017: Which Comes First - The Content or The SEO? 🐔🥚

In this episode of The Website Success Show, host Jules White tackles the age-old question: Should you create content first or focus on SEO first? She explores the pros and cons of each approach, highlighting the importance of having a well-defined content strategy and understanding search intent before diving into content creation.

Jules explains how a hybrid approach, combining both content and SEO considerations, can be the most effective way to optimize your website for search engines and attract more organic traffic. She also discusses the importance of keyword research, creating cornerstone content, and improving the user experience of your website.

Key Takeaways:

• Content vs. SEO: The Chicken and Egg Dilemma: Discover why prioritizing one over the other can lead to wasted effort and missed opportunities.
• The Hybrid Approach: Learn how to combine content creation and SEO strategy for optimal results.
• Understanding Your Audience: Get clarity on who you're trying to reach and what they're searching for online.
• Content Strategy Essentials: Understand the importance of defining your core topics and creating a content plan.
• Optimizing Existing Content: Discover quick wins by improving the SEO of your current website pages and blog posts.
• User Experience Matters: Create a website that is easy to navigate and provides a positive experience for visitors.

For 1:1 help with creating a content strategy and SEO plan tailored for your business and goals, book now for a free discovery call with Jules.

Transcript

 AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction: Content vs. SEO

Hi, so today I want to talk about which comes first, content or SEO. So this was a conversation that came up with somebody a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about  why SEO isn't a priority.

In their business, and they said that it is,  but it's just that they know they need to create content before they can think about their SEO.

The Content Creation Dilemma

And,  It really got me thinking because  this person has got content, she's got  , sales pages and she's got a website that's been live for a long time and there's certainly content out there from her  and I thought it was quite interesting sort of thinking about it that way in terms of this feeling like we've got to  create lots of blog posts and we've got to create  lots of long form content before we start thinking about SEO and  There is, it is definitely content is definitely king and there's something that if you don't have any content there to optimize, then,  of course, then SEO isn't going to work. And that's, I think that balance between  working out what content you've already got and how you can optimize that and,

needing to create more and more and more content  and content isn't just blogs. So your sales pages, your homepage, your about page on your website, all of the other stuff that you create out there is all also content. And even your email newsletters that you create can become content as well. So, uh, I think having that feeling that you've got to generate a load of blog posts before you can start thinking about SEO can really hinder us, actually.

SEO for Small Websites

So  definitely, with  smaller websites, you can still rank. So you don't need a ton of content on your website to be able to show up on Google. That's definitely not true.

You could, you know, I've known many websites that don't have a lot of content on them at all, but the content they do have on there is good and is allowing them to rank and it's the best solution because ultimately Google is looking for you to be the best solution to the question that people are asking.

So if you can then create content that it's.  answers that question,  then there's no reason why you can't rank.  Definitely some people would say create, creating content is the best way to go. So start off with creating content.  And the benefit of doing that is it allows you to be very creative. You can create whatever content you want to create without worrying about whether it's actually is optimized.

 And without having to think about diving into SEO before like that doesn't have to become a barrier to creating content. But the downside is that of that is that you can then end up creating content that just gets lost or just creating content that's not effective for your business.

Benefits of SEO-First Approach

The benefit of doing a little bit of SEO work first or the benefit of actually diving fully into SEO first is that you can then.  Avoid wasting time creating content that's not effective. You can also then  create content that, you know, there is a demand out there for. I think that's really important

well, our time is so valuable and we need to be creating content with  the best results in mind, ideally. Otherwise we are just, just creating stuff for the sake of it, really. And. With an SEO plan in place, you can then become an authority on your topic as well, so you can then make sure that you are creating content that actually shows that you know what you're talking about and that you are, you then become that go to place for your audience to come and find the answers to their, their problems.

Hybrid Approach: Combining Content and SEO

The  best, I think the best way to approach it is to kind of do a hybrid between the two. So  have a little bit of SEO strategy in place first and then create some content around your core topics. And I talked about core topics a few weeks back in a previous episode of the podcast about SEO.  how creating your core topics and working out what your core topics are is really important to start.

So before you start thinking about creating more content, understand what, what are the prime things that you need to be talking about in your business and creating some content around those. But what I would also say is that thinking about what existing content you have, and as I say, content doesn't have to be blog posts.

So thinking about what pages you've got on your own website Thinking about how you can optimize those or at least make sure that the basics are in place because SEO takes time. And so the sooner you start optimizing that stuff that you've already got the content that you've already got on your website, the sooner you start making sure that that content isn't competing against itself and it isn't  vague and the search engines can't then understand what that content is all about.

. The better really, because the work that you do on that now is going to pay dividends in 3, 6, 9, 12 months time and from then onwards really, so it's something that. It's not saying that you can't get any quicker results with SEO because you can, especially if you then become an authority on that topic.

So if you're an authority on a particular topic and then you release a new article that relates to that, you're much more likely to rank sooner for that if Google and any other search engines know that you are already an authority on that topic. So the other thing, so if you're thinking about it from a hybrid point of  How would that look like? What would that look like?

Keyword Research and Core Topics

I think you'd start off with doing some keyword research. Definitely would think about those core topics before you even dive in with the keyword research. You'd make sure, as, as always, the foundations are in place so you understand what you're What you do, how you make your client's lives better and what makes you different and what kind of language people are using around that.

And that can come with the keyword research, but essentially having those core topics that you can dive into with the keyword research and that way you can then.   Tie that in with what people are actually searching for and looking for  some commercial intent keywords. I think that's the, the big thing with the difference between optimizing things like sales pages and about pages and your homepage versus blog articles.

is that you can then try and find some commercial intent keywords. And then when I'm working with clients, this is always where we start. We always try and find some keywords that we can try and rank for or try and begin ranking for that have a commercial intent. So people are looking for information or even better transactional intent where they are ready to actually make a purchase.

But either way, they're not just looking for free information. They're actually looking To find someone to help them with their problem or find a solution to their problem.

Optimizing Existing Content

So that's something I would definitely think about if you're just diving in and you haven't created loads of content, but you do have some content there on your website.

So your website has got a few pages there you've got. So, Something that would be sort of considered thin content would be pages with less, with less than 500 words on them. So how many pages on your website have you got that have less than 500 words? How can you build those out and start thinking about some content for those  that has a sort of commercial intent as well?

So it all aligns with that commercial intent, really.  So if you were then starting to think about some keyword research, you could also use that to help you to think about different angles. So I would definitely say we need to cover those core topics first. And It that's something where you might find that that's not what you end up ranking for on Google.

So those core topics, which are going to be very general, they're the broad sort of top level topics that you cover. unless you're in a very, very niche industry, there's likely to be a lot of content out there already. So you wouldn't necessarily be be showing up on page one of Google for that.

Potentially you could somewhere down the line, but it's something that.  depending on, and I say it's very different for different industries and different niches, but realistically, these are not going to be those pieces of content that you're trying to then get the traffic to your site with. These are the pieces of content that shows you an authority, and then it's the other sort of less competitive keywords that you can then create content around that links back to these main articles.

  that's where you can get those different angles. You do some keyword research, you can work out some Gaps in the market, gaps in your own content as well, and work out how you can then align your content with that.  And the benefit of doing it that way is it means you can optimize as you go along. So if you are understanding the basic things like optimizing your URLs, your page titles and descriptions, optimizing your content aligned around that particular keyword, the ones that you choose for each page, then.

. It, it makes it a much less big job than if you are trying to create content and then SEO optimize it. I think if you have that in mind of  ,  this is why we are creating this content, there's a potential keyword here that we can, we can try and rank for, and we're gonna create content around that.

And that's where I think the hybrid AP approach comes in. Where if we are creating content with a keyword in mind or with a theme or a topic in mind.  Then  it's much easier to do that rather than trying to go back and find content that aligns with that particular keyword. And that's not to say that you can't do that.

And certainly I've got a lot of clients who've got lots and lots of content that they've already created. So rather than just creating more and more and more and more content. And I spoke about this in a previous episode as well, about not just feeding the algorithm with more content.  If you can then, if you've got loads of content out there, that's not really doing anything for your business, then you can.

work out what's the sort of closest in alignment with some potential keywords. But that's a lot harder to do than if you've already got a plan in place and you know what you're trying to optimize that that content you're creating for. It makes it a lot easier with creating that content. And the big thing I would say about that and something that we I see time and time again.

Is it is the URLs that we create. So once you've created content, and it's been out there for a while, you don't want to really start changing URLs. So the bit that comes after the slash when in the web address, you don't really want to start changing that because then you get problems with redirects.

And you've got to start thinking about all these kind of things. And actually, if you if you if you Google is already associating that content with your website and you are ranking for anything with that, that can cause problems. But having a well optimized URL, so a URL, say if you were creating a sales page around a particular commercial intent keyword and you optimize the URL for that keyword, that can make a massive difference actually.

And it can be one, it's one of the things that I see a lot in my SEO tools that actually having those keywords optimized there can make a big difference. , ,

Creating Content for Humans

Yeah, essentially that having that sort of hybrid approach means that you can  create content  for humans. So ultimately, this is all about creating content for humans.

That's what we want to be thinking of first is making sure that we're creating content that people want to read, that answers the questions that they have, that ideally, from our point of view, is a commercial intent. Bye. Either way, it's valuable content and it's user focused, it's human focused. And I think that's becoming more and more and more important as Google updates its algorithms.

This is the focus. And I think that is like the antidote to the, all the AI content out there is making sure that that content is engaging for people to, to actually read as well. So we would always be thinking of that. So regardless of whether we're, we know from the back end that we're trying to rank for a particular keyword, we still want to write it from a human point of view, first of all.

And if something doesn't make sense, if you're trying to cram a keyword into, into a H1 heading on the page, or you're trying to  optimize a URL and it doesn't make sense to do that for humans, then don't do that. Always, always prioritize the human part of it first. But making sure that that then aligns with our content plan  is really important.

  I like to think of the content plan as like a blueprint.  It makes everything else easier. You, you then know what you're creating about, you know, what content is  relevant to a particular core topic. You know what content links together as well, and that's a big thing, is making sure that your content does all link together.

That's how Google understands you becoming an authority on that topic. And that also then helps to keep people. Engaging with your content as well. If you've got content where they can come in and binge on it and read a few articles  and then that leads them into your sales page or  basically having more stuff for them to actually enjoy from your content, then that's, that can also be really powerful as you're creating content.

If you've got that, those links in mind that you want to add into it, then it does make everything else easier. And it makes it easier, even creating things like social media content.  If you've got that content blueprint in place and you understand what people are searching for, that can be really helpful with that part of it as well.

  The other thing that I would say to prioritize, so if you're thinking about getting started with this and thinking about, okay, what, what do I need to do? Is it content? Is it SEO?

User Experience and Content Planning

Is thinking about that user experience as well. And that's part of creating that content plan.

It's looking at what you have already and looking at how you can improve the user experience, how you can align that more with what people are searching for and make sure that the pages people are coming into you. does actually answer that question that is being promised in the page title and description or in even in ads.

I think this is a big thing as well. If you're running ads, they're making sure that your pages are optimized  for where people are coming into your website from those ads. It's going to help with your conversion rate and help with keeping people on on your website for a longer time as well.  So definitely focusing on that.

So focusing on your user experience, focusing on your having a prime. Core topics, understanding what you need to be talking about in your business and then doing some keyword research in alignment with that  can make everything easier in terms of creating content and then thinking about what content you already have and optimizing that.

And even if you did nothing else,   so you've got 10 pages on your website already. You haven't got any more content at the moment. You've not done any blog writing or anything along those lines, actually optimizing for those pages can then be working in the background while you're creating that SEO content.

That you then have a plan for so you've then because you've done the keyword research because you've got that plan of this is what people are actually searching for, you're creating those blogs that then answers those questions. But in the meantime, the content you've already got there on your website, your valuable sales pages, your about page, which can be really valuable as well.

and helping with people being able to find your brand online, then that is already working for you because it does take time to create content as well.  And the other thing is you're then making changes to your website, which helps Google understand that this website is current, is up to date, and that you are a good authority on that topic as well.

Conclusion and Next Steps

So I definitely would say having that plan in place before you start thinking about creating more content.  I think that's always the best way to go. For me, that would always be a winner.  So if you need some help with this, if you feel like creating a content plan is too difficult, or you're just not quite sure how to approach it, not quite sure what your content you have already is doing,  not sure how to approach keyword research, and that can be a quite a, a challenge. Challenging thing to do. .

But yeah, if you want some help with this and you'd like to create a plan and do some keyword research that aligns with your business and your goals and what your clients need and what you need to do to your website to make it better, then book a discovery call and we can have a chat about what you need and how I can help you with that.

And   go from there really. It's all about having a plan and just making everything easier. 

Personal Note and Farewell

So this weekend I am going for a swim. I'm going for a swim in a new lake so I'm really excited about that. Probably much more excited than I should be about that but I'm really looking forward to it. I think the weather's going to be a scorcher so hopefully it will be a lovely day.

I hope you have a great day and I'll see you soon. Bye!