Content strategy is about finding valuable, relevant content plays that attract and engage your target audience.
SEO is about making your content discoverable on search, finding an audience, and getting that audience to take action.
The two are very, very different things.
Don’t build your content strategy on SEO, or keyword research! Build it on your informed understanding of what your customers and prospects are looking for, their problems, and how you can help them solve it.
But do use organic search to inform your content strategy, ensure it’s effective in search, and, perhaps most importantly, find evidence and data to support the content you’re creating.
Keyword research is market research
One of the most powerful contributions SEO makes to content strategy is the data it provides about audience behavior.
When people search for something on Google, they’re expressing a need or a question. Keyword research tools like Google Search Console, SEMRush, or the ercule app can surface this data, showing what terms people are searching for, how often they search for them, and how those trends change over time. And how much traction your content is currently getting – or even subjects or topics that your content is addressing that you don’t even know about.
Together with the customer research you’re already doing, this information can help you create material that addresses real audience interests, rather than guessing what might be relevant.
For example:
- Instead of deciding to write a generic article on “healthy snacks”,
- SEO data might reveal that there’s high search volume for “high-protein snacks for busy professionals.”
Targeting content to the right stage of the funnel
Some people are looking for information, some are comparing options, and others are ready to make a purchase.
Understanding the intent behind a search query allows you to tailor their material to meet the specific needs of your audience.
SEO helps identify these distinctions, ensuring content isn't just optimized for search engines but also delivers value to the user based on where they are in their decision-making process. For instance:
- A search for "what is content marketing" indicates someone at the awareness stage, best served by educational content like definitions and basic concepts
- A search for "content marketing platform comparison" suggests someone evaluating solutions, who needs detailed feature comparisons and pricing information
- A search for "content marketing platform free trial" indicates purchase intent, requiring immediate access to product demos or trial signups
And it ensures that you’re producing the content that’s aligned with what your business needs: awareness, engagement, conversions.
Creating compelling angles and headlines
Click-through data from search engine results pages (SERPs) provides invaluable insights into what makes titles and descriptions compelling to your audience. By analyzing which headlines generate higher click-through rates (CTRs), you can understand the specific language, formats, and value propositions that resonate most with your target readers.
For example, if you notice that titles containing specific numbers ("7 Ways..." vs. "Ways to...") or action words ("Transform" vs. "Improve") consistently achieve higher CTRs, you can apply these learnings across your content. Similarly, if questions in titles drive more engagement than statements, this insight can inform your headline writing strategy.
Meta descriptions also play a crucial role in SERP engagement. By monitoring which descriptions lead to higher click-through rates, you can identify patterns in how to effectively communicate your content's value proposition. The most successful descriptions often combine a clear benefit statement with a compelling call to action, giving searchers a concrete reason to click through to your content.
This data-driven approach to title and metadata optimization creates a virtuous cycle: better engagement signals to search engines that your content is relevant and valuable, which can lead to improved rankings, which in turn provides more opportunities to test and refine your approach.
Measuring the effect of what you’re doing
One of SEO's most valuable contributions to content strategy is its ability to measure performance. SEO provides clear, actionable data on how content is performing, including metrics like organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
For example, if your blog post about "content marketing metrics" starts ranking on page 1 for that term and generates 500 new visitors per month with a 2% conversion rate to newsletter signups, you can directly attribute 10 new subscribers per month to that piece of content.
Or consider a thought leadership piece about emerging trends in marketing automation. While it might not drive immediate conversions, tracking its performance through SEO metrics could reveal that it's frequently referenced by industry publications and shared across social media, helping establish your brand's authority in the space.
SEO data can also help demonstrate the pipeline influence of your content program. For example, you might see that prospects who read your content about "marketing automation best practices" are 3x more likely to book a demo within 30 days. Or you might find that enterprise deals that closed in Q4 had, on average, 5 different stakeholders who each consumed 2-3 pieces of content before the purchase – showing how content supports complex B2B buying cycles.
This data allows content teams to see what’s working and what’s not. If a piece of content isn’t ranking well, SEO analysis can help identify why—whether it’s due to weak keyword targeting, poor on-page optimization, or technical issues. This feedback loop enables continuous improvement, making the content strategy more effective over time.
