Technical SEO vs Content: Which One Matters More?

Any website that wants to rank higher in search engines needs to invest in technical SEO and content marketing. But when your budget is limited, you may be forced to choose between the two.

technical seo vs content

Here’s good news: You don’t necessarily have to spend on both, simultaneously, if resources are tight. Simply choose the more lucrative SEO pillar at the moment and put all your efforts in it.

But how do you know which one is more lucrative? Should you focus on content marketing or on technical SEO?Here’s the short answer:

  • If you have speed, indexing, or crawling issues but your content is better than your competitors, focus on your technical SEO.
  • If your competitors have superior content and you don’t have a lot of technical problems with your website, focus on content marketing.

Let’s talk about this in detail.Here are five things you can do when deciding which SEO pillar to devote your resources on.

1.Compare the quality of your content with your competitors.

Choose 5 to 10 of your most important content pages.Chances are, you will find similar content on the websites of your competitors. See how your pages measure up.

  • Do your competitors have more content?
  • Do they offer more substantial answers to questions your users are asking?
  • Do their pages offer better conversion paths? Easier access to related content?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, then you need to focus on producing SEO content. 

2.Compare rankings.

Check your official rankings at the Google Search Console (GSC).You can also use SEMrush.Compare it with the rankings of your top five competitors.

  • Are you ranking lower even though your content is better?Focus on technical SEO, because there is likely a technical problem that is keeping you from ranking higher.
  • Is your content worse and your rankings lower, too?Focus first on content SEO.Once this is done, you can put some of your resources into technical SEO.

3.Look at the GSC and indexing report.

Check your ‘coverage’ report at the GSC and look at the ‘excluded’ section.This is where you’ll find pages on your website that Google cannot or chooses not to index for different reasons.

  • If over 20% of your URLs fall under ‘excluded,’ focus all your efforts on technical SEO.
  • Stay focused on content marketing if less than 20% of your pages are in the ‘excluded’ section.

4.Check your site speed.

One of the most important ranking factors to prioritize and 2021 is site performance—and site speed is one of its biggest determinants.

To check the speed of your site, have a look at the GSC Core Web Vitals report.It will show you which of your pages are good, which ones can use some improvement, and which ones are poor.

If you spot speed issues—such as lots of four pages and/or a Google PageSpeed score of under 60—then you need to prioritize technical SEO.

5.Evaluate your resources.

Ask yourself:

  • How many SEO technicians and web developers do you have in your team?
  • What major issues are they busy with?
  • Can they take on more work?
  • When it comes to marketing priorities, how high is SEO on the list?
  • How is the company performing overall right now?

Your answers to these questions can help you determine whether or not you have enough resources to put into technical SEO. There’s no point in wasting time if no one is available to work on the important tasks required for a successful technical SEO roadmap.Perhaps it’s more practical to focus on things you can do on your own, like content marketing.

You may also consider outsourcing your SEO strategy to a reliable search engine optimization company like SEOValley. This will give you access to an expert level SEO at affordable prices.