Marketing + Web

Content SEO vs Technical SEO: Why You Need Both to Succeed

Do you have questions about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? SEO is a tricky subject to master but cannot be ignored or avoided. When you build a website, you must ensure that it’s optimized for search; otherwise, no one will see the great new site you’ve built. But you may be wondering what’s included in SEO and how exactly websites are optimized for search.

Because there are many moving parts to grasp in terms of SEO, it’s easy to get confused. To help clarify things, we’ve put together this guide to explain content SEO vs. technical SEO and how these tactics work together to bring more traffic to your website. Let’s get started!

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of attracting organic internet traffic to your website as opposed to direct traffic or traffic from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. SEO is attractive because it’s “free” in the sense that you don’t pay for clicks. You “earn” the traffic organically when the search engine produces your website as an answer to a person’s query on the search engine results page (SERP). Search results returned organically appear below paid advertising results, which are always labeled as “sponsored” results.

At a 30,000-foot level, there are two primary components of SEO: strategically written content and a proper technical website structure. These tactics work together to make it easy for search engine algorithms to match your website to specific internet searches. These two components can be referred to as content SEO and technical SEO.

Read More: Why You Need SEO in Your Digital Marketing Strategy (& How We Can Help!)

Content SEO

Content SEO, also known as on-page SEO, is all about optimizing the content on your website to make it more visible and accessible to search engines. This is achieved by creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that keeps visitors on your site for longer, reduces bounce rate, and increases dwell time.

One of the more well-known components of content SEO is keyword research which includes using specific keywords to influence a search engine’s decision to produce your website as an answer to a query. With the right keywords, you can optimize website titles, meta descriptions, headings, and body copy to include answers your audience is searching for. While keyword research is a good start, it’s not enough to get the SEO job done all by itself.

A thorough content SEO strategy involves an in-depth understanding of your marketing personas, keyword research, and unique and informative content that answers specific questions potential customers are searching for relative to your products or services.  Additional key aspects of content SEO include:

• Content creation: Creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content that answers your audience’s questions and converts browsers into buyers.
• User experience: Ensuring your website is easy to navigate, quick to load, and mobile-friendly.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO, on the other hand, is all about the backend of your website and focuses on making it more visible to search engines. Technical SEO covers the basic fundamentals of SEO that are essential for a website’s performance on search engine rankings, including:

• website architecture,
• indexing,
• crawling,
• image optimization,
• content delivery networks,
• HTML tags,
• schema markup, and much more.

All these components help search engines accurately understand, crawl and index a website’s structure and content. Technical SEO leads to higher rankings and improves the user experience—from faster page speed to fewer duplicate content issues.

Read More: 3 Ways Web Design and Marketing Work Together to Grow Your Business

Content SEO vs. Technical SEO is the Wrong Question: You Need Both to Succeed

While content SEO and technical SEO are different, they work together to ensure your website ranks well on SERPs. You can have the best content in the world, but if your website isn’t optimized for search engines to crawl and index it, your content won’t be seen by your target audience.

Similarly, if your website is technically sound but lacks valuable content, it won’t rank well on SERPs because search engines prioritize sites that provide value to users. In other words, content SEO and technical SEO are two sides of the same coin – you need both to succeed.

Read More: Tips for Creating Effective Marketing Campaigns That Will Engage Your Audience and Produce Results

A Word About Backlinks

Backlinks are another aspect of SEO that we didn’t go into in this blog post, but backlinks are an essential component of SEO that should not be overlooked. In short, backlinks boost your website’s authority, ultimately increasing your rankings in SERPs.

By increasing the number of reputable sources linked to your page, you can demonstrate to search engines that your website is trustworthy and deserves attention. As long as the links come from credible websites, backlinks are a great signal to search engines about your website’s validity. But be careful; some companies sell backlinking services but employ shady practices. If you hire a company to help with backlinking, make sure you work with someone reputable in the industry, or you could face penalties from Google.

Read More: 30 Important Digital Marketing Terms Every Small Business Owner Should Know

Do You Have Questions About SEO?

As you can see, both content SEO and technical SEO are essential for pursuing digital success. Content SEO focuses on providing targeted information for users and customers to engage with, while technical SEO is concerned with improving how search engines find and interpret that content. For optimal results, both components should be looked at holistically when planning an SEO strategy.  Employing a diverse approach allows you to tap into the full power of these two practices to increase your site’s ranking, user experience, and reputation.

That said, this post just scratches the surface of all there is to know about SEO and we know you may have questions. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to begin, don’t be! Schedule a meeting with us today, and we will help you create an effective SEO plan tailored specifically to your unique needs. We look forward to hearing from you soon!