Search engine optimization (SEO) is the main pillar of most marketing campaigns. When a website and its content are well-optimized, the site pages should obtain high rankings in relevant search results. Higher rankings lead to more visibility and traffic for your website.
For many years, SEO mainly involved technical improvements, such as internal linking, structured data, and page speed optimization. While technical SEO should still be a major component of your SEO strategy, you can also benefit from implementing content SEO. You’ll discover that this technique involves publishing pages and articles that respond directly to user intent. This guide provides a comprehensive comparison of technical SEO vs content SEO.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO is a form of optimization that focuses on improving the internal components of a website to deliver better indexability and crawlability with search engine algorithms. It occurs on the backend of your website, which means that it doesn’t involve content. By optimizing website infrastructure for search engines, the algorithms they use may give your pages higher rankings. Technical SEO can involve everything from making your website more mobile-friendly to fixing broken links that might have expired.
Key Components
To perform technical SEO with your website, you should first understand the key aspects of this strategy and how to implement them.
Website Speed and Performance
Search engines like Google don’t give out high rankings to websites that don’t provide visitors with a good user experience. Fast loading times are important for SEO because they tell the search algorithm that your website is performing well enough to satisfy users. Slow load times can cause high bounce rates.
There’s also a chance that a server error will occur, which can block algorithm bots from properly crawling your pages and indexing the content. If your search rankings are lower than you’d like them to be, take steps to decrease load times.
There are numerous strategies you can use to boost the speed of your website. For example, you could use cache plugins to store a static version of your website. This version will be sent to users who return to your site, which can significantly reduce load times.
If you have many images on your website, compress them to reduce their size. By using this technique, your images won’t take up as much space, which means that your site should load faster. You can compress JavaScript, CSS, and HTML files. Some of the other techniques you can integrate into your technical SEO strategy include the following:
- Trim messy code
- Audit 301 redirects to identify why they happen
- Try not to use too many plugins
- Consider using a content distribution network (CDN)
- Implement asynchronous loading
Mobile-Friendliness
If you want your website to appeal to a wider range of customers, it should consist of a responsive design. When you create a responsive design for your website, it will work properly on all devices and screen sizes. Your website will automatically adapt to the size of the screen, which is perfect for people with phones and tablets.
Google and other search engines index responsive mobile sites higher than ones that haven’t been optimized. While there are numerous steps you can take to make a responsive design, one option to consider involves using HTML and CSS. These development languages allow you to shrink, enlarge, or resize your website to account for different device types.
Site Architecture
Unless you create a personal website that only contains a single page, you can benefit from focusing on site architecture. Your site pages should be organized in a manner that makes it easy for search engines to crawl and index them. Make sure you maintain a clear hierarchy and navigation.
For example, related pages should be grouped together. Maintain a homepage that links to all your blog posts. Each post can link to the author’s page. By creating a structure for your content, search bots can learn about the relationship between the site pages. Internal linking should always be sensible. For example, a new blog post should contain a few links to other recent posts.
Crawling and Indexing
Crawlability is the basis of any technical SEO strategy. The search bots that Google sends out will crawl your site pages to obtain the right types of information. These bots can be blocked from crawling if your website isn’t properly optimized. When this happens, your pages can’t be indexed, which means that they won’t rank on search engines.
You can enhance the crawlability of your website by making sure that your important pages are easy to access. Use the following techniques to provide search bots with an easy crawling experience:
- Create a URL structure
- Optimize your website architecture
- Develop XML sitemaps
- Use robots.txt to send bots to the right areas of your website
- Use the pagination technique
When search bots crawl through your site, they’ll index pages based on the main topic and the relevance to this topic. A page can only rank on SERPs once it’s indexed. You can help your site pages get indexed by:
- Getting rid of duplicate content
- Fixing redirects
- Repairing HTTP errors
- Making sure your site is mobile-friendly
Technical Factors Affecting SEO
There are a few technical factors that can impact the quality of your SEO. For example, your website should be affixed with an HTTPS protocol. This designation can appear at the start of your URL. It encrypts your URL to maintain secure communication. This protocol is much more secure than HTTP. You can use HTTPS by obtaining an SSL certificate.
You should also take advantage of structured data, which uses schema markup to label and categorize parts of your webpage. The schema tells search bots the exact definition of each page element and how it relates to your website. This strategy allows you to gain enhanced search engine visibility by making it easier for bots to understand and index your pages.
Content SEO
Content SEO involves making optimized content to bring search bots to your pages and help them rank higher. The content you create and place on your website can include everything from video and audio to text and layout elements. The primary goal of content SEO is to improve search engine rankings and user engagement by optimizing content. Providing users with high-quality content can lead to better search rankings.
Key Components
The main components of content SEO include keyword research, user intent, and content creation.
Keyword Research and Optimization
Keyword research involves finding the words and phrases that are relevant to your target audience and their search queries. Keyword optimization means placing the right words in your meta descriptions, title tags, and article body.
Targeting relevant keywords that show up in the things your audience searches for may help you obtain high rankings on Google and other search engines. A couple of useful tools for keyword research and optimization include SEMrush and Google Keyword Planner.
Content Creation Strategies
Content SEO requires writing high-quality, informative content that appeals to the people who visit your website or see your posts on social media. There are many types of content you can create, which include the following:
- Videos
- Blog posts
- Social media posts
- Case studies
- Podcasts
- Email newsletters
- E-books
- White papers
Make sure you incorporate SEO-friendly elements like headings and meta descriptions into the blog posts and content you place on your website.
User Intent and Engagement
Understanding the user intent behind the searches that bring people to your website is necessary if you want to target them with content SEO. User intent is the motivation or purpose that causes a user to look for a product or service online. If you can incorporate user intent into your content strategy, you can benefit from higher rankings, better conversion rates, and an increase in customer engagement. To increase dwell time and reduce bounce rates, try to:
- Include clear calls-to-action
- Check text readability
- Retool your product pages
- Create visually appealing landing pages
- Boost customer engagement with videos
Content Promotion and Distribution
Content promotion and distribution are necessary if you want the high-quality blog posts and videos you create to be seen by your target audience. You should promote your content on all content distribution channels that are open to you. For example, use email marketing to send regular reminders about sales or events that might interest your customers. You can also leverage social media to highlight articles you’ve written or make users aware of new products.
You may also be able to benefit from guest blogging and backlink strategies. Look for other websites that are more authoritative than yours and operate in the same industry. Ask them if you can write a guest blog. If they agree, this blog can contain backlinks that lead to your website. Backlinks tell Google that your website is building authority and becoming more trustworthy, which means that your page might rank higher.
Content Updates and Maintenance
It can be challenging to create enough content to keep users engaged. If you want current customers to remain on your website and new visitors to convert, you should consider repurposing and updating your existing content. Repurposing involves transforming articles you’ve written or videos you’ve made into different formats. You can also update the content with new information. A couple examples of content repurposing include changing a blog post into an infographic or a podcast episode into a video.
Comparison and Integration
Before you integrate technical SEO and content SEO into your website, consider their differences.
Differences Between Technical SEO and Content SEO
Technical SEO is necessary to rank with Google. However, it’s not enough to receive high rankings. High-quality content will perform poorly if it’s tied to a slow and cumbersome website. Some of the top technical SEO tools include the following:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
As for content SEO, some tools that might help you improve your strategy include the following:
- Moz
- Ahrefs
- Asana
- Trello
- Taskworld
As touched upon previously, technical SEO occurs on the backend. In comparison, content SEO is seen by users instantly when you post it on your website or social media pages. Content SEO and technical SEO complement one another. You need to implement both strategies if you want to achieve high rankings on Google.
Best Practices for SEO Success
To gain SEO success, use best practices that allow you to hone your strategies and refine your techniques. For example, you need to take a more holistic approach to your SEO strategy. Focus on what your users need to ensure you effectively optimize your website. Balance your technical SEO and content SEO efforts for a more successful strategy.
Your SEO efforts require continuous monitoring and adaptation. Use Google Analytics to assess metrics like bounce rate, page speed, and average session duration. Keep in mind that Google and other search engines update their algorithms regularly. To make sure you effectively adapt to these updates, pay attention to industry trends. Google and Bing create lengthy articles on their websites before they make changes to their algorithms.
Conclusion
Technical SEO and content SEO are completely different yet intertwined with each other. Implementing technical SEO will allow you to reduce load speeds, improve site navigation, and enhance crawlability. With a comprehensive content SEO strategy, you can keep your users engaged and bring in more site visitors. Both forms of SEO are essential if you want to achieve long-term SEO success.
