming out of it. One common thing about all the branches is that they are linked to the trunk.
Now keeping this example in mind, let’s think of the pillar pages as the trunk of the tree and branches as the pages with content with pillar pages as their base.
Simplifying it further, pillar pages are those which cover one whole topic broadly while strategically giving links to other related topics, in case someone wants to read them in depth.
For example, in the above image, Backlinko is covering the topic of what is SEO, but soon after it is adding links to the content cluster of ‘technical SEO’ and ‘content SEO.’
Here, this particular page is giving an overview of what SEO is and then it is giving a broad overview of the topic. But side-by-side is also giving links to the in-depth content pieces which are related to the topic. Here is another example from the same pillar page 👇.
[Source – Backlinko]
Competitor comparison SEO type of content
Honestly speaking, this is one of my favorite types of SEO content. All the brands are trying to put their best foot forward in such content pieces and sometimes they use hilarious SEO copywriting to appeal to the customer.
Here is one of my favorite ones from Verloop where they are doing a comparison of Verloop vs Freshdesk and they have used a fun copy for the same.
[Source – Verloop]
These comparison pages do an in depth comparison of what all their competitor brands are offering and often involve a face off between the features of their product and services. Here is another example of the same from MyOperator (a cloud calling solution provider), involving a showdown of their features as an Exotel alternative.
[Source – MyOperator]
These comparison pages are mostly dealing with the queroes of ‘vs’ and ‘alternative’ that users are searching for. For such queries mostly there is a dedicated landing page as they are searching for a single alternative solution or a 1:1 comparison.
Within the same niche there is another SEO content type where users are searching for multiple options and they are usually with the queries like ‘alternatives.’
When the user’s intent is to look for multiple options that is when such comparisons are better done in the form of the blogs. Note in the snapshot below that with the change in query, SEO type of content has changed as well.
Guides and how-tos
Detailed guides and how-to type of content is one of the most prevalent types of content for SEO that any and every business can and must have on their website.
This type of content usually has the intention of educating the reader but they provide an excellent opportunity to build your brand image as a ‘helpful brand’ as well.
These guides and how-to content pieces focus on resolving a problem for the reader by providing detailed solutions. Here are a few examples of that to give you a better understanding.
- Guide on sales cold calling.
- How to make the most of my time at work
- A detailed guide on building a startup
- How to learn bicycle – a guide
In the above snapshot, checkout all the how-to SEO type of content is ranking and one of them is also a descriptive ‘guide.’ How-to and guide kind of content usually go hand in hand as we can clearly see.
Listicles
A list of things are called listicles. That’s it.
Hah, I know I am funny!
Jokes apart, that is what listicles truly mean. But this is the SEO type of content that provides you with a huge opportunity to convert your readers especially if the listicles are catering to keywords of substance with high buying intent.
For instance – “best softwares to edit instagram videos”
If someone is searching for one such query then that means they are looking for a listicle with a lot of options for them to choose from. In such listicles, put your brand on top. You and I both know that the user is barely going to scroll more than three times and they will end up trying the first 2-3 options provided to them.
If done right, the listicle type of SEO content presents you with a huge opportunity to grow your business. They are one piece of content that gets you both traffic and leads in a fairly good amount.
Local SEO optimized content / multilingual content
This is the best SEO content if you want to rank for queries in a certain region. How you do that is by targeting keywords related to that region and also if possible then in their language as well.
For instance, “buy a house in Fiji” or “rent a house in Kerala” – when content is written based on such keywords it becomes highly localized and to add to it, you can use the hreflang tag as well to update the language of your content based on the region it is being searched for.
Localized content can be of any kind, it can be a landing page or a blog based on the need and of course user intent.
This kind of content helps your business earn some brownie points with Google My Business and can help you increase the footfall at your local store as well. So do not underestimate the power of localized SEO type of content.
Checkout the snapshot below to see how ZeroAdo Crew created localized content by targeting keywords related to SEO companies in Bangalore, a metropolitan city in India.
Videos
You need to give to your audience what they like, and that is videos! They love motion content and also that is one of the best ways to promote your product and services as well.
Videos are one of the SEO content types that can get you traffic quick and are also one of the top ways to spread brand awareness. I am sure you are surprised that how do videos work as SEO content? Just like other content ranks based on the query of the user and content relevancy, videos do as well if they have been optimized for SEO.
Checkout the snapshot below, to see how your video as an SEO content type can rank and get you more traffic.
Infographics and media
Infographics and other images like relevant screenshots are one of the most underrated types of SEO content and they are underutilized as well.
They make up for an amazing SEO content type because everyone likes to see visuals and secondly, if they have been optimized well for SEO then they can get traffic to your blogs and landing pages as well.
Checkout, the ZeroAdo’s featured image for the blog SEO copywriting examples ranking in the images section because it has been optimized for SEO.
Just like this, if your images are optimized well for ranking then they would be in this section too and your readers would be able to reach your content even through these images.
So next time you add an image or infographic to your content make sure its file name, title, and alt texts are sorted.
SEO content types that work for your brand
“What types of content do you think perform well for SEO?”
This is one of the most commonly asked questions, and I know that you are wondering the same after knowing the types of content for SEO. I also know that now you are looking to find the best SEO content as well that you are hoping will give you miraculous results.
Well, to your disappointment, there is no one fixed type of content that can do that for you. You will always need a blend of multiple types of content supported by an SEO strategy.
Now you have the treasure with all the information you need about SEO content types, I suggest you start leveraging it as well.
