The Most Popular Types Of SEO Content

By:
Declan
September 28, 2022

Search engine optimization (SEO) has become increasingly complicated in recent years.

As search engines have expanded their definitions of quality content to include more information, including visual data, social media information and even sentiments expressed by readers. 

That doesn't mean it's impossible to get to the top of search rankings; you have to be thoughtful about how you create your content and what types of content work best with particular search engines or topics. 

To help you out, here are the most popular types of SEO content. Read on to learn more!

Short Form Content

Short-form content falls within 1,500 words and is used for various purposes, such as product descriptions, landing pages, or short articles (blog posts). 

You may be wondering whether or not these types of content are worthwhile when it comes to the search engine optimization process. Generally, long-form content outranks short forms when ranking hard keywords; however, there are circumstances in which using short forms is beneficial. 

Ranking low competition keywords - where there is little likelihood of ranking high from an SEO standpoint without paying - has been much easier with this type of condensed written material than in longer formats. 

What sets this type off from other types of formatting lies primarily in formatting and metadata creation/replacement.

Long Form Content

Longer form content—at least 1,500 words long—is ideal for writing detailed blog posts, guides and downloadable ebooks. Google's crawlers will most likely reward this in-depth detail about one topic; readability matters too!

However, it would be best to ensure that your content is relevant and readable from the users' perspective.

Rather than stuffing as many keywords into your text as possible, provide valuable information for readers. For example, create an ultimate guide. 

An ultimate guide is a comprehensive blog post or series that provides the reader with all the necessary knowledge about the subject matter. 

Ultimate guides can include multiple interlinked posts, allowing writers to target long-tail keywords throughout their content strategically.

glasses and keyboard on white desk

Blog Content

Blogs aren't the same anymore as they were in 2000. They're not a diary but rather an introduction of your brand to potential customers, establishing yourself as an expert in your field and ranking higher in Google search results. 

Use it to post strategic content instead of whatever pops in your head throughout the day. Your readers are asking questions about what you offer - so this is a great chance to answer them before anyone else does! 

In addition, if your answer is high quality, relevant and helpful, then there's more likelihood of people trusting you than anyone else because now they know where to go for their next question!

Pillar Content and Evergreen Content

Pillar pages or hub pages are a type of long-form content that is optimized for one key keyword. 

This keyword corresponds to an overarching topic important to the company's work, and this idea is broken down into different sub-sections on the pillar page. 

The pillar page touches upon all aspects of this central topic but doesn't go deeply into them. Instead, it links to more specific blog posts about each detail of this broad subject matter from other writers.

Holistic Content

Holistic content is a newer name for the idea that every piece of content your team creates should work together with all your other pieces of content. 

For example, say you write a blog post intending to go viral - but without anything to back it up on social media, this won't happen. 

Alternatively, if you have a style guide at your company (so everyone knows how things are done), then people can create content and make sure they're staying true to what makes your brand unique; since everything works towards meeting those goals. 

Data-Led Content

Do you need fresh, reliable data to make your content stand out? 

Good news - if you're willing to do some research and put in a little bit of work, you'll be able to reap all of the biggest benefits of data-driven content, it saves time spent experimenting with new ideas with no guarantee of success. You can also save money since research has already proven what works best for readers.

This means you'll spend less time optimizing unhelpful content and more time creating content guaranteed to rank.

Thought Leadership

Readers have a way of distinguishing content published by experts from those written by amateurs. They look at the articles' information, and the tone used when they read them. 

An expert is someone who already exists within your company or community. Interviews and guest posts are good tools for producing new and unique content that hasn't been seen before because these two formats provide readers with insights from an informed point of view. 

Thought leadership provides your audience with original ideas that set you apart from competitors on search engines, social media platforms, and other media sites. Think about it: without thought-leadership content, how could SEO even exist?

Pro Tip: with this content type create a unique author profile for your guest contributor and include their social channel links to improve your chance of ranking as this will allow Google to attribute it back to the specialist accordingly. 

laptop coffee mug and phone on wooden desk

Content for Social Channels

Social media channels contain SEO content. Your Instagram posts won't necessarily rank on Google, but you should still optimize for search engine rankings when using those platforms. 

To do so, incorporate your higher-level and long-tail keywords into your shorter-form content so readers can find their way back to your blog post from the said platform (no matter what size). You can also incorporate hashtags in this process.

Final Thoughts

You can produce many different types of SEO content to drive traffic to your company site.

A solid SEO strategy considers the various stages of your marketing funnel and matches content production efforts accordingly. 

Though utilizing keywords for on-page search engine optimization is key, it should only come at the expense of producing quality work - or vice versa.

FAQs

Is more content better for SEO?

There are many SEO benefits of long-form content. This is because longer forms produce higher search rankings. Studies show that longer content dominates the first page of search results.

Does content affect SEO?

Yes, my friend. A website cannot stand without content; it needs it just as much as we do. To achieve success - whether getting a well-deserved top ranking in the search engines or driving traffic towards your site - you must keep up with high-quality, optimized content.

How many words are good for SEO content?

Google's algorithm favours longer posts than others when pitted against shorter ones- as a general rule of thumb quality blog posts with around 1,500 words or more do better on average at ranking on page one.