A lot of agencies say they “do content marketing.” But they rarely explain how, why, or what happens after the content goes live. The best SEO agencies don’t treat content as filler or a box to tick on a calendar. They treat it like infrastructure: built to rank, hold attention, and keep people exploring the site.
Start With What You’ve Got
Good SEO agencies begin by auditing your site, determining which pages are pulling their weight, which ones are dead weight, and where the gaps are. It’s not guesswork: tools like Ahrefs and Search Console tell you exactly what’s working and what’s not. Backlinko’s research shows less than 1% of pages ever hit Google’s first page, so writing more for the sake of it isn’t the answer. Writing what matters is.
Build It Right From the Start
You don’t slap SEO on after you’ve written something. Structure, search intent, and keyword targeting have to be baked in from the beginning. This means clear titles, logical headings, relevant internal links, and cutting the fluff. Google’s Search Evaluator Guidelines reward pages that are accurate, useful, and easy to navigate. Writing for humans and algorithms at the same time is the job.
Old Content Isn’t Dead
Outdated posts can sink your rankings if you ignore them. But update them and they can drive growth fast. HubSpot did this and saw a 106% boost in organic traffic. Often, improving what you already have is faster and more effective than starting over.
Structure Matters
Google and your users both need a map, that’s why internal linking is so powerful. Blog posts should lead to product pages, collections, and related articles. Shopify’s own content strategy shows how linking isn’t just for navigation: it signals which pages matter most. Done right, your site works as one system, not a pile of disconnected pages.
Mind the Middle of the Funnel
While blog posts draw traffic and sales pages close deals, most buying decisions happen in between. Demand Gen Report found most B2B buyers consume 3–5 pieces of content before talking to sales. Think comparison charts, buying guides, and deep FAQs. Without these, people leave not because they’re uninterested, but because you didn’t give them the next step.
Fix Crawl and Index Issues
Google can’t rank what it can’t find. Large sites especially need to watch crawl budgets, canonical tags, and broken redirects. If your best content isn’t in Google’s index, it might as well not exist.
Go Beyond the Blog for Ecommerce
In ecommerce, product and category pages matter most. But too many sites launch with boilerplate product descriptions and empty category text. Baymard Institute’s research shows optimized product pages can boost conversions by 30% or more. Ignoring this is leaving money on the table.
Links Don’t Just Happen
Ranking without backlinks is slow. The best agencies create linkable assets (e.g., original research, tools, and visual explainers) and pitch them to journalists and industry publishers. BuzzSumo found that original research content earns the most links. It’s not luck; it’s deliberate outreach.
Content That Works
If content doesn’t rank, it’s useless. If it ranks but doesn’t convert, it’s still useless. The best agencies understand how strategy, writing, technical SEO, and promotion work together. They’re not “creating content” for the sake of doing so but building a system that produces rankings, traffic, and sales.
If you want an agency that actually delivers on content marketing, start with our verified list of Best SEO Services Companies and find one that knows how to make content work.