One of the unseen realities of the modern online experience (especially content creation and strategy) is the presence of AI crawlers. These are automated bots that visit sites to check permissions and retrieve information for AI tools to use. 

These are a key part of companies showing up in AI-generated search results. The growing importance of AI bots is leading many marketers to wonder if they are benefiting from AI visibility or if their site is blocking AI crawlers. 

The truth is, AI crawler activity is invisible to most marketing teams. It feels impossible to know if they’re accessing your content without checking with a developer. If you’re a marketer, you don’t need deep technical knowledge to understand the basics or spot the most common issues. Let’s look at how AI crawlers work, what “permission” means in this context, some of the more common ways they’re blocked, and what you can do to give (the right) AI access to your content.

Why is your site invisible to AI, even with strong content?

If you’re not showing up in AI answers, your content may not be the problem. In many cases, site settings quietly block AI bots before they ever have the chance to access your content, often without you even realizing it.

I remember when we worked with a client who was struggling to capture AI traffic. We reviewed their content and quickly realized the problem wasn’t the content itself.

What we found causing the issue was that there were two robots.txt files fighting each other. It sounds unusual, but it can happen without anyone knowing it. One was in HubSpot, the other in Cloudflare. The former is the content management system (CMS) you see when you upload content. The latter is a content delivery network (CDN), which sits in front of your website and can control what visitors and crawlers receive.

That meant Cloudflare was the frontline of defense for the site. It also meant it was turning away AI crawlers, even though the user-side HubSpot robots.txt file was set to allow them on the site. 

What made this so difficult to spot was that AI crawlers only ever follow one robots.txt file. In this case, the version being served came from Cloudflare rather than HubSpot, so the permissions inside the CMS never came into play. When a site sits behind a CDN or security layer like Cloudflare, that layer can serve a different version instead. In other words, the file you see inside your CMS isn’t always the file AI crawlers receive. 

We dug further and found that Cloudflare had announced that it was blocking AI crawler access to sites by default. It took a simple adjustment on that side of things, and AI bots were able to access the content. Problem solved. 

The bigger issue is that this wasn’t an isolated case. Cloudflare services traffic for 20% of the Internet. Trillions of requests come through its systems every day. The fact that a fifth of the internet operates on a setting that, by default, blocks AI bots is something that is quietly holding back many businesses without them ever realizing it. This blocks AI visibility. 

This is a big deal in a world where the simple presence of an AI summary on a Google search query drops the likelihood of a click to a meager 8%. Businesses need to optimize for AI citations, and the reality is that many of them are held back by unseen robots.txt files that compete with their officially sanctioned versions on their CMS. Add in the fact that older sites often have AI blocked from habits early in the AI era, and there is a significant quantity of high-quality content that AI simply cannot access, even if its owners desperately want them to.

Check your AI crawler access 

You don’t need a developer to see what your robots.txt file is telling AI crawlers. Enter your domain below to check the live version of the file and see which major AI bots are allowed, blocked, or only partially allowed.

If something looks off, don’t panic. A blocked result is not automatically bad. Whether it is a problem depends on which bot it is. Not every AI bot does the same job: some help your content appear in AI answers, others fetch a page the moment someone asks about you, and others are used to train future models. Before you change any permissions, it helps to know the difference.

What’s the difference between search bots, fetchers, and training bots?

Before we get into the different kinds of AI bots, it helps to understand how these permissions actually work. That all starts with your robots.txt file. Think of it as the front door to your website. It tells crawlers what they’re welcome to access and what should stay off limits.

You don’t need to understand every line in the file to understand the parts that matter. A User-agent tells you which crawler a rule applies to. Allow gives that crawler permission to access part of your site. Disallow tells it to stay out. The mechanics are simple. But if the wrong bots end up being turned away, your content may never have the chance to appear in AI answers.

With those basics covered, it’s also important to remember that not all AI bots are doing the same job. They generally fall into three buckets:

• Search and retrieval: These are the bots that help decide if your content can show up in AI answers and citations in the first place. Examples of this kind of bot include OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI’s bot), Claude-SearchBot (Anthropic’s version), and PerplexityBot.
• User-triggered fetchers: These are “in the moment” AI bots that access content in relation to a specific query. 
• Training bots: These are AI bots that help train future models and include GPTBot (OpenAI’s again), ClaudeBot (Anthropic’s training tool), Google-Extended, and CCBot (Common Crawl, less well-known but feeds many models with data).

These each serve a purpose, and if you’re creating content, you absolutely want the first two to access your site. Training bots are another question. They aren’t inherently good or bad, but they just don’t benefit you in the same way. It’s worth an internal conversation to see where you stand on permissions related to them.

The biggest thing to remember is that your live robots.txt file should explicitly allow the search, retrieval, and user-triggered AI bots you want accessing your site. Once you’ve done that, the rest of this process is really about making sure those permissions are the ones AI crawlers actually receive when they arrive.

Putting those permissions into practice starts with your robots.txt file. Robots.txt files work on the honor system, but companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google claim they respect this “front door” permission tool. When an AI bot gets to your site, it only sees one robots.txt file. That’s why uploading permissions into your CMS isn’t enough. You want to make sure the live robots.txt file being served is the one you intended. 

In practice, that usually means making sure the right user agents are allowed. 

A starting point for common AI user agents

The example below is a good starting point for the AI user agents you’ll likely want to review in your robots.txt file.

# OpenAI

User-agent: GPTBot

Allow: /

User-agent: OAI-SearchBot

Allow: /

User-agent: ChatGPT-User

Allow: /

# Anthropic

User-agent: ClaudeBot

Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-User

Allow: /

User-agent: Claude-SearchBot

Allow: /

# Perplexity

User-agent: PerplexityBot

Allow: /

User-agent: Perplexity-User

Allow: /

# Google AI (does NOT affect normal Google Search ranking)

User-agent: Google-Extended

Allow: /

Note: Treat this as a starting point. AI companies occasionally introduce new user agents or retire older ones, so it’s worth checking their latest documentation when updating your robots.txt file.

Getting AI crawler permissions right is an important part of a broader generative engine optimization (GEO) strategy. It won’t guarantee AI visibility on its own, but it helps ensure your content can actually be discovered and considered for AI-generated answers.

Where does an AI-crawler block actually hide?

If you suspect you’re dealing with permission issues with robots.txt AI bots, there are a few places you want to see where the problem could be hiding:

• Your robots.txt itself could be holding you back by not giving a bot the permission it needs.
• A CDN override could be to blame. For instance, Cloudflare has a one-click “Block AI Bots” option.
• The AI bot Cloudflare default-on toggle is another common source of permission issues.
• Some SEO plugins for WordPress, Shopify, and similar platforms introduced AI bot settings during 2024–2025. Older sites may still have those defaults enabled, so they’re worth checking.
• Rate limits can also slow down AI bot access. Fortunately, a 429 (“Too Many Requests”) isn’t the same as a 403 (“Go away”) and marks a temporary slowdown.

Just to be clear here, too, there are some crawlers that do genuinely ignore robots.txt voluntary protocols. Crawlers from tools like Bytespider and Perplexity, for instance, have a reputation for documenting with undeclared crawlers. It may be worth blocking those specific AI bots, but that should be a separate and distinct event, not a general toggled-off AI bot rule.

Is llms.txt worth adding?

If you’ve heard of llms.txt, these are files that curate and markdown an index of the most important pages on your site. This can help AI tools understand your content better, and it may be worth adding, but it isn’t necessary. 

Start by clearing the way for AI bots to access your content directly. Then add llms.txt as a secondary enhancement. It works best after you’ve already made your content accessible.

How do I check this in 30 minutes?

If you’re wondering whether AI bots can access your content (or even if you want to go the other direction and block AI crawlers), there are a few steps you can take as part of an internal generative engine optimization audit before you hunt down a qualified GEO company to go deeper.

Start with the checker above. It already shows you the live robots.txt and flags each major AI bot as allowed, blocked, or partial, so you don’t need to open the file yourself or guess at what a rule means. Once you know where you stand, work through the rest:

1. 1. If you use Cloudflare or any CDN, log in and check the bot or AI-crawler settings. Is “block AI bots” on here, too? This is the layer the checker can’t see, and it’s often the real source of a block even when your CMS looks fine.
   2. If you are on WordPress or Shopify, check your SEO plugin for an “AI bots” toggle. Older sites or plugins installed or updated during 2024–2025 may still have AI-blocking defaults enabled, so it’s worth checking even if you haven’t changed those settings recently.
   3. Permissions show what’s possible, but logs are the real answer to see if any bots are actually crawling your site. Ask whoever manages your server or hosting for a quick look at your access logs. Filter these for specific bots, including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot. Are they showing up at all? 
   4. If you see 429s, remember not to panic. That is a throttling problem, not a blocking one. Look for 403s and Disallow rules instead. Those are the ones that cause permanent issues.

Being found by AI starts with being reachable

AI visibility has become more than a content plan. It’s an infrastructure decision and often, default settings and back-end layers make many of the decisions without marketing teams ever being aware of it.

Making your content reachable is one of the foundational steps in a good AI SEO strategy. Set your robots.txt files up correctly to ensure your best content gets in front of the right people.

FAQ 

What is GPTBot and should I block it? 

GPTBot is OpenAI’s AI crawler. It specifically focuses on training future models, which means blocking it can be a policy that doesn’t harm your GEO or other AI bot permissions. 

Does Google-Extended affect my regular Google ranking? 

No. Google-Extended doesn’t touch classic Google ranking data from Googlebot. Blocking it does not affect classic Google Search.

What’s the difference between a 429 and a 403 for AI crawlers?

A 429 is a rate limit issue, which means it should clear up later. A 403 means access was denied and is more likely to point to a blocked AI bot.

The post Is Your Site Blocking AI Crawlers? Free Checker appeared first on Relevance.

It is frustrating news indeed for those producing original content.

Here is a familiar scenario.

You work relentlessly to create outstanding content after a great deal of research – only to learn someone was waiting for it to get traction so they could pounce on it to copy and paste it.

It is sickening to say the least.

And when the plagiarized version of your article pips your content in search ranking, the feeling is even more infuriating.

It is a pain when a scraper hampers your brand and makes a dent in your profits.

So how do you deal with copycats?

The good news is there are tricks and tools that you can make use of – and perhaps leverage plagiarism to your advantage as well.

Here are 10 approaches and online plagiarism checkers that I can think of.

Note that the first approach does not speak about a plagiarism check but tells you on how to leverage copied content to your advantage.

1. Google Webmaster Tools with WordPress plugin

Swamp your articles with internal linking.

It is a wonderful approach not only to boost your SEO, but also to enhance crawlability and help your website visitors navigate content.

This trick is a very effective approach to maximize ecommerce SEO.

But how does this help in addressing plagiarism?

Here is an explanation.

The plagiarist or the scraper, while copying your content, may not bother to remove hyperlinks.

This presents a glorious opportunity for you.

You will drive traffic to the linked pages from the plagiarized article.

2. Unicheck

Unicheck, with more than 1 million users across the globe, has been assisting bloggers, editors, and writers in checking for plagiarism.

This is cloudbased software that does not need to be downloaded.

Unicheck has algorithms that allow users to get rid of duplicate text in web pages.

With lightning speed, it crushes large pieces of text into small strings. Thereafter, these chunks are used to search for similarities by web indexing.

This tool is a secure private cloud, guaranteeing 99% system uptime.

With its bulk checking feature, this software promises users fast checks with real time reports even during peak times.

Unicheck offers various packages with flexible billing solutions to meet users’ unique requirements.

3. Plagramme

If you are looking for a free plagiarism checking software, Plagramme is the right one for you.

Yes, it has a free version.

It is not one of those pay-to-use software programs that provide comprehensive information only on payment.

Of the many online plagiarism checkers out there, this one is free and extensively used by universities, individuals, companies, and software professionals.

And, the good news is it does not have a word limit.

The way it works is straightforward.

You upload a text to Plagramme, and this software with its advanced algorithms scans billions of texts in its database and within a short time displays results with exhaustive evaluations.

There is, of course, a Premium advanced plagiarism checker that comes with a payment.

A notable feature of this Premium advanced plagiarism checker is it provides you with useful tips on your uploads from a panel of experts.

[insert page=’15-amazing-wordpress-tools-that-you-can-use-to-increase-the-sharing-of-your-articles’ display=’single-related-article.php’]

4. Grammarly

Grammarly is all-inclusive software that not only checks text for plagiarism, but also checks grammar and spelling.

This platform claims that it can check in excess of 250 types of spelling and grammar mistakes.

Grammarly was released in 2009 as a proofreading tool but since then has evolved into a very dependable plagiarism checker as well.

Its benefits are all encompassing. You can get corrections on your emails, on writings of your projects, and on social media.

This tool has greatly helped content creators edit or modify their writing to make it original.

In addition to a free version, Grammarly also offers a Premium version with advanced grammar check, plagiarism detection, and vocabulary improvement suggestions.

5. DupliChecker

It is free software for plagiarism detection that has built for itself a reputation of getting the job done very efficiently.

As with other easy-to-use tools, all you need to do is copy and paste / or upload the content in the required field and the software does the rest.

An interesting feature of DupliChecker is it analyzes references in a particular text for proper citation, avoiding discomfiture for the writer.

The free version allows you to scan 50 texts in a day.

Here are a few other things that DupliChecker performs:

• Builds and analyzes backlinks
• Provides relevant keyword selections
• Performs reverse image search
• Delivers accurate statistics of your website performance

The tool is free of charge but you must sign up.

In case you do not want to register, you are allowed only one plagiarism check per day.

[insert page=’10-easy-ways-to-generate-content-for-new-blog’ display=’single-related-article-02.php’]

6. Copyscape

Copyscape, launched in 2004 by Indigo Stream Technologies, is a popular service used by content owners to check plagiarism.

It offers a free service that searches for plagiarism online to identify theft.

However, Copyscape also offers a premium service, which is more powerful by having extra features such as batch search and inspecting offline content.

The Copyscape Premium service is offered as a variable pricing model based on content length.

Users also have an option to choose Copysentry (also not a free service) that provides ongoing protection by monitoring the internet for copies of their pages.

If plagiarism is found, users are informed by email.

Copyscape is very popular with webmasters and content owners.

7. Plagscan

Plagscan plagiarism detection software, launched in 2009, is now going great guns.

It is a fully online tool with no download needed.

With over 1500,000 single customers and ~ 1500 businesses, its growth has been exponential.

The reason for the popularity of this tool is not far to seek.

The tool has solutions for single users, educational institutions, businesses, and on-premises data processing centers.

Plagscan offers users an assortment of paid plans to choose from.

Using this online checkers is easy with just 4 steps.

1. Register or sign up.
2. Upload your document.
3. Start the plagiarism scan.
4. View report.

This tool offers 3 ways to check content.

1. Upload text from your device and paste it in the appropriate field.
2. Import text from the web by entering URL at the specified location.
3. Upload text from cloud, for example, from Dropbox, Google Drive, or One Drive.

The report from this tool highlights all the matches between the uploaded texts and the web and the internal sources of this service.

Plagscan uses different-colored highlighting to exemplify plagiarism and citations.

[insert page=’7-tips-to-end-your-keyword-research-struggle’ display=’single-related-article.php’]

8. ZeroGPT

As Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants are racing to develop and improve AI technology, like Chat GPT, content creators are faced with a unique challenge. While AI content is remarkably fast, these tools basically scan existing content on the web and gather data based on the instructions provided by users. This means the content produced can only be as good as the instructions the tech receives and other sources available online. In the worst cases, material can come across as unoriginal, surface-level, and lacking personality. 

ZeroGPT is a ground breaking tool used to detect content created by AI. With a tested accuracy rate over 98%, it is the most advanced ChatGPT detector to date. And best of all, it’s free. While AI can enhance content writing and marketing campaigns in several ways, it’s best to know the source of any text you may use. People and search engines still prefer high quality content, regardless of its origin, and this tool can help content creators address any areas of concern.

9. WhiteSmoke

WhiteSmoke, launched in 2002, has come a long way in building the trust of scores of content writers, professors, executives, and webmasters across the globe.

The software has the following features:

• Grammar, punctuation, and spelling check
• Plagiarism check
• Text translation for more than 50 languages
• Complete integration with MS Word and Outlook
• Compatible with all browsers

WhiteSmoke offers users 4 plans:

• One as Chrome Extension for Chrome browser
• One compatible with all browsers
• Two compatible with Windows 7, 8, and 10

Consumers can choose between yearly and 3-year billing plan. All the plans are available on a trial basis as well.

The WhiteSmoke Mobile App can be downloaded in Apple Store or in the Google Playstore depending on the users’ operating system.

[insert page=’9-practical-tips-to-craft-the-perfect-guest-blog-post-pitch’ display=’single-related-article-02.php’]

10. Copyleaks

Copyleaks is a cloud-based plagiarism checker. It is available both as free and paid versions.

One outstanding feature of this tool is you can upload up to 100 files for scanning.

The free subscription allows you to check up to a limit of 2500 words total in a month.

Copyleaks promises to identify not just plagiarized text, but also content that has been paraphrased. They are able to achieve this via state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology.

This tool has a potpourri of paid plans for education (schools, students, and universities) and for professionals and businesses (publishers, SEO agencies, lawyers, and more).

All plans are available on a free trial basis.

A final word of advice

With so many online plagiarism checkers available, how do you find one that is best suited to you?

Here are a few things to keep in mind.

The software/checker must:

• Provide feedback with text flagged as potential plagiarism.
• Provide an automated feedback feature, which is even more desirable.
• Not just check for plagiarism but also facilitate improvement in the content by providing tips even on paraphrasing issues.

Ideally, have a free version or a free trial for paid ones.

The post Top 10 Best Online Plagiarism Checker Tools And Websites appeared first on Relevance.

That’s where SaaS content marketing comes in. It’s a long-term promotional strategy for SaaS (software as a service) companies. It leans on long-form, optimized, educational content to organically support a marketing strategy over time.

For SaaS marketers, it’s important to realize the power that content can have on marketing initiatives and impact. Let’s take a deeper look at what a SaaS content marketing strategy looks like, why it’s important, how it differs from other marketing, and what it takes to use content to market a SaaS product or service effectively.

What is SaaS Content Marketing?

Before we get too far into the details surrounding SaaS content marketing, let’s expand on the definition of the term itself. Content marketing utilizes various forms of digital marketing content to promote a brand. In the context of a SaaS company, content marketing uses this content to fuel a long-term promotional strategy. 

Typically, this kind of marketing consists of lengthy, in-depth content that promotes a B2B customer journey. Over time, SaaS content marketing helps to attract potential users, teach them about a branded solution to their problem, and then convert them into a retained and happy long-term customer.

SaaS content marketing isn’t a “seat of your pants” kind of marketing activity. It requires thoughtful strategy, confident implementation, and prolonged patience if you want to see positive results and a good ROI.

How SaaS Content Marketing differs from content marketing in other industries

SaaS services and products must focus on a lower output of higher-quality content where every piece provides clear value for the user. 

This protracted approach is due to the longer commitment that comes with buying third-party software. The last thing a B2B customer wants to do is spend a bunch of money on a SaaS tool, invest in learning it, and then decide it doesn’t work for them. They will make each purchase thoughtfully, and SaaS marketers should oblige with B2B SaaS content that facilitates that journey.

Another difference that separates SaaS content from normal content marketing is the fact that, in the vast majority of cases, a SaaS business is selling to businesses. The B2B sales process requires more red tape and more people involved in making each decision. 

This increases the length of the sales cycle. It’s great once you get a potential customer to commit, but getting them to choose your SaaS solution in the first place is the big challenge. Strong content does a lot of that heavy lifting.

The inherently complex nature of a SaaS program also complicates things. You aren’t selling a pair of shoes. Even something like a vitamin supplement might require more customer education, but it isn’t complicated to engage with the product itself. 

Even user-friendly SaaS business programs can require a steeper learning curve. They also evolve and are constantly updated, which means ongoing education is often required.

When a SaaS company decides to create content, it can’t be “just another content cluster.” It must be a specific and deliberately crafted resource that bolsters brand awareness and reputation and builds consumer trust at every step.

Why SaaS Content Marketing matters right now

Along with an overwhelming number of competing brands, SaaS platforms face the accelerating nature of AI tools. It has become essential to provide long-form, rich educational content that demonstrates expertise and feeds AI-generated answers.

Two years ago, a SaaS client could still win on volume. Publish enough and something would eventually rank. Those days are over. We’re watching AI-generated answers absorb almost all of the top-of-funnel questions our clients used to capture with thin, 800-word posts. 

The pages still earning citations are the ones with a real point of view, original data, and a direct answer in the first paragraph. My advice to most SaaS marketers right now is to cut your publishing volume in half and put the whole budget into depth. One genuinely expert piece is doing the work that ten used to. Work smarter, not harder.

The business case: benefits of SaaS Content Marketing

As is the case with most content marketing, there are some basic benefits that come with developing SaaS content. For instance, when your content is keyword-rich and links to high-quality domains (as well as your own), it can boost your brand awareness. 

Dominating SERPs for specific phrases and concepts can also increase brand authority. These naturally lead to higher revenue, often at a fraction of the cost of ongoing PPC (pay-per-click) ads. 

Along with these basic content creation benefits, SaaS content functions as a critical resource for end-users. In other words, SaaS resources work as excellent educational tools. 

They also help with customer service, providing answers and information to common questions. When a customer knows they can utilize your content to find quality answers to their questions, it has the added benefit of further developing trust and building a stronger long-term connection with your customers.

How SaaS content fits into a growth marketing strategy

The Relevance team sees content marketing as one of the three major parts of a good SaaS growth strategy. 

Image Credit: Relevance.com

• Content marketing, which helps build a SaaS company’s authority by creating thoughtful, high-utility onsite content. Deep dives, instructional videos, Q&As, concept pieces, market research — these help establish thought leadership in an industry where authority matters.
• Digital PR cultivates credibility against a backdrop of dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of SaaS competitors. This off-site buzz focuses on brand links and mentions on third-party sites, which signal to consumers, search engines, and AI tools that your company is an important and relevant part of the conversation.
• SEO uses keywords, link building, technical SEO, and other strategies to improve visibility. When your SaaS content meets Google’s E-E-A-T content standards and gains citations in AI tools, it can help your brand show up in organic search results.

7 steps to build a SaaS Content Marketing strategy

It’s important to develop a content strategy for SaaS marketing that embraces the full potential of the content marketing process. Here is a step-by-step process to make sure you end up with a solid, SaaS-specific strategy you can cater to your brand.

Step 1: Set goals and KPIs

Good content takes time and resources to develop. That’s why you always want to define what success looks like before creating content. Start by researching and establishing the content marketing KPIs that can become your North Star.

In SaaS, SMART goals usually start with tracking awareness. You can also monitor activity in your pipeline through metrics like traffic and engagement, demo requests, and revenue linked to content. It helps to split these into leading KPIs, which signal early momentum, and lagging KPIs, which confirm whether that momentum turned into results. 

Step 2: Audit existing content and research keywords

Once you have goals, it’s time to review what you already have, content-wise. What is performing? What needs updating? Where are the gaps? 

Keyword research helps you align content with search intent. Use it to understand what people are looking for. You can also see where your competitors are getting meaningful visibility this way.

Step 3: Define your audience and buyer’s journey

Map each piece of your content to your customer journey. Where in the sales funnel is each piece relevant? Where should it live? What kind of people do you want to reach at each stage? What are they looking for? What should be motivating them at this point?

For SaaS companies, top-of-funnel should be exploratory and focused on pain points. In contrast, by the bottom of the funnel, you should be addressing specific questions and trying to move readers closer to a decision.

Step 4: Choose the right content types for each funnel stage

Use the format that fits the goal, not just in general but at every step. Here’s what this might look like for a SaaS content strategy:

At all stages, channels like social and email can also support distribution and keep people moving through the funnel.

Step 5: Create high-quality, SaaS-specific content

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the quality of content for a SaaS brand. You want to tailor content to products through things like explainers, pricing, and comparison content.

We recently looked at which pages Google’s AI Overviews actually cite for three of our SaaS clients, in security software, automotive AI, and real estate investing. The pattern held in all three: educational content won.

For one client, two blog posts drew nearly double the AI Overview citations of their three main product pages combined. For another, the two most-cited pages on the entire site were built for specific buyers (one for K-12 IT directors, one for state and local government teams) while the broad category terms their market is named after returned nothing at all. For the third, the most-cited pages were definitional: what a term means, how a process works, how to evaluate an option. Their comparison page was cited directly on searches for a competitor’s alternatives.

If you’re deciding where content budget goes, that’s a useful signal. The pages earning a place in AI answers are the ones a content program produces…not the product pages, and not the homepage. We’re not saying those CAN’T earn the citations, but don’t overlook the importance of educational comparison pieces in your SaaS content strategy.

Step 6: Distribute across the right channels

Promote content through the channels your audience actually uses. Email, social, guest posts, and other owned or third-party channels can help the piece get traction faster.

Use a third-party platform like social media as a cross-promotional tool, too. (Look for more than one social channel where your target audience congregates.) 

Create content distribution synergy by using social posts to drive email sign-ups, answer questions, and push traffic toward your higher-value, on-site content. Just make sure you aren’t spreading yourself too thin. 

Step 7: Measure, refresh, and iterate

As you create content, track what is performing. Also, update content regularly to keep it accurate and effective. 

Try to prioritize evergreen pieces that avoid dated references when you can. Even then, most pieces still need a refresh from time to time, especially in SaaS where product details and market context change quickly. Build that into your content cadence.

Types of SaaS Content Marketing (Full List)

There are many kinds of content that you can integrate into an effective SaaS content strategy. These include the following:

• Blog posts: Short- and long-form SaaS content that can be timely, opinionated, and packed with thought leadership, like a post breaking down a new integration or API change and what it means for users
• Case studies: Show how real customers achieved results with your product, like a workflow automation platform highlighting how a client saved time.
• Infographics: Condense complex information into a visual format that is easy to scan and share, such as a chart showing how unmonitored tech stacks impact revenue.
• Sales pages: Bottom-of-funnel messaging that pitches your product or service — think a landing page promoting a free trial of your software.
• Whitepapers: These can offer in-depth, high-intent content for readers who already understand the basics, such as a report on scaling your SaaS customer acquisition.
• Demos: Give prospects an interactive, hands-on experience with your product, like a guided demo of a project management app.
• Guest posts: Get your content on third-party sites to build credibility and improve your reach, like getting published in an industry article.
• Social media: Share everything from short posts to long-form LinkedIn updates to build awareness and community. This could be a branded post or even a founder post breaking down a product launch.
• Email marketing: Direct, permission-based content that drives action, like a nurture email walking a free-trial user through an underused feature before their trial ends..
• Video content: Information presented in an engaging visual format — often a product walkthrough or customer tutorial video.
• Podcasting: Branded insights in audio form, easy for a SaaS founder to interview and discuss market trends.
• Ads: Paid content that drives bottom-of-funnel action, like a retargeting ad promoting a free demo.
• User-generated content: Customer feedback, reviews, and shared experiences that build trust — think testimonials from a team using your platform.

B2B-specific considerations for SaaS marketers

If you’re developing a B2B SaaS content marketing strategy, stay focused on your area of expertise. Center all of your content on “pillars” or “clusters” that display comprehensive coverage of focused messages that are integral to your business. Demonstrate your knowledge, as well, to meet Google’s E-E-A-T standards (experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness).

If you’re having trouble coming up with relevant content ideas, you can use a tool like Buzzsumo or AnswerthePublic to generate ideas based on your keywords and content needs. You can often get quality content ideas from existing customer feedback and competitor research, too.

Making SaaS content work for AI search (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews)

The elephant in the room for any SaaS content strategy is how to rank in AI-generated results and citations. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is where you want to pay attention to things like consistent, clean content structure. Use clear, question-phrased headers to rank in AI Overviews and featured snippets. Integrate clear, relevant FAQs. Directly answer questions early in your content (don’t beat around the bush). 

Everything in the GEO checklist (clean structure, question-phrased headers, answering early) is real, and it’s also the easy half. All of it just makes your content legible to a model. None of it makes the model choose you. 

What gets cited is the thing that only you could have published: your own data, a position you’re willing to defend, a specific answer to a question the rest of your category writes around. If a model can synthesize your page from three other pages, it will, and you’ll never see the traffic. The bar for SaaS content now isn’t ‘is this good.’ It’s ‘could anyone else have written this.’

Be original with everything you say, as well. Provide unique perspectives and answers to common problems. Use original data when you can, too. If you’re not sure if it’s working, use a good AI visibility tool to check.

Common SaaS Content Marketing mistakes to avoid

Finally, make sure you avoid a few common pitfalls as you create your content:

• Don’t treat your content like a one-time sales pitch. Keep it informative, educational, and evergreen so it can grow with your product and continue to help your target audience.
• Don’t sleep on product-led content. You want to organically showcase what you’ve built as a solution people can count on to help resolve their problems. Work it into everything you naturally can.
• Don’t focus on a single reader buying in. Remember that with ongoing SaaS tools, you’re pitching to multiple stakeholders. Speak to everyone and make sure everyone gets the answers they need.

Here’s a mistake I see constantly: the content team is optimizing for search volume while the sales team answers the same five objections every single day, and none of those five objections are addressed anywhere on the website. Your reps are sitting on the highest-intent content brief in the company and nobody’s asked them for it. Before you start another keyword-driven post, go sit in on demo calls for a week. The gaps are obvious once you hear a real buyer hesitate.

Saas Content Marketing FAQ

What is SaaS content marketing?

SaaS content marketing consists of long-term educational content that attracts, teaches, and converts software buyers. It spans the B2B journey and matters because SaaS is crowded and competitive right now.

How do you measure the success/ROI of SaaS content marketing? 

Watch your pipeline, connect SaaS content to revenue, monitor cost-per-acquisition (CAC), and track customer value from content-driven acquisition.

How is B2B content marketing strategy different for SaaS companies?

SaaS content must educate multiple stakeholders making collective decisions. It should support longer buying cycles, too, and needs to stay updated as products change.

What types of content marketing work best for SaaS?

Blog posts, comparison pages, case studies, demos, white papers, guides, and product-led content are all common options. Match content to the buyer journey and the point in the sales funnel.

What KPIs should you track for SaaS content marketing? 

Organic traffic, search rankings and AI citations, engagement, demo requests, and similar conversions can help you see if your content is working.

Getting started with a SaaS Content Marketing Strategy

SaaS content must provide clear value to B2B consumers while differentiating your brand from competitors. If you’re struggling to come up with a good strategy, you may want to work with a SaaS content marketing agency. 

At Relevance, we specialize in using content as a foundational aspect of long-term growth. Reach out for a free strategy assessment for your SaaS company.

Whether you’re working with us or developing content on your own, make sure to do so with a plan in place. That will give every piece of SaaS content the chance to have an impact as part of your bigger, long-term effort to promote your digital products and services.

The post SaaS Content Marketing: What It is and How to Do It Well appeared first on Relevance.

At Relevance, content optimization is where we spend a disproportionate amount of our time — and it’s consistently where we see the fastest ROI for clients. Rewriting a title tag, restructuring an article’s headers, or adding internal links to a page that’s already indexed will almost always move the needle faster than publishing something brand new.

These are the content optimization tips we use across every client engagement. They’re organized by category: technical foundations, keyword strategy, and the editorial and structural elements that tie everything together.

Technical optimization: the infrastructure that makes content discoverable

Before we touch a word of copy, we check the technical layer. An article can be brilliantly written and still invisible if the technical signals are working against it.

1. Audit your URL structure

Short, descriptive URLs consistently outperform long, parameter-heavy ones. When we audit client sites, we frequently find URLs with dates, category prefixes, or unnecessary words that dilute the topical signal.

Our standard: the URL should contain the target keyword and nothing else that isn’t essential. For an article about content marketing strategy, the URL should be /content-marketing-strategy/, not /blog/2024/06/13/the-ultimate-guide-to-content-marketing-strategy-for-beginners/.

Changing URLs on existing content requires 301 redirects, so we’re selective about when it’s worth the effort. But for new content, we enforce clean URL conventions from day one.

2. Structure your headers as a content outline

Headers aren’t formatting — they’re semantic signals. Google uses your H1, H2, and H3 hierarchy to understand what your content covers and how ideas relate to each other.

We treat header structure like an outline that should make sense on its own. If someone read only your headers, they should understand the article’s argument and scope. Every H2 should represent a major section, every H3 a supporting point within that section.

The most common mistake we see: articles with 15 H2s and no H3s, creating a flat structure with no topical hierarchy. That’s a missed signal to Google about which concepts are primary and which are supporting.

We also incorporate target and semantically related keywords into headers wherever they fit naturally. A header like “How to research keywords effectively” is better than “Step 3” — both for readers scanning the page and for search engines parsing the content.

3. Optimize images beyond alt text

Alt text matters, but image optimization goes further than most teams realize. We optimize three things for every image: the file name (descriptive and keyword-relevant, not IMG_4392.jpg), the alt text (concise description that includes the keyword when appropriate), and the file size (compressed to WebP format, typically under 100KB for blog images).

Image optimization is one of the most commonly neglected areas we find in content audits. Large, uncompressed images silently drag down page speed, which directly impacts both rankings and user experience. For one client, compressing and converting images across their top 30 blog posts improved average LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) by 1.4 seconds.

4. Write meta descriptions that earn clicks

Meta descriptions don’t directly influence rankings, but they heavily influence click-through rate — which does. A compelling meta description can mean the difference between a 2% CTR and a 5% CTR on the same ranking position.

Our formula: lead with the value proposition or a specific insight from the article, include the target keyword naturally, and end with a reason to click through (a specific number, a unique angle, or a question that creates curiosity). Keep it under 155 characters so it doesn’t get truncated.

We review meta descriptions quarterly across client sites and rewrite any that are auto-generated or generic. This is one of the lowest-effort, highest-impact optimization moves available.

Keyword optimization: connecting content to what people actually search

Keyword optimization is where many teams either under-invest (writing content with no keyword strategy) or over-invest in the wrong direction (stuffing keywords at the expense of readability). The right approach lives in the middle.

5. Assign one primary keyword per page

Every page on your site should target one primary keyword. Not two, not five. One. This doesn’t mean you can only mention one topic — it means the page’s core purpose, title tag, H1, URL, and opening paragraph should all align around a single search intent.

When we audit content that’s underperforming, keyword cannibalization is one of the most common issues. Multiple pages targeting the same keyword split Google’s attention and prevent any single page from building enough authority to rank. Our content audits always include a cannibalization check, and consolidating competing pages into a single, stronger piece is often the fastest path to ranking improvement.

Supporting keywords (semantically related terms, long-tail variations) should be woven naturally throughout the body content. Tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console help identify which related terms your page is already appearing for, so you can reinforce those signals.

6. Use headers as keyword placement opportunities

This bears repeating because it’s so consistently underutilized. Headers are prime real estate for keyword placement because they carry more weight in Google’s content evaluation than body text.

We aim to include the primary keyword or a close variation in at least one H2, and semantically related keywords in H3s throughout the piece. The key is naturalness — a header should read like something a human would write, not a keyword string.

One technique we use: pull questions directly from Google’s “People Also Ask” section for your target keyword and use them as H2s or H3s. This aligns your content structure with actual search behavior and increases your chances of earning featured snippets and PAA placement.

7. Mine Google Search Console for optimization gold

Paid keyword tools are useful for research, but Google Search Console is the most underutilized optimization resource most companies already have access to. GSC shows you the exact queries your pages are appearing for, their average position, and click-through rates.

Our optimization workflow starts here. We look for pages ranking in positions 5-20 (the “striking distance” zone) and analyze what queries they’re appearing for. Often, a page is ranking for keywords it barely mentions in the content. Adding those terms to headers, body copy, and meta descriptions can push the page up several positions with minimal effort.

For one B2B client, this striking-distance optimization approach moved 23 pages from page two to page one within 90 days, resulting in a 47% increase in organic traffic — without publishing a single new article.

Editorial and structural optimization: the elements that tie it all together

Technical and keyword optimization get your content in front of search engines. The editorial layer is what makes it perform once humans arrive.

8. Build a strategic internal linking architecture

Internal linking is one of the most powerful and most neglected optimization levers. Every internal link passes authority from one page to another and helps Google understand how your content relates.

Our standard approach: every long-form article should contain 10-15 contextual internal links. These should point to pillar pages (reinforcing their authority), related supporting content (building topical clusters), and conversion pages (service pages, case studies, contact pages) where appropriate.

The anchor text matters too. “Click here” passes no topical signal. “Our content marketing strategy guide” tells Google exactly what the linked page is about.

We also run reverse internal link audits — identifying high-value pages that have few internal links pointing to them. Adding links to these pages from existing content is one of the fastest ways to boost their rankings.

9. Don’t neglect external linking

Linking out to authoritative external sources signals to Google that your content is well-researched and connected to the broader conversation. We typically include 2-3 external links per 1,000 words, pointing to authoritative sources (.gov, .edu, major industry publications, original research).

Placement matters. We position external links in the body of the article where they add genuine reference value, not in the opening paragraphs where they might draw readers away before they’ve engaged with your content. The goal is to show Google you’re part of a trustworthy information ecosystem.

10. Optimize for readability and user engagement

Google measures user engagement signals — time on page, scroll depth, bounce rate. Content that’s hard to read or visually overwhelming will underperform regardless of its keyword optimization.

Our readability standards: short paragraphs (3-4 sentences max), subheadings every 200-300 words, strategic use of bold text for key takeaways, and visual breaks (images, callout boxes, or bullet points for genuinely list-based information) to prevent wall-of-text fatigue.

We also match reading level to audience. Technical content for developers can use industry jargon. Content for small business owners should aim for an 8th-grade reading level. Mismatching your language to your audience is a subtle but real engagement killer.

11. Write from genuine expertise, not aggregated advice

This is the optimization tip that matters most in 2026. Google’s Helpful Content system and E-E-A-T framework are explicitly designed to reward content written by people with real experience and expertise. Content that reads like it was assembled from the top 10 Google results — no original insights, no specific examples, no practitioner perspective — is exactly what Google is now penalizing.

At Relevance, every piece we publish is grounded in what we’ve actually tested and measured across client engagements. When we say a specific SEO technique works, it’s because we’ve run it. When we recommend a strategy approach, it’s because we’ve seen the results.

This isn’t just about quality — it’s about survival. Sites that relied on generic, expertise-free content have seen dramatic traffic declines over the past year. The sites that are growing are the ones where real practitioners are sharing real experience.

Building an optimization workflow that scales

The most effective content optimization isn’t a one-time project — it’s a recurring process. Here’s the quarterly workflow we run for every client:

Week 1: GSC analysis. Identify striking-distance pages, review CTR trends, and flag any indexation issues.

Week 2: Content audit. Assess the top 20-30 pages by traffic potential. Check for keyword cannibalization, outdated information, and missing optimization elements.

Week 3-4: Optimization execution. Update title tags, meta descriptions, headers, internal links, and body content based on the audit findings.

Ongoing: Performance monitoring. Track position changes, CTR shifts, and traffic trends for optimized pages. Document what moved and what didn’t to refine the process.

This cycle — analyze, optimize, measure, repeat — is how we consistently drive organic traffic growth for clients without needing to publish massive volumes of new content. The best-performing content programs aren’t the ones that publish the most — they’re the ones that get the most out of what they’ve already built.

Want to see how this approach translates to real results? Explore our case studies or check out our guide to content optimization tools that can help systematize this process.

The post 11 Content Optimization Tips We Use to Turn Underperforming Pages Into Traffic Drivers appeared first on Relevance.

The “Challenger Brand” is a concept that sounds exciting on the surface and evokes David vs Goliath imagery. But at Relevance, we don’t see the challenger model as a “little guy overcoming the odds” approach to business. It’s a posture, not a budget, that determines whether a brand wins.

A real challenger finds their own path to success without relying on a large budget to get there. For me, this has never been about scale of spend. It’s about how strategically you use what you have. The brands I’ve watched win are the ones that get strategic with their tactics and dig into the research and information until their strategy is genuinely well-informed, not just well-funded. And when Relevance takes on a brand, we treat their budget like it’s my own money coming out of our own pocket. That’s the mindset that changes everything: when every dollar has to earn its place, you stop asking how to spend more and start asking how to spend smarter.

What Is a Challenger Brand?

A challenger brand doesn’t outspend the competition. They don’t overcome by using the same industry tactics or messaging better. Challengers win based on their unique identity and brand value, not their budget. 

Being a Challenger Brand Is About Posture, Not Budget Size

The thing that separates a challenger brand from simply being a smaller competitor with less money is its posture. Challengers aren’t stuck in the mold of brands that came before them. They break out of those predictable tactics and forge their own paths to success.

At Relevance, here are a few of the key factors that we look for that take smaller brands from competitors to a true “challenger posture.” You can use them as a quick diagnostic self-assessment framework. 

• Is there a clear competitor or market leader you’ve defined as your top competition?
• Are you changing industry “rules” or copying another company’s playbook?
• Are you playing it safe with business decisions or taking targeted and focused risks?
• Are you trying to be louder than the competition or earn attention through substance?

The way you answer these is important. It reveals if your brand is a challenger or is operating as an underfunded incumbent mimicking the more successful operations that have come before you.

Remember, challenger brands don’t win simply because they’re smaller and need to fight harder. They win by understanding the competition — and then competing on different terms.

Why “Spend More” Stops Working for Challenger Brands

Often, smaller brands make outspending their opponent in key areas, like a specific search term, a core marketing objective. The problem is that, limited budgets aside, the “spend more” approach has diminishing returns after a certain point. 

The Diminishing Returns of Chasing a Competitor’s Media Weight

Outspending successful competitors is always tough. Cost per acquisition (CAC) has already skyrocketed by over 200% in the past decade, according to SimplicityDX. This makes simply trying to match or outspend a bigger company’s ad spend a challenge. 

Rather than push inflating ad spend upward as a winning tactic, a challenger brand strategy puts what we call a Spend Ceiling in place: the point past which additional ad dollars stop producing proportional returns. Their marketing teams understand that there is a point at which ad spend flattens or even produces negative returns. 

This natural reaction makes it imperative for a challenger to find an alternative way to compete. That’s where substance comes into the picture.

What Substance Actually Means: The Positioning / Proof / Presence Framework

Rather than overspend, a true challenger brand looks for ways to create substance. But what does that mean? A budget is grounded in dollars. What does it mean to focus on “substance” as an alternative? At Relevance, we break this down into three areas, called the Three “P” Challenger Framework.

Positioning: Name What You’re Actually Against

Real challenger brand marketing starts with clarity. You can’t base your strategy on vague concepts about your industry or general market research. Begin by naming your top competitors. Then work to understand what it is they offer and the USPs (unique selling propositions) that you are genuinely competing against.

Proof: Use Expertise and Evidence to Beat Polish

Challengers confront incumbent brands in a variety of different ways. One thing all challenger brand archetypes have in common, though, is that they lean on expertise and evidence. They don’t try to outshine their opponents. They use real, substantial claims and counterpoints to inform their content strategies and other marketing efforts.

Presence: Earn Attention Where Budget Can’t Buy It

Finally, challenger brands find other ways to earn attention outside of paid ad spend. They optimize owned media (targeting human and AI search visibility). They also craft digital PR initiatives that earn unique third-party mentions through their differentiating USPs.

How Challenger Brands Win Attention Without Outspending Anyone

The Three “P” Challenger Framework helps challenger brands posture themselves in the right direction. But what are some of the tools that help put it into motion?

Earned and Compounding Channels Over Rented Reach

When Relevance works as a challenger brand agency, we focus on key areas where substance beats spend. 

The first of these is SEO. Search engine optimization has shifted in the AI era, but it’s still very much alive. Optimization has simply adjusted to accommodate AI generative visibility as well as direct blue-link human search queries.

I also already mentioned earned media. This key part of the PESO model feels a lot like paid ad marketing in the sense that it focuses on external channels. The difference is that earned media isn’t a pay-to-play approach. Instead, it focuses on gaining the validation of third-party sources not by paying more but through — you guessed it — substance. 

Focus a full guide to growth marketing strategy on these areas and you skip the paid-ads trap. A bigger competitor can always outspend your ad budget. They can’t buy the kind of substance you’re building here. That’s what actually compounds long after any single campaign would’ve stopped paying off.

Should a Challenger Brand Invest in Paid Media at All?

One natural question that comes from the challenger brand strategy is whether paid media is worth it at all. I’m not saying paid is bad. It’s still an important part of the marketing toolbox. It’s just not the main piece, and too many marketers focus on it as the end-all, be-all of a marketing plan. 

It’s easy to use paid to get results, but again, renting attention is temporary. The real question isn’t whether to use paid media, it’s when. That answer changes depending on where you are in the funnel and where your brand is in its growth. Here’s how we map it:

Notice the diagonal. The further right you move, the more paid earns a permanent seat at every stage of the funnel, not because substance stops working, but because a mature challenger is defending ground instead of just building it. Early-stage brands can mostly skip paid altogether and lean on Positioning and PR. Mature ones can’t, but even then, paid is playing a supporting role at each stage, not carrying the whole strategy the way it would for a company with no unique position to protect in the first place.

That’s the nuance most “paid vs. organic” debates miss. It was never a yes or no question. It’s a question of proportion, and that proportion shifts as your brand grows.

Why AI Search Changes the Rules for Challenger Brands

Challenger brands have been around for a while, but AI search is changing the game. Now, challengers need to think about AI visibility and generative engine optimization (GEO) alongside things like SEO and earned media.

AI Engines Can’t Be Bought

One of the biggest differences (so far) is that you can’t buy your way into an AI citation the same way you can pay for a slot on a SERP. This means anyone who takes the “pay to play” approach to marketing is at a disadvantage if they want to show up in AI results. This is already a big deal: Pew Research found that when Google shows an AI-generated summary, people click through to a traditional result in only 8% of searches, compared to 15% of searches without one. That gap is exactly why buying your way to the top of a SERP matters less than it used to. 

Why Substance Compounds Faster in an AI-Mediated Market

Generative engine optimization is changing the focus. It’s also making it easier for challengers to have their messages heard, even in saturated markets.

Current research shows LLM-based search engines don’t simply favor the sites with the highest traffic. An arXiv study analyzing tens of thousands of queries across six AI search engines found that these systems favor sources with structured, hierarchical HTML and outbound links to reputable references. So if your content is built with that kind of structure and backed by real expertise, it’s more likely to show up in AI citations. Another way to put it? AI rewards substance. GEO is fuelled by brands that are willing to use substance to build better content, not just pay their way to the top.

Real Challenger Brand Examples

Names like Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, and Tony’s Chocolonely probably come to mind first, and for good reason, they built real challenger positions. But they’re not the only ones, and they’re not even the most instructive place to look anymore. More brands are putting the Three “P” Challenger Framework into practice right now.

For instance, Oatly disrupted the plant-based milk market by positioning itself not as a “healthy alternative” but as a “better option” against boring traditional dairy, a clear Position, and one it backed up with Proof: blunt, evidence-driven copy instead of polish. Patagonia is another company that built a name through challenger positioning. The clothing brand built a mission-minded operation in a category known for waste, earning its Presence through real accountability rather than an ad campaign. 

The lesson doesn’t apply specifically to food and consumer goods, either. Let’s flip over to a completely different area of the economy. Monzo is one of a number of challenger-positioned online banking apps that staked its claim in its market through transparency, using that same transparency as its Proof point. This allowed these platforms to compete against the opaque legacy banking model without having to take their gigantic coffers head-on in a paid ad shoot-out earning Presence through word of mouth instead.

In all of these cases, and hundreds of others, the challenger brands in question found ways to avoid excessive spend and focus on high-quality substance. They found unique Positions, backed them up with Proof, and then carved out a Presence based on their USPs.

How to Apply Substance Over Spend on a Constrained Budget

If you’re working with a marketing budget for small business operations, I get it. Marketing budgets overall have been shrinking. Gartner’s CMO Spend Survey found the average budget slid to 7.7% of company revenue, only ticking back up slightly since. It’s tighter still for smaller teams. Companies under $10 million in revenue are putting a much bigger share of their budget toward marketing than larger companies do, closer to 15.6% on average, just to stay visible in a crowded market. There’s less room for waste, and a bigger reason to make substance-led channels count.

A 90-Day Starting Checklist for Under-Resourced Marketing Teams

1. Start by clarifying your challenger posture in a written positioning statement. How are you different?
2. Audit your existing content for clarity in messaging. Is your differentiation present? Where is your proof of expertise?
3. Identify one or two channels where substance can compound over time. SEO content? Newsletters?
4. Aim to publish two or three authority-building pieces. Things like deep guides, case studies, and answers to topical queries all work. What is your audience looking for? (Pro tip: Make sure to structure key pages for GEO, too, including headings, keywords, and FAQs.)
5. Start to look for places where you can earn mentions via digital PR or expert contributions. Try to get at least one in the next 90 days.
6. As you build momentum, start scaling paid to amplify your strongest expertise and substance-based assets.
7. Implement simple reporting. Identify metrics and set KPIs to track things like leads, CAC, and earned versus paid results.

The game may have shifted with AI, but it hasn’t ended. It’s true that smaller companies face larger hurdles when they compete directly. When they take the time to position themselves as a challenger brand, though, they open the door to gain momentum and grow with confidence. 

If your team struggles with slipping into a pay-to-play mindset, it can be helpful to work with an outside agency. Our team at Relevance has helped many brands build effective organic and earned media strategies around challenger brand positioning. If you see the need for professional support to reposition your brand for success, book a strategy assessment, and we can build your future together.

FAQ

What is a challenger brand?

A brand that seeks to build a unique identity through differentiating brand value, features, and offerings.

What is challenger brand strategy?

Don’t just outspend your opponents. Look for ways to out-position them.

How do challenger brands compete with bigger budgets?

By building expert content with substance and then looking for organic and earned channels where it can compound.

What are some challenger brand examples?

Companies like Oatly, Monzo, Patagonia, Warby Parker, Dollar Shave Club, and Tony’s Chocolonely are all great examples of the challenger brand concept in action.

What is the Three “P” Challenger Framework?

Position your brand with detailed intention. Create Proof with expertise and evidence-backed content. Build Presence through organic and earned channels. 

Do challenger brands need a big marketing budget to compete?

No. While spending on things like content or the support of a growth marketing agency comes with some predictable expenses, removing the need for the perpetual, competition-dictated expense of paid advertising significantly reduces challenger brand marketing costs. It refocuses everything on using substance to earn profitable attention in an AI world.

The post Substance Over Spend: Our Manifesto for the Challenger Brand appeared first on Relevance.

What channels, like company websites and emails, are the best forms of content marketing for your business? What should your content look like? What topics should it cover? How will it help you achieve your larger growth marketing goals? 

These are important questions that you can only answer with a comprehensive content marketing strategy. And with the reach of AI tools, everyone can produce content quickly and easily now, which is exactly why simply producing it isn’t the strategy. As our Chief Strategy Officer, I prioritize strategies that focus on deciding what each piece is supposed to actually do, and saying something only your brand can say. Skip that, and you’ve just added to the noise you were trying to cut through.

What is a content marketing strategy?

Content consists of pieces of marketing assets that you can use to promote a brand. Everything from social posts and blog articles to guest posts, podcasts, and drip campaigns counts under the massive and diverse umbrella that is marketing content. 

A strategy is a plan of action. It takes your assets, abilities, and other resources and considers how you can use them to achieve your goals. You can create a strategy to meet a short-term goal on the way to a larger one, such as hitting a particular KPI in the next month. You can also create strategies focused on single, larger objectives, like achieving a certain percentage of growth in sales by the end of the year. 

When you combine these terms, you get a content marketing strategy. This form of business content strategy considers how you’ll achieve your marketing goals through your content creation and curation.

Content strategy is much bigger than picking out your next blog topic or finding a good quote to post on Instagram. It looks at your larger company goals and integrates them into what you’re doing and where you’re trying to go as you create your content.

A good content strategy considers content for the entire buyer’s journey, not just the most interesting topics or pieces of media. Content Marketing Institute adds the important clarification that a strategy designed to guide your content marketing should function as your “why.” It should answer key questions, including:

• Why are you making your content? Are you trying to boost revenue? Lower marketing costs? Improve customer education?
• Who are you making your content for? What kind of consumer wants your solutions? What do they care about? Is there something that drives their interests, wants, and needs?
• How can your content uniquely position your brand to stand out and help consumers? This is your unique selling proposition (USP). How can you solve consumer pain points in a way that outperforms competing brands?

These are important questions to answer if you want your content to help you meet your marketing goals.

Content strategy vs. content marketing strategy vs. content plan vs. content framework vs. content calendar (What’s the difference?)

There are a lot of different content marketing terms. Many of these aren’t set in stone, but we try to stay consistent with them in our approach to digital marketing at Relevance. Here is a quick rundown of what each one means and how it impacts the others:

Why content marketing matters

Okay, content marketing strategy is the “why” behind your content creation efforts. But what is it about having a “why” that helps in the first place? What is it that makes putting a strategy behind your content creation so important? 

The simple answer is that a strategy organizes and amplifies the impact of your content. Without a strategy, content tends to be listless and directionless. 

Will it help consumers? Possibly. Will it generate traffic, revenue, or whatever else you’re trying to accomplish? Maybe at some point. But that isn’t certain or predictable. 

Too often, marketers put content creation first and strategy second. They focus on fun, exciting ideas without taking the time to consider how each piece of content contributes to your business as a whole. 

A content marketing strategy unifies your content creation efforts and points them in a single direction. It ensures that everything supports itself and is interwoven together in the single pursuit of achieving your business’s goals. 

Why does content marketing matter right now? The business case, by the numbers.

While projects vary, global revenue for the content marketing industry is expected to reach nearly $724 billion by 2026, up from $300 billion in 2020. In addition, 74% of marketers attribute content marketing to helping generate demand and create leads as of 2026. At the same time, an Ahrefs analysis of roughly 600,000 top-ranking pages in 2025, found that 86.5% of top-ranking pages contain some AI-generated content.

As a natural response to this perfect storm of revenue potential and AI growth, nearly 37% of marketers plan to increase their content marketing spending in 2026. The more telling shift, though, may not be how much is being spent, but how it’s being spent. While businesses are investing in more marketing spend, though, they often end up with vanilla content as a result of over-dependence on AI without a proper framework and strategy in place. 

This is why one of the biggest trends moving forward is going to be a shift away from generic content. As AI provides more answers without the need to leave SERPs, basic “101” pages will become irrelevant. 

Instead, content creation trends will focus on two things: being helpful and educating audiences.

The former includes genuine thought-leader pieces and unique industry opinions. The latter relates to things like “how-to” articles, self-help infographics, and videos. The enduring entertainment and engaging aspect of videos, in particular, continue to be a powerful way for marketers to get their messages out to the world. Along with videos, demos, quizzes, industry-specific calculators, and even simple click-through embedded links remain important priorities in 2026.

From my perspective, when 86% of top-ranking pages already have AI in them, the money pouring into content isn’t proof it’s working…it’s proof everyone’s producing the same thing, faster. And when we all produce the same thing, we’re inflating the problem of poor content. But what that means is it is actually the biggest opening we’ve seen in years to provide high-quality, truly helpful content. When everyone floods the internet with average content, being genuinely useful stops being table stakes and becomes your brand’s differentiator.

How content marketing fits into growth marketing 

At Relevance, we see content marketing as one of the three pillars of a strong growth marketing strategy:

• Content marketing helps build authority by creating thoughtful, high-utility onsite content. This fosters a sense of thought leadership and industry authority while also providing genuine value for customers.
• Digital PR cultivates credibility by generating off-site buzz. It focuses on brand links and mentions on third-party sites, which signal to consumers and search engines alike that your company is important and a relevant part of the conversation.
• SEO increases visibility by using keywords, link building, technical SEO, and other strategies. When these meet Google’s E-E-A-T content standards, they can help your brand show up in organic search results.

Not only does content marketing play an important part in building brand authority. It also serves as a key contributor to the other two pillars. For instance, quality onsite content is required to execute an effective digital PR campaign. In addition, good content should answer targeted questions that consumers are searching for (i.e., answer search intent). This improves the search engine optimization side of things and helps you rank better in Google SERPs. 

From its leading role as an authority-builder to its support function for digital PR and SEO, your content and the strategy behind it can be a game-changer for your growth-oriented endeavors.

Types of content marketing

Content marketing can take many different forms. We’ve already mentioned a handful of these as we went along. But here is a more comprehensive list of each valuable content type for quick reference:

• Guest posts: This kind of off-site content refers to articles written for an industry publication or reputable news site to stoke top-of-the-funnel buzz and generate leads.
• Blog posts: A blog post is a piece of text-based content that can range from an op-ed or thought leader piece to a how-to for a product or service.
• White papers: These are similar to a blog post in concept but are long-form, information-heavy pieces of content meant to encourage those close to making a buying decision.
• Social media: This is any form of content designed for your team to post on social media, from a short Tweet to a TikTok video and everything in between.
• Email: Email marketing is a hyper-targeted form of content that creates a direct line of communication between your brand and an opt-in audience.
• Ads: These are often top-funnel pieces of pure promotional content that can be textual, audible, and visual in nature. This can include Google search ads, display ads, and more.
• Podcasts: This audible form of content can range from short, newsy clips to lengthy presentations, webinars, and round-table conversations designed to demonstrate thought leadership and teach consumers.
• Infographics: Infographics simplify textual information, reducing takeaways into single, flowing, visually appealing presentations.
• Case studies: When you have a particularly poignant success story with a customer, you can create a case study as a way to concisely summarize the positive takeaways as a testimonial for those considering patronizing your brand.
• Videos: Videos provide rapid-fire information in a flowing and entertaining format that has been one of the most effective forms of content for years now.
• Demos: A contained demonstration of your products or services at the end of the funnel can help spur potential buyers to make a purchase.
• UGC: User-generated content (UGC) includes things like testimonials, reviews, and other forms of public feedback that can spur word-of-mouth marketing. 

Even this exhaustive list doesn’t have every option and nuance. For instance, a “blog post” refers to onsite content. However, it’s technically different from a sales page, which is also a form of onsite content. 

The former is a piece of content that seeks to inform the consumer and guide them along the funnel (different pieces of content address top, middle, and lower sales funnel CTAs). The latter is at the end of the funnel and prioritizes promoting a product or service and closing a sale. 

Similarly, infographics are a specific form of visual content. However, you can also create memes, photos, illustrations, and other forms of still media. 

The point is that the above list isn’t an authoritative group of items that have to be included in a content strategy. Think bigger than something that is that formulaic. Content marketing should never be restricted to one or two of these options, and, at the same time (unless you’re a very large company with lots of resources), you shouldn’t try to utilize every one of them at once. If you do that, you’ll spread those resources too thin, and nothing will be effective.

Instead, you need to take the time to create a marketing strategy. (Big surprise, right?) A quality strategy will help you choose what forms of content you should use based on your audience, how you should make them, and, ultimately, how you should deploy them in your larger growth strategy.

The content marketing strategy framework

A content marketing strategy framework gives you a 10,000-foot perspective of your content marketing activity. It steps back and considers how you can take unspecific plans and strategic initiatives and put them into motion. 

A good framework for content marketing takes all of your content-related marketing elements into account and keeps all of your content and its messages flowing in the same direction. On a big-picture scale, this includes your brand’s mission, values, and goals. 

On a nitty-gritty level, it also includes the content marketing resources that you have available to execute that vision. What skills, tools, and techniques do you have at your disposal to turn your content marketing vision into a bona fide reality?

A content framework takes both the minute details and the sweeping generalities into account. It creates the structure within which your content strategy can thrive, not just with a single piece of content but across all of your related content marketing endeavors.

How does a framework fit into your larger content marketing strategy?

If a framework brings your vision and resources together, how does it fit into the larger content marketing strategy process? To fully grasp where a framework fits in, let’s consider why you want to create a content strategy in the first place.  

Content marketing strategies are powerful ways to create synergy and purpose behind marketing efforts. However, without structure, they can quickly fall apart. 

This is especially true in an era where marketers are cobbling together campaigns using highly fractionalized digital marketing channels, tools, and strategies. Without a framework in place, a content strategy can splinter into a confusion of disconnected marketing efforts, assets, and activities. When marketing becomes decentralized and disconnected like this, nothing moves you toward your goals in meaningful or measurable ways.

This is where a framework brings a much-needed degree of predictability and organization. It gives you a clear path to put your content creation into motion. At Relevance, we spend months on strategy before we write a single piece so everything is based in research and data. Then, every piece has to earn its place by mapping back to it. That’s the step most teams skip: if an idea drifts from the framework, we simply don’t create it. We either tie it back and know it supports the framework, or we drop it. A framework isn’t a document you write once and file away. It has to be the filter every piece of content has to pass through to be useful.

Of course, content marketing doesn’t stop with a good framework. This provides a blueprint to follow, but to build on those plans, you must create content strategy templates, as well. These are highly practical preset formulas that you can use to intimately guide your content creation. 

You can create templates to inform your content for specific events, campaigns, and even seasons of your business activity. Whatever the specific reason, a template provides a repeatable and distinct way you can utilize your larger framework to translate your content strategy into a variety of marketing assets.

What are the five elements of a content marketing framework?

Okay, so a framework is worth it …but how do you create one? Here are the pieces you want to consider when pulling together a marketing framework for your content.

• Vision, values, mission, and goals: Always start with the high-level stuff. Review both your larger objectives and short-term goals as a company and keep them at the center of your framework. As you define those goals, use the SMART framework to keep them concrete and trackable rather than vague aspirations.
• Target audience: Who are you targeting? Make sure you’ve identified your primary audience. Should you focus on a specific segment of that group? What content type will help you reach potential customers? Use this information to create a clear buyer persona for your current content marketing strategy. 
• Content marketing resources: You can’t turn plans into assets without the right tools, team members, and budget in place. What are the resources that you have available to create content right now? What pieces or people are missing for your strategy to be effective?
• Content ideas: What will your content be about? What will your content format look like? Are there general themes, topics, or keywords that you want to hit on a regular basis? Will you be repurposing existing content? Figure these out and add them to your framework.
• A solid schedule: You don’t have to predict when you’ll post every article, infographic, or social blurb. However, you do want to have a rough idea of the timeline and content calendar that your strategy will require. This is why building out a schedule for creating, posting, and following up on content distribution is essential.

The holistic nature of this collection of components is a great snapshot example of how important a framework is as a central repository for all of your content strategy needs.

What does a content marketing strategy framework look like?

A content framework is a documented and specific manifestation of your content marketing strategy. It should detail everything from your goals and audience to the platforms, topics, and kinds of content that you can use. When it comes to the goals piece, it’s worth getting specific. Many teams use OKRs (objectives and key results) to turn a broad goal into something concrete and trackable, so there’s no ambiguity about what success actually looks like or who’s accountable for it.

Frameworks should also dig into the specifics of how your strategy will play out. It should include your budget, your team members, and their roles. 

You should also consider the promotion channels you can use as well as the publishing schedules and timelines you’re working with. It should include the stages of your marketing funnel. Do you have a system for creating and posting content? That should be in there, too.

You can present this as a visual table for quick and easy reference. This should be headlined by your brand goals alongside your mission and values. Below that, you can list each element of your framework in vertical columns, including:

Keeping all of this in a single visual framework gives you a central repository for all of the elements that you will need to execute your content strategy. This serves as the blueprint that you can return to again and again as your strategy plays out.

What is an example of a content strategy framework?

To help all of this make sense, let’s go over a content strategy framework example. Consider an online retailer that sells nutraceuticals. They are about to release a new line of premium collagen supplements, and they want to promote it, including getting it featured when people ask AI assistants about collagen benefits.

To do so effectively, the marketing team creates a quality content strategy that functions as a roadmap for the upcoming marketing campaign. It identifies the “why” behind the promotional initiative (to promote the new collagen products). From there, it connects that overarching goal with correlating content marketing tactics, such as building out an educational blog post or using social media posts and emails.

At that point, it’s time to create a framework. The lead marketer begins to gather documentation that outlines specific goals for the campaign. They ensure that these align with the company’s overall vision and mission as well as the budget they have available. They also consider who should be on the team for the campaign, including someone who can speak to the product’s formulation for credibility and what portion of the brand’s audience they should target. 

From there, marketing leadership digs deeper. They consider the different platforms, formats, tools, and schedules required to execute the campaign. This collection of documentation creates a framework that the team can reference every time they go to create a content template in relation to the collagen product launch in the coming months. 

Regardless of whether a particular template is for a long-form LinkedIn post, a short TikTok script, a 3,000-word white paper, or a brief email, they can reference the same framework to stay on track and move toward the same goals.

How to create a content marketing strategy (step by step)

Here is a rapid-fire, step-by-step run-through for how to create a strong content marketing strategy for your company. 

1. Determine your audience and define the buyer’s journey

You can’t market effectively if you don’t know who you’re marketing to. That’s why, as you consider your content marketing strategy framework, you want to start with your audience.

Any growth marketer worth their salt keeps the consumer at the center of every decision. If you’re already an established business, you should have a target audience identified. Review, update, and codify this information. 

You also want to consider the customer journey. What is the process that leads a consumer from their first point of relevant content through the sales funnel and on to remain a retained and happy customer? Your content should align with some part of this journey at all times.

As an example of this audience discovery process, consider selling farm supplies in a rural town full of family farms. A likely target audience would be middle-aged family men who live in the area, farm for a living, and need convenient access to equipment and feed. Identifying this target audience would allow you to buy additional inventory on a cyclical basis to keep up with demand. Even more so, it would allow you to place ads on appropriate platforms. 

For on-site content, perhaps the farm supply business would post tips and tricks for planting to ensure the best harvest. Once you understand your target audience, you can create content that speaks to their needs and addresses their concerns.

2. Determine your KPIs and goals

As you consider your audience, buyer journey, themes, pillars, keywords, and competitors, you can begin to see what your content marketing strategy should look like. You can envision the broad, sweeping goals that you should aim to accomplish through your content.

As this comes into focus, begin to consider what goals you should target throughout your content creation. Once you’ve established end goals, you can also create KPIs that serve as mini-objectives to keep you on the straight and narrow as you go along.

According to a study by the Content Marketing Institute, businesses that set specific goals for their content marketing efforts are more likely to see positive results. Whether it’s brand awareness, building credibility, educating audiences, or generating leads, and brand awareness consistently ranks as the top-cited goal, with 87% of marketers naming it as part of their program. Setting goals is the first step to achieving marketing success.

3. Do keyword and competitor research

Research is a major part of laying the groundwork for a successful content marketing strategy. This starts with keywords. As you identify your themes, consider what keywords people are using to search for information in those areas.

It’s also wise to conduct competitor research. What content are your competitors creating? What keywords are they ranking for? These are good indications of the areas you should focus on, either to beat out the competition or differentiate yourself.

Depending on your strategy, you may target long-tail or short-tail keywords, but it’s most likely that you’ll cover a variety of both (and some that fall in between). You want to make sure you’re in the game with your competition when it comes to short-tail keywords. However, you also want to increase your chances of standing out by covering some long-tail phrases.

4. Develop your brand voice

The most successful brands develop a “personality” that their audience can recognize and identify with. This is often overlooked in content strategy, but it’s also one of the most important aspects of a brand. People remember how content makes them feel long before they remember the facts in it, so if a piece feels flat, that’s usually the real problem, not the information.

What are the specific themes that absolutely should personify your brand? What topical areas should your brand be an industry leader in?

As you figure these out, each theme can become one of your pillars. Content pillars (like this one you’re reading now) are unique, long-form content that comprehensively addresses an important topic for your brand. 

A good pillar strategy identifies a handful of key pillars. You can then use these central points to build off of as you create smaller pieces of “clustered” content around them. This keeps your blog content focused and strategic. 

5. Run a Content Audit

Content creation is a cost-effective and efficient way to generate traffic and boost brand authority over time. However, upfront and in the short term, content creation is expensive and time-consuming. The last thing you want to do is create content you don’t need.

Once you have your goals and KPIs in place, review your existing content in light of your new content strategy plan. What content is already in that subject area? 

It’s a good idea to use a reputable, up-to-date tool, like Google Search Console or Ahrefs, to inventory existing URLs on your website. Look for the pieces that target your priority topics. Then, assess performance in areas like clicks, impressions, ranking, and traffic potential for each piece.

As you do this, classify different content buckets, like high-performance, promising, underperformers, and low-value. Keep the good ones. Update the middling ones. Prune the rest. 

Also, identify gaps in your topical authority where no content exists. Check for demand, and where it’s strong, make plans to develop more content in that area.

6. Create a content creation and scheduling process

Now that you have a strategy in place, goals set, and have vetted your existing content, it’s time to add more content. This starts with a solid content creation process.

Effective content production starts with your team. Figure out which people in your organization, department, and marketing team should be involved. From there, set up a system to:

• Brainstorm content ideas.
• Set up briefs, templates, and branded guides.
• Establish a content calendar and publishing rhythm.

Once that’s set, it’s time to create the content itself. Have your writers write, your illustrators create images, and so on. Make sure you’re ready to edit content and optimize it before it goes live, as well. If you’ve set the stage by following the steps before this point, this part should be relatively straightforward.

A year is a long time to create content. From social media to blog posts, guest posts to email campaigns, you want to structure how you release all of your content. A content calendar can help you spread out your efforts and allow them to build on each other over time.

7. Map content to your funnel

Once you have your goals set, it’s time to dig into more of the details. Where are these goals in your sales funnel? What kind of content facilitates achieving them? 

For example, if you need top-funnel content, you may want to create a topical blog post, conduct a content audit focused on improving your helpful content, or create more social media content. 

However, if you need to create content for the bottom of your funnel, you may want to focus on creating demos, video content, whitepapers, or email marketing powered by the right marketing automation tools. 

8. Promote and distribute

Once you have created your content, you’ll need to promote it and get it in front of the right people. There are many ways you can promote your content. Social media, email marketing, and paid advertising are just a few examples. The key is to find the promotion channels that work best for your business and audience. 

Are they searching YouTube for the latest videos on your niche? Or do they spend most of their free time browsing Instagram for great photos? Similarly, are they likely to respond to (often expensive) Facebook ads?

If you’re targeting content to young men, Reddit, YouTube, or TikTok might be your best bet. However, if you’re trying to reach middle-aged women, Pinterest, Facebook, or blogs would be more likely to get their attention. 

Each platform has a variety of users, but each demographic has preferences and habits that have been analyzed. It’s important to do your research and strategically decide where you’ll promote your content.

9. Track, Optimize, and Iterate

Your content may look shiny and exciting when it’s initially completed, but you won’t know if it’s actually performing for a while. That’s why you need to track data as you go along.

You can use a tool like Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 to monitor key metrics like organic traffic, session duration, and bounce rate.

Once your content goes live on your site, it will take some time to start performing. Nevertheless, you don’t want to publish something and never revisit it. It’s a good idea to sit down with your content marketing team at least once per year, if not once every six months or even every quarter, to go over your current strategy. 

Take note of what worked, what didn’t, and where you’d like to improve. What do your website analytics reveal? Which social media campaigns received the best response? Adjust your existing content accordingly.

If it isn’t performing well after several months, re-optimize your content. Use this ongoing data collection process to see what works, too. That way, you can reiterate it across both your existing and new content moving forward.

Aligning your content strategy with SEO 

Even in the AI era, SEO remains a critical part of search success. That means you want to align your content with SEO best practices and overall optimization strategies. Here are three ways to keep this in mind as you build your content marketing strategy.

Build topic clusters & topical authority

Choose content that you specialize in so you can demonstrate your expertise. Then, build on that topical authority by building clusters of topical content on your site.

Match content to search intent

Along with your own expertise, make sure your content is aligned with what your audience is looking for. Use your market research, competitor research, and keywords to make sure you’re aligning your topical authority pieces with search intent.

Internal linking, backlinks, and ongoing SEO audits

Internally link all of your related content whenever it organically makes sense. Don’t flood a page with hyperlinks, but add natural links when they can help the reader. Maintain a rock-solid backlink strategy, too, to signal third-party endorsements of your topical authority to search engines and AI tools. Keep auditing these SEO techniques and tactics over time to make sure they’re delivering results! 

Content marketing strategy examples

Every company does content marketing differently. Each campaign looks different, too, depending on a brand’s current needs, audience, and so on.

For instance, consider a SaaS brand that helps companies use AI to simplify tech stacks. They want to spur revenue by generating leads, and they need to build a strategy that speaks to an audience looking for ways to eliminate unnecessary spending. Their marketing strategy will look very different from an e-commerce brand looking for backlinks to build topical authority and drive buyers to an online store.

Here are a couple of real-life examples of how different quality content can look based on some of the best content marketing brands out there.

SmartSource Built Authority That AI Actually Cites

Sometimes the clearest proof of a strategy is the results it produces. SmartSource, a mid-market provider of event technology and AV production solutions, came to Relevance with a challenge every brand is now facing: how do you stay visible when search is shifting from ten blue links to AI-generated answers? The goal wasn’t just to rank — it was to become a source AI systems quote.

Rather than publishing more, we built an AI Visibility and Organic Growth strategy anchored to a handful of high-value content clusters — event technology, AV event production, corporate event production, and mobile event applications — and made every piece of content map back to it. That meant a full technical and AI-visibility audit, optimized service and solution pages, schema and internal-linking work to reinforce topic relevance, a digital PR push to build authority, and continuous monitoring of where AI was actually citing the brand.

Comparing the March–May 2026 period to the prior three months, the strategy delivered a 65% increase in traffic from large language models, a 32% lift in brand presence within Google’s AI Mode, and a 50% increase in organic leads. On the traditional side, 76% of tracked event-technology keywords now rank on page one, and the site’s conversion rate climbed 2.4%. Most telling of all: newly optimized content began earning AI citations shortly after publication — the clearest signal that content built on a real framework doesn’t just rank, it gets quoted.

Mr. Rooter’s Content Is On Point

Content marketing works for any industry — case in point: the Mr. Rooter plumbing blog. The plumbing franchise has a blog filled with dozens of articles. Each of these provides genuine value by targeting not just plumbing questions but also customer pain points.  

Every article approaches problems from the customers’ perspective, such as dealing with tree roots in sewer lines or backed-up garbage disposals. These are high-value articles that, of course, include CTAs for plumbing services if the DIY approach falls through.

Patagonia Knows Its Audience

Another content strategy example is Patagonia. The high-end clothing brand was built on providing quality outdoor clothing while avoiding unnecessary harm to the earth in the process. With an informed and invested customer base, the brand doesn’t waste its time creating low-quality or low-information content.

Instead, it dives into long-form content created to entertain and inform. It also presents this information in a beautiful video format that is showcased right on its website. This significant investment is keeping the brand’s high-profile customer base interested and invested in its larger message.

Taco Bell’s Consistency Is Remarkable

When you think of content, you may not think of fast food. However, some fast food chains are exceptionally good at utilizing their online content to keep customers flowing to their doors. 

Taco Bell is one of those. The company has maintained a strong sense of content consistency across its various online efforts. 

The most popular of these is its social media channels. Taco Bell’s social accounts operate like clockwork, providing a steady flow of mouth-watering imagery that aligns with their tone and keeps their crowd engaged and interested.

Content strategy in 2026: AI, E-E-A-T, and helpful content

If you’re going to invest in a content marketing strategy (which is always a good idea), you need to remember that this isn’t a one-and-done activity. It requires ongoing tweaking, learning, and adapting to wherever the current content landscape is going. 

In 2026, your content marketing plan should focus on a few key things. Content marketers are using AI SEO tools to brainstorm ideas, generate outlines, analyze results, and much more — and we’re just starting to scratch the surface of this powerful, limitless technology. 

Helpful content is a necessity, too. Video is effective. Interactive content is encouraged. 

These will provide insights into how brands can take advantage of the latest search engine algorithms and developments to help ensure their content is found by their target audience.

These kinds of changes are generally good things. However, they can shake things up in the short term and often require adjustments and adaptation whenever they roll out. 

Writing for AI Overviews and AI assistants (GEO)

Another important shift is treating AI Overviews and AI assistants as answer engines, not just search engines. They want to create full solutions for anyone inputting a query. 

With that in mind, make sure you’re writing concise, structured, intent-driven content. Add clear definitions and steps. Use FAQs for follow-up details. These are all things that make it easier for your content to be cited in AI summaries.

I’m closely watching what actually gets cited, and it’s rarely the longest or most keyword-stuffed page. In our own client work, the content that is earning AI citations fastest is the one with a clean answer up top and a unique point of view underneath. LLMs don’t seem to care about the page that mentions the keyword most, but is more focused on surfacing the page that resolves the question and provides real value.

E-E-A-T and Google’s Helpful Content guidance

Google also continues to offer newer versions of its Helpful Content Updates. (These aren’t specifically called that anymore, but Google does continue to provide advice for what is “helpful” and “unhelpful” content.)

The brand’s E-E-A-T guidelines also continue to put the emphasis on educational, helpful, and high-quality content rather than generic or unhelpful alternatives. Use that as a North Star to keep your content clean, focused, and effective.

Free content strategy template & checklist

If you need a sweet and simple approach to your content marketing strategy, here’s a quick review content strategy framework template checklist to get you started:

1. Clarify business goals, OKRs, and audience for your content strategy template.
2. Map buyer journey stages, then outline related topics in your content plan template.
3. Audit existing content, mark gaps, and look for quick wins for optimization.
4. Research keywords, competitors, and AI search trends to refine priorities.
5. Choose core formats and channels aligned with audiences and funnel stages.
6. Define brand voice and messaging rules for all content assets you create.
7. Build a simple content strategy template with assigned roles, timelines, and workflows.
8. Turn that into a weekly content plan template with creative steps and publish dates.
9. Add basic SEO checks: titles, metadata, internal links, CTAs, etc.
10. Review performance regularly, iterate your content plan template, and update accordingly.

Frequently asked questions

What is a content marketing strategy?

A content marketing strategy goes beyond publishing content for its own sake. It is a consolidated plan to use articles, emails, social posts, and other assets to reach specific marketing goals

What’s the difference between a content strategy and a content plan?

Content strategy sets the big-picture direction. It’s the “why” behind everything. A content plan translates that strategy into concrete steps, including topics, formats, timelines, and distribution across your channels.

What is a content marketing framework?

A content marketing framework is the high-level structure that steps back and gives you the big picture. It shows you things like goals, messages, asset formats, and channels.

How do you create a content strategy?

Start by clarifying your goals. Then research your audience (and competitors), define key messages and channels, and plan content mapped to each stage of your buyer journey. Don’t forget to document how you’ll measure and refine your results over time.

What is an SEO content strategy?

An SEO content strategy focuses on search-friendly topics and content formats. This includes target keywords and page optimization that help attract organic traffic over time.

What are examples of content marketing?

Common content marketing examples include blog posts, podcasts, newsletters, case studies, webinars, white papers, guides, and social campaigns. These focus on educating or entertaining, while encouraging audiences toward taking action.

What should a content plan include?

A content plan is an actionable plan to create assets within a larger content strategy and framework. It provides structure to make and release content with intention.

How long does a content strategy take to show results?

Content strategy usually takes a few months to show clear SEO results. This is especially true if ranking in SERPs is part of the plan. Gaining awareness, authority, and conversions often take longer than a paid approach.

How is AI changing content strategy in 2026?

AI is speeding up research, outlining, and production. However, it also makes human-driven things like originality and strategy more important. The best content now has clear intention, expertise, and human judgment.

Building your content marketing strategy with Relevance

Content marketing is a major part of modern marketing plans. However, simply creating content with a “let’s see what sticks” mentality won’t get you far. Whether you’re creating content in the form of emails, blog posts, podcasts, videos, or anything else, always make sure you have a strategy in place to guide you as you go along.

In order to see content marketing success, you need to invest in a robust, comprehensive content marketing strategy. This gives you a clear focus and purpose as you tend to all of your content creation and management efforts.

If you need support while building an effective strategy, book a free strategy session with Relevance. Our team can walk with you through the process, helping you research, create, and execute a content marketing strategy that will effectively build your brand over time.

The post Everything You Need to Know About Content Marketing Strategy appeared first on Relevance.

Did you know that the No. 1 search result on Google gets 31.7% of all clicks? On the flip side, only 0.78% of all users click over to engage with anything on the second page of results. These statistics explain, in a nutshell, why every business wants its content to show up on the first page.

It’s no secret that search engine optimization (SEO) is a powerful strategy for bringing high-quality traffic to your site and boost conversions. But only if it’s done right. The right SEO techniques and tools can help land you a spot on the coveted first page. The problem, however, is that SEO trends are constantly evolving, and staying on top of the latest trends can become quite daunting. I’ve put together what I think are

Latest SEO Data for 2026: Content over 3,000 words wins 3x more traffic, 4x more shares, and 3.5x more backlinks compared to average-length content (Backlinko). Mobile now accounts for 92.3% of internet access. Adapting to AI advancements is ranked as the #1 challenge by SEOs in 2026, with 63% reporting that Google AI Overviews have positively impacted their organic traffic and visibility (SE Ranking).

1. Leverage Current SEO Trends by Remembering to EAT 

For a long time now, Google has been favoring high-quality content. But what exactly does “high-quality” mean in 2026?

First, your content needs to have some sort of beneficial purpose and attempt to help users. The second indicator of high-quality content, at least as far as Google is concerned, can be summed up with the acronym E-A-T. Your content needs to reflect a high degree of expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Google’s third-party Search Quality Raters use these indicators to rate the quality of content on web pages. Google then leverages this information to improve the results it showcases to users.

Expertise

Google favors reliable sources of information. Content written by genuine experts in their fields is likely to rank higher in searches. For example, Google’s quality guidelines state that only medical professionals and experts should write medical advice. This helps to explain why every article on Virta’s blog is written only by medical practitioners and healthcare experts.

Authoritativeness

Google also favors content and websites that are reputable and trusted by external sources. This means that content that has been cited on multiple other reputable websites will rank higher. If The New York Times mentions you, for example, that’s going to send a strong signal to Google.

Trustworthiness

Google favors websites that offer a high degree of transparency about their creators. Some examples of trust signals include:

• a detailed “About Us” page;
• a “Contact Us” page with complete contact information;
• author bylines on blog articles;
• a privacy policy;
• terms of service;
• external links to sources and references.

For example, healthcare provider Virta has a very impressive “About Us” page on their website. The page provides an overview of their mission, origin story, and achievements. It also showcases their leadership team, investors, advisors, and board of directors. All these comply with current SEO trends and are excellent trust signals as far as Google is concerned.

Tip for Marketers

If you want to outrank your competition in 2026, you will need to create content that 1) benefits your audience, and 2) conforms to Google’s E-A-T guidelines. Even if you outsource content development, make sure you hire people who are knowledgeable about your industry. Use relevant statistics, facts, and real-world examples in your content to support your claims. Also, make sure that your website includes detailed information about your business.

2. New SEO Trends Require Fulfilling Search Intent

One key to adopting winning SEO trends in 2026 is to understand the “why” behind the “what.” Ask yourself: Why do people flock to Google? What are they essentially looking for?

People look to search engines for answers to their questions or to learn more about a particular subject. So, if you can 1) understand the intent behind their searches, and 2) provide the answers or information they’re looking for, you’ll be one step closer to your goals.

Google has evolved far beyond simply analyzing strings of words. With the BERT update, Google now uses pattern recognition to understand how people actually converse and present more relevant search results. Regardless of how you combine words or spell your search queries, Google tries its best to understand user intent and return relevant information from the web. So, if your content fails to match user intent, your search rankings will be negatively affected.

This is exactly why marketers should focus on creating valuable content that satisfies search and user intent. A study conducted by Ahrefs found that optimizing a landing page for search intent resulted in a 677% increase in traffic in just six months.

Tip for Marketers

Before you start creating any form of content, search your target keyword on Google to understand its intent. For example, when someone searches for “content marketing,” it’s likely that they’re looking to learn more about content marketing. However, if they search for “content marketing services,” it’s more likely that they’re looking for vendors who provide such services. Once you know the search intent for a particular keyword, you’ll be able to ensure that your content matches the intent.

3. ‘Page Experience’ Will Soon Become a Ranking Factor

Google defines “page experience” as a measure of how users feel when they interact with a particular web page. Beginning May 2026, the page experience factor will have an impact on the ranking of a website. In addition to existing signals such as site speed, mobile-friendliness, HTTPS-security, and safe browsing, a new set of metrics called Core Web Vitals will now determine the page experience.

So what constitutes these Core Web Vitals?

• Loading: How fast a page loads.
• Interactivity: How quickly a page becomes interactive.
• Visual Stability: How stable a page is while loading.

The addition of these metrics means you can no longer afford to ignore these factors if you want to optimize for SEO trends and improve search rankings in 2026. If a couple of pages have equally relevant content, the one that offers a better user experience will rank higher once the new algorithm rolls out in May.

Tip for Marketers

As the new changes won’t take effect until May, you still have time to optimize your website and improve the user experience. Start by analyzing the loading speed of web pages using Google’s PageSpeed Insights and take the Mobile-Friendly Test to see where you stand. If you don’t have the necessary expertise to optimize your website in-house, consider outsourcing to an outside agency.

Final Thoughts

Gone are the days when SEO was all about keyword research and optimization. As SEO trends continue to evolve and become more complex, the only way to win is to stay abreast of the latest trends, concepts, and techniques. 

The post SEO Trends Every Marketer Needs to Leverage for Success in 2026 appeared first on Relevance.

One of the things that makes WordPress so powerful is its huge library of third-party plugins. While there are certainly lots of premium plugins out there, you can also find tons of great, free options from generous developers.

In fact, if you browse the official free plugins directly at WordPress.org, you’ll find over 58,000 free WordPress plugins.

But that presents another problem – with tens of thousands of options to choose from, how do you choose the best free WordPress plugins for your site?

To help you filter your many options, we did the work for you and curated those thousands of plugins down to just 30 options, including many popular WordPress plugins as well as some hidden gems that are worth a look.

To make it easier for you to find the plugins you’re interested in, we’ll divide our list into three broad categories:

• Marketing, monetization, and design plugins
• Security and performance plugins
• Admin/management and customization plugins

Let’s dig in so that you can find the perfect plugin for your WordPress blog or website.

Best Free WordPress Plugins for Marketing, Monetization, and Design

WordPress Plugin Ecosystem in 2026: WordPress powers 42.8% of all websites globally and holds 60.4% CMS market share (Hostinger). There are now over 70,000 plugins available, with new submissions nearly doubling in 2025. WooCommerce alone holds 33% of the ecommerce market, used by 8.8% of all websites worldwide (DemandSage).

The free plugins in this first section help you improve your marketing efforts, monetize your site, and gain access to new design capabilities to help with those goals.

LearnPress

LearnPress is our first choice when it comes to the most famous LMS plugins for WordPress. It’s a perfect solution for creating and selling online courses. In addition, you can download LearnPress for free and it works well with any WordPress theme. LearnPress has an amazing collection of add-ons like co-instructors, certificates, content drip, WooCommerce, front-end editor, and more.

Key Features:

– Supports multiple payment gateways: 2Checkout, Authorize.net, and Stripe.
– BuddyPress and bbPress integrations
– Works with WooCommerce and Paid Membership Pro
– Course review, prerequisite courses, wishlist, and random quiz is available too

Pricing: Free and Premium add-ons bundle costs  $249.99
Best For:  Creating education websites, eLearning websites, and online-course websites with no coding knowledge required.

HubSpot

HubSpot is a popular CRM that can help you with marketing, sales, and customer service. With its free WordPress integration plugin, you can access all of those marketing tools without leaving your WordPress dashboard.

The core of HubSpot is its free CRM, which lets you manage all of your customers and track their activity on your site. To help you connect with more customers in the first place, the HubSpot plugin comes packed with useful features like a drag-and-drop form maker and live chat. 

Key Features:

• Manage everything without leaving your WordPress dashboard.
• Full CRM (customer relationship management) tool to keep track of your customers.
• Drag-and-drop form builder to grow your email list and connect with customers.
• Popup builder.
• Live chat and chatbots.
• Built-in analytics (all connected to customer profiles in your CRM).
• Email marketing tool for newsletters and email marketing automation campaigns, including a drag-and-drop email builder.

Pricing: Free. There are optional paid add-ons for certain features.

Best For: Boosting your site’s marketing and sales efforts and keeping track of all your customers.

Elementor

If you’ve ever felt limited by the design capabilities of the default WordPress editor, the Elementor page builder plugin might just be for you. It gives you a visual, drag-and-drop editor where you can build beautiful designs without needing any technical PHP or CSS knowledge. You can add content using simple widgets and then style them using Elementor’s built-in options.

You can use Elementor to build landing pages, create more style blog posts, improve your core pages, and more.

Key Features:

• Visual, drag-and-drop design interface.
• Start from pre-built templates or a blank canvas.
• Create your design by dragging in widgets and organizing them with sections/columns.
• Style everything using built-in options – no code required.
• Works with blog posts, pages, or any other post type.

Pricing: Free. Premium version from $49.

Best For: Creating more unique designs without needing to have any technical knowledge.

Rank Math SEO

Every WordPress website needs an SEO plugin to improve rankings in Google. While Yoast SEO and All-In-One SEO are the established names here, Rank Math SEO is a newer option that’s shooting up in popularity thanks to its generous free feature list.

Rank Math SEO does everything those other SEO plugins do, but it also gives you free features that other plugins charge for such as multiple keyword optimization, schema markup, internal link suggestions, and more.

Key Features:

• Full WordPress SEO plugin.
• Set SEO title/description and social media graph information.
• Content analysis to help you improve SEO and readability.
• Optimize for multiple focus keywords.
• Built-in LSI keyword tool.
• Structured data/schema markup support.
• XML sitemaps support to replace the native WordPress feature.
• Modular approach so that you can disable features you don’t want.

Pricing: Free. There’s also a premium version from $69.

Best For: Improving WordPress SEO and ranking your website in search engines like Google.

WPForms Lite

Every WordPress website needs forms. And when it comes to dedicated WordPress form plugins, WPForms is one of the best free options. The free version makes it easy to create simple contact forms and comes with some pre-built templates to get you started.

You can then easily embed your forms anywhere on your site using a shortcode or block.

Key Features:

• Design your forms using a drag-and-drop editor.
• Pre-built form templates.
• Easily embed forms using a shortcode or dedicated block.
• Built-in spam protection.

Pricing: Free. Or upgrade to Pro for more advanced forms from $79.

Best For: Creating a contact form for your WordPress website.

TablePress

Tables can be a really useful design element for presenting information to your visitors. You can use them to compare products/services, share data, and more. When it comes to free WordPress table plugins, TablePress is the king with its 800,000+ active installs and perfect 5-star rating on over 4,000 reviews at WordPress.org.

Key Features:

• Manage tables from an Excel-like editor.
• Import table data from Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, and more.
• Automatically sync table data with externally-hosted sources, like Google Sheets.
• Create responsive tables.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Creating any type of table on WordPress.

Ad Inserter

Ad Inserter is a useful plugin if you display any type of advertising on your site as it makes it easy to manage and insert all of your ads from one convenient interface. It supports ad services such as Google AdSense or Media.net, as well as custom ads (or any other HTML for that matter).

You can easily inject your ads in your content at various spots, in your sidebar, or directly in your theme template files. All in all, it’s just generally a useful plugin for working with ads on WordPress.

Key Features:

• Manage any type of advertisement, including Google AdSense or your own custom banner ads.
• Automatically insert ads at various locations on your site.
• Rotate ads to display different ads at the same location.
• Track ad impressions.
• Desktop and mobile device detection to display optimized ads for each.
• Whitelist/blacklist ads on certain content.

Pricing: Free. There’s also a paid version from €20.

Best For: Inserting and managing ads on your WordPress website.

Shared Counts

Adding social media share buttons to your site is a great way to encourage your visitors to share your content on social media. You can also add share counts alongside the social sharing buttons to showcase how popular your content is, which is a great way to boost social proof on your WordPress site.

Shared Counts is a lightweight free plugin that lets you accomplish both things without slowing down your site. 

Key Features:

• Lightweight and performance-friendly design to avoid slowing down your site.
• Add social share buttons for popular networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Email, and Pinterest.
• Show total and individual share counts.
• Automatically add share buttons or manually place them with a shortcode.
• Dedicated share image for Pinterest (separate free add-on).

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Adding performance-optimized social media share buttons and share counts to your site.

Jetpack

Jetpack is a popular free plugin that adds a range of functionality to your WordPress site. It includes a variety of features including site stats, related posts, a built-in content delivery network (CDN), automatic sharing for new posts to social media, sidebar widgets, brute force protection, and lots more.

All of the features are modular so you can pick and choose exactly which features you want to use on your site.

Key Features:

• Performance-friendly related posts to engage your visitors and keep them on your site.
• Sync your site with WordPress.com and its many features (this is why Jetpack requires a WordPress.com account).
• Automatically share new posts to social media.
• Uptime monitoring.
• Built-in content delivery network (CDN).
• Built-in basic contact forms.
• Mobile app for iOS and Android to control your WordPress site on the go.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Adding a range of modular features to your WordPress site and syncing your site with WordPress.com.

MonsterInsights

Google Analytics is a popular web analytics tool that helps you understand where your website’s visitors come from and what they do on your site. While you can manually add the Google Analytics tracking code to your site and view your site’s data in Google Analytics, that can be a little complicated for many WordPress users to set up.

MonsterInsights makes it a lot easier to add the tracking code and it also lets you view your data inside your WordPress dashboard in a much more useful and user-friendly layout. For advanced users, the premium version can also help you set up detailed tracking for button clicks, downloads, custom dimensions, and more.

Key Features:

• Add the Google Analytics tracking code to WordPress.
• View Google Analytics data in your WordPress dashboard.
• View real-time stats.
• Get email summaries of important stats.

Pricing: Free. Premium version from $199.

Best For: Adding Google Analytics to WordPress and viewing stats inside your WordPress dashboard.

PixelYourSite

The MonsterInsights plugin from above helps you integrate Google Analytics into your WordPress site. But as you go through your marketing efforts, you’ll probably want to add tracking services for other sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, and more.

That’s where PixelYourSite comes in – it helps you add and manage tracking pixels for a ton of different services including Facebook, Pinterest, Bing, and more.

Key Features:

• Supports popular tracking services including Facebook Pixel.
• Automatically track important events like the pages users visit.
• Create your own events to track custom information.
• Dedicated eCommerce integrations for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads to track conversion events.
• Integrates with popular cookie consent plugins for GDPR support.

Pricing: Free. Individual paid add-ons or purchase a bundle of add-ons from $150.

Best For: Adding and configuring tracking pixels for Facebook, Pinterest, and other services.

myStickymenu

myStickymenu is a flexible free plugin that helps you create any type of notification bar at the top of your website. You can use it for announcements, promotions, CTAs, and more. You can also animate and trigger it at different times. And with the premium version, you can even create multiple bars and target them to different pages.

Key Features:

• Create flexible notification bars.
• Include any content in your notification bar.
• Customize colors and fonts.
• Trigger and animate your bar to display at different times.

Pricing: Free. Premium version starts at just $19.

Best For: Creating any type of notification bar on your WordPress site.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the most popular WordPress eCommerce plugin. You can use it to add a full-featured eCommerce store to your site or you can use it more as a payment processor for services, membership sites (most membership plugins integrate with WooCommerce), online course content, paid bookings, and more.

Key Features:

• Full eCommerce solution.
• Integrates with dozens of payment gateways, including big names like PayPal and Stripe.
• Comes from Automattic, the same team behind WordPress.com.
• Huge library of official and third-party extensions to add new features to your store.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Creating an online store with WordPress or otherwise processing payments on your WordPress site.

Pretty Links

Pretty Links is a really useful free plugin for affiliate marketers or anyone else who needs to insert unique tracking links in WordPress. It can help you manage all of your affiliate links from one spot and manually or automatically insert them in your content. True to the name, it also lets you cloak your links to create “pretty links” like yoursite.com/go/offer.

Key Features:

• Manage all of your affiliate links from your WordPress dashboard.
• Insert affiliate links in the WordPress editor.
• Cloak affiliate links.
• View click stats for each link.

Pricing: Free. Pro version adds automatic link insertion and other features for $99.

Best For: Managing, inserting, and cloaking affiliate links (or other URLs).

GenerateBlocks

If you use the native WordPress block editor (AKA Gutenberg), GenerateBlocks is a really useful addition. GenerateBlocks adds just four new blocks to the editor, which doesn’t seem like a lot at first glance. However, these four foundational blocks, combined with the native blocks, give you pretty much everything you need to build great-looking designs with the WordPress block editor.

Key Features:

• Performance-optimized code that won’t slow down your site.
• Adds four new blocks – container, grid, headline, and buttons.
• Each block has flexible layout/style options.
• Works with any WordPress theme.

Pricing: Free. Pro version from $39 per year.

Best For: Improving the designs that you’re able to create using the native WordPress block editor.

Members

Members is a lightweight WordPress membership plugin that helps you manage user roles and permissions on your site if you allow public user registration. You can use it to group users into different roles, restrict content, add custom login forms, create a private site, and more.

Key Features:

• Create custom WordPress roles to group users together.
• Control what each role can do using permissions.
• Restrict access to content based on a user’s role.
• Make your whole site private so that only members can access it.
• Integrate with other popular plugins like WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, GiveWP, and more.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Improving membership and user roles for WordPress sites that allow public registration.

Best Free WordPress Plugins for Security and Performance

Security and performance aren’t exciting, but they are essential areas to focus on if you want your WordPress site to be successful. These free plugins help you lock down your site’s security and make it load faster for visitors.

UpdraftPlus

UpdraftPlus is a free WordPress backup plugin that lets you backup your site manually or automatically on a schedule that you can set. Every WordPress website needs to have regular backups, so UpdraftPlus is a must-have if your web host isn’t already handling backups for you.

In addition to its automatic scheduling, another key advantage of UpdraftPlus is that it lets you automatically offload your backups to various cloud storage providers such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more. By storing your backups outside your server, you make your backup process a lot more secure.

Key Features:

• Backup your site manually or automatically on a schedule.
• Create full backups or backup just your database or files.
• Automatically offload backups to cloud storage including Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, and more.

Pricing: Free. There are also paid extensions that add new features, or you can get a bundle of all extensions for $70.

Best For: Securely backing up your WordPress site to an offsite location.

Wordfence

Because WordPress is used by so many websites, it’s a juicy target for hackers and other malicious actors. Hackers will scan the web for vulnerable WordPress sites, so your site might be targeted even if it isn’t a traditional “high-value” target.

The Wordfence security plugin provides a single comprehensive solution to protect your site with a web application firewall (WAF), malware scanning, and lots of other security hardening tweaks.

Key Features:

• Web application firewall (WAF) to proactively protect your site from threats.
• Malware and security vulnerability scanning.
• Login page hardening.
• File integrity monitoring.
• General WordPress security hardening best practices.

Pricing: Free, but the firewall/malware rules are delayed by 30 days in the free version. For protection against brand new zero-day threats, you can upgrade to the Pro version from $99.

Best For: Securing your WordPress site with one comprehensive solution.

WP Fastest Cache

Caching is one of the best things you can do to speed up your WordPress site. So if you aren’t already using a web host that offers a built-in caching solution, you should use a WordPress caching plugin. And when it comes to free WordPress caching plugins, WP Fastest Cache is one of the best with its near-perfect 4.9-star rating on over 3,400 reviews.

In addition to page caching, it can also help you with other WordPress performance best practices including code optimization, Gzip compression, browser caching, and more.

WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache are also other good free options – there are lots of great solutions when it comes to free WordPress caching plugins.

Key Features:

• Page caching.
• Set up cache clearing rules and/or manually clear cache.
• Gzip compression.
• Browser caching.
• Disable emojis.
• Code minification.

Pricing: Free. Premium version from ~$50.

Best For: Speeding up your WordPress site with page caching and other WordPress performance best practices.

Smush

On average, images account for about 50% of the filesize of an average website. So if you can find a way to reduce the size of your images, you can make a big improvement to your site’s page load times.

The Smush plugin helps you optimize your images on autopilot by compressing them with lossless compression as you upload them and also giving you the option to resize the images to a set of max dimensions.

Key Features:

• Automatically compress images with lossless compression (you need the premium version for lossy compression, though).
• Automatically resize image dimensions when you upload images.
• Lazy load images in all browsers (Safari doesn’t currently support WordPress’s native lazy loading).
• No monthly limits – the only limit is 5 MB for images.
• Bulk optimize existing images.

Pricing: Free. If you want lossy compression, the premium version costs $5 per month.

Best For: Optimizing your site’s images to improve the performance of your website.

Optimole

Another WordPress image optimization plugin, Optimole has a slightly different approach from Smush. Optimole uses on-the-fly optimization to serve adaptive images to users via its built-in CDN (content delivery network).

With adaptive images, you can dynamically resize your images based on each visitor’s device so that every user sees an image that’s optimized for the resolution of their device. The only downside is that its free plan will only work for small sites.

Key Features:

• Automatically compress and resize images.
• Serve adaptive images.
• Built-in CDN powered by Amazon CloudFront.
• WebP conversion.

Pricing: Free for up to 5,000 monthly visits. Paid plans from ~$19 per month.

Best For: Serving adaptive images via a global CDN to speed up your site.

Limit Login Attempts Reloaded

Brute force attacks are one of the most common ways WordPress sites get hacked. In a brute force attack, malicious actors guess huge numbers of username/password combinations until they find one that works.

One of the best ways to protect yourself from brute force attacks is to limit login attempts on your site (much like banks and other security-conscious organizations do). If a user enters an incorrect password more than X number of times, you can block them for a certain amount of time.

Note – Wordfence also includes this feature, so if you’re using the Wordfence plugin you don’t need to install this plugin.

Key Features:

• Temporarily block users who enter a certain number of incorrect passwords.
• Full control over how you configure the blocking rules.
• Whitelist certain IP addresses so that you don’t accidentally block yourself.
• XML-RPC protection.

Pricing: Free. There’s also a cloud-hosted version for $4.99/month.

Best For: Securing the WordPress login page and protecting your site from brute force attacks.

Two Factor Authentication

If you really want to lock down the login page for mission-critical WordPress sites, you can consider two-factor authentication (2FA), which is what most banks use nowadays.

With 2FA, people will need to enter both their username/password and a unique code from a smartphone app or email. The Two Factor Authentication plugin makes this super easy to set up on WordPress.

Note – Wordfence also includes this feature, so if you’re using the Wordfence plugin you don’t need to install this plugin.

Key Features:

• Supports standard TOTP + HOTP protocols, which lets you use most smartphone apps including Google Authenticator, Authy, and more.
• Enable two-factor authentication on a per-role basis (for example, you can only require it for admins and editors).
• Create trusted devices for certain time periods.
• Integrates with other plugins including WooCommerce.

Pricing: Free. Premium version from £19.

Best For: Securing the WordPress login with two-factor authentication.

Autoptimize

Autoptimize is a popular free WordPress plugin for optimizing your site’s code, mainly with file minification and combination. You can use it to shrink your site’s file size, reduce HTTP requests by combining files, and get rid of those pesky Google PageSpeed Insights warnings like “Defer render-blocking JavaScript” and “Inline critical CSS”.

Key Features:

• Minify your code to shrink its file size without changing functionality.
• Combine CSS and JavaScript to reduce HTTP requests.
• Defer or Async JavaScript to eliminate render-blocking JavaScript.
• Inline critical CSS.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Optimizing your WordPress site’s code (JavaScript and CSS).

Asset CleanUp

Asset CleanUp is a more advanced WordPress performance plugin that lets you conditionally load certain scripts on different parts of your sites. By only loading JavaScript and CSS on the specific pages where it’s needed, you can reduce HTTP requests on your site and speed it up.

This one is a bit advanced, so if you don’t know what HTTP requests are or why they’re important, you might want to skip it. But for experienced WordPress users, this is a really great free plugin to help you get even more performance out of your site.

Key Features:

• Reduce HTTP requests to improve WordPress performance.
• Enable/disable scripts on a page-by-page level.
• Globally enable/disable scripts across your entire site. 

Pricing: Free. Pro version from $47.

Best For: Reducing HTTP requests and improving performance by conditionally loading CSS and JavaScript only where it’s needed.

Sucuri

Sucuri is another lightweight WordPress security plugin that provides an alternative to Wordfence for basic WordPress security hardening. The free Sucuri plugin doesn’t include a firewall like Wordfence, but you can pay for the premium Sucuri service which adds a real-time firewall at the DNS level.

Key Features:

• File integrity monitoring.
• Activity auditing.
• Basic security hardening like blocking certain PHP files and disabling plugin and theme editing.
• Remote malware scanning via Sucuri SiteCheck.

Pricing: Free. You can also optionally pay for the Sucuri firewall service.

Best For: Implementing basic WordPress security hardening on your site.

Best Free WordPress Plugins for Admin/Management

This last group of plugins is mainly focused on helping you improve your site’s technical and backend areas. These plugins will help you work with custom content, add code snippets, filter spam comments, and more.

Code Snippets

At some point, you’re probably going to want to add some custom PHP code snippets to your site. While you can add these custom code snippets to your WordPress site via your theme’s functions.php file, it gets a little complicated because you need to use a child theme and you’ll lose your snippets if you ever change themes.

The free Code Snippets plugin provides a better way to manage code snippets, letting you add each code block separately and conditionally enable it on different parts of your site.

Key Features:

• Manage code snippets from a dedicated interface.
• Easily enable/disable code snippets.
• Run code snippets sitewide or only on the frontend or backend.
• Change themes without losing your code snippets.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Managing your WordPress site’s code snippets.

Insert Headers and Footers

The free Insert Headers and Footers plugin is similar to the Code Snippets. However, while Code Snippets is focused on helping you add PHP code snippets, Insert Headers and Footers is specifically focused on injecting code snippets into your site’s header or footer area, which is especially useful for adding tracking scripts or integrating third-party SaaS tools.

Key Features:

• Add scripts to your site’s header, body, or footer.
• Manage scripts from a unified interface.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Adding tracking codes or JavaScript integration snippets to your site’s header or footer area.

Akismet

Because WordPress is the most popular way to make a website, it’s also a very attractive target for spammers looking to flood your comments section with links to their sites. Even low-traffic sites can attract a lot of spam comments, so it can be frustrating to try to moderate everything manually.

Akismet takes the load off your shoulders by automatically flagging spam comments so that you don’t have to deal with them.

Key Features:

• Automatically check all comments for spam.
• Manually unspam comments if needed.
• Track the number of approved comments for each user.
• Comes from Automattic, the same team behind WordPress.com.

Pricing: Free.

Best For: Protecting the WordPress comments section from spam.

Advanced Custom Fields

Advanced Custom Fields (or ACF for short) is a popular free plugin with advanced users and developers because it helps you work with custom fields on your WordPress site. 

If you’re not familiar with custom fields, they basically give you a way to store additional information about content on your site, such as adding a location field to your blog posts so that you can tag the location of the topics you’re blogging about.

Key Features:

• Add custom fields to any post type.
• Include a variety of different field types including text, numbers, datepickers, file uploads, and more.
• Conditional logic to show/hide fields.
• Embed fields using shortcodes or simple PHP functions.

Pricing: Free. Pro version from $49.

Best For: Working with custom fields on your WordPress website.

WP Mail SMTP

WP Mail SMTP solves a very specific problem to help improve the reliability of your WordPress site’s transactional emails (these are automated emails for things like password resets, notifications, etc.).

By default, the way that WordPress sends these emails results in them either not sending or ending up in recipients’ spam folders. WP Mail SMTP fixes this by helping you configure your WordPress site to use a dedicated email sending service such as SendGrid, Mailgun, the Gmail API, and more. 

For most sites, you’ll be fine with a free service and your transactional emails will be much more reliable.

Key Features:

• Configures WordPress to use a dedicated email sending service for transactional emails.
• Dedicated API integrations for popular providers like SendGrid, Mailgun, and Gmail.
• Generic SMTP option to work with any SMTP provider, including your host’s SMTP server (if your host offers one).
• Test email feature to make sure your emails are working.

Pricing: Free. Premium version from $99.

Best For: Improving the reliability of your WordPress site’s transactional emails with a dedicated email sending service.

Get Started With the Best Free WordPress Plugins Today

The plugins on this list prove that you don’t need to crack open your wallet to find great plugins to improve your WordPress site.

While you probably don’t want to install every single plugin on this list, you should consider each plugin and think about how it can make a meaningful improvement to your WordPress site, whether that’s improving your marketing efforts, boosting your site’s user experience, securing your site, speeding up your site, making it easier to manage your site, or anything else.

The post 30+ Best Free WordPress Plugins in 2026: A Curated List appeared first on Relevance.

A key performance indicator functions as a compass for your content efforts. They are detailed and specific objectives that keep you focused and on track as you work toward your larger content marketing goals.

The question is, what are good KPIs in the context of content? What metrics and benchmarks should you track to see if your content is performing? Let’s consider some of the tools that you can use to measure content effectiveness and what KPIs you can set within those tools to better direct your content marketing.

What our client team is seeing today – October, 2026

From our own client work right now, we’re seeing that the content programs that perform best over time almost always align around four core KPIs:

• SERP rankings for priority terms – Tracking rankings and search impressions for a tightly defined set of keywords still gives the clearest signal of whether your content is gaining or losing organic visibility.

• Organic traffic to content clusters, not just single pages – Looking at organic sessions into topic clusters (and not only “hero” posts) is much more predictive of durable growth than chasing one-off spikes from single articles.

• Depth of on-page engagement – Time on page, scroll depth, and internal click-throughs to related content are proving more useful than raw pageviews as search and social algorithms shift what a “view” really means.

• Content-attributed conversions – Whether you’re using last-click, assisted conversions, or multi-touch models, tracking the specific forms, demos, trials, signups, or sales that content helps drive is where we see the strongest correlation with revenue.

From our experience running growth, SEO, and PR campaigns, the clearest pattern is this: when SERP rankings, organic content traffic, deep engagement, and content-attributed conversions are all trending up together, content is almost always driving meaningful business impact; when even one of those four lags, overall performance plateaus or declines.

We’re also seeing a shift away from vanity metrics. Metrics like total pageviews or social impressions still have a place, but they’re increasingly used as context around these four anchor KPIs rather than success metrics on their own. Teams that re-center reporting on this smaller, outcome-oriented KPI set make faster decisions, pivot content more confidently, and can defend their budgets much more easily.

What top content experts are saying today

Current industry leaders are largely aligned on two themes: you should track a focused set of KPIs, and those KPIs must map directly to business goals rather than vanity numbers.

Content Marketing Institute stresses that measurement is both essential and difficult, noting that many marketers still struggle to integrate data across platforms and that “just because you can measure just about anything these days, doesn’t mean that you should.” Their guidance is to understand what each metric really tells you, then narrow in on the few that best represent business impact.

Recent frameworks from WordStream and Planable echo this, urging marketers to pick KPIs based on specific campaign goals (brand awareness, lead generation, conversions, or engagement) and treat them as a “compass” for the content strategy rather than tracking every available number. In practice, they highlight metrics like:

• Brand visibility KPIs – impressions, organic traffic, pageviews by content type, backlinks, referral traffic, and subscriber/follower growth.

• Engagement KPIs – average session duration, time on page, scroll depth, social likes/comments/shares, and meaningful onsite interactions such as comments or content saves.

• Conversion & ROI KPIs – lead volume, conversion rate from content, revenue generated or influenced by content, and overall content marketing ROI. Several experts frame ROI as the “ultimate” proof that content is working because it connects content directly to business growth.

Experts also consistently argue that high-quality content should change behavior, not just generate views. Joe Pulizzi, often called the “godfather of content marketing,” has famously said that “good content marketing makes a person stop, read, think, and behave differently,” underscoring why conversions and actions matter more than surface-level reach.

Taken together, today’s leading voices are pointing in the same direction: align your KPIs with specific business objectives, emphasize organic visibility, engagement depth, and conversion/ROI metrics, and resist the temptation to chase every possible number just because your tools can report it.

Our favorite tools to measure content marketing performance

There are many tools that can help measure the impact of content. The most well-known of these is Google Analytics. This is a content tool that can track various content on your website. You can see how users interact with your content, from the number of visitors to how many pages they visit and even how long they spend on those pages.

Google Search Console is another Google product that is a powerful tool in the hands of a marketer. It provides further insights into website traffic and can help with optimizing things like SERP rankings and other technical SEO decisions.

Of course, there are more tools besides Google’s admittedly impressive content-tracking software options. For instance, third-party tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz all provide their own flavor of content insights.

In addition, many marketing content platforms provide their own in-house analytics. Email platforms like MailChimp and Constant Contact provide reporting analytics dashboards. These show things like open rates and click-throughs. Most social media sites have similar native analytics options, such as Facebook Pixel and Twitter Analytics.

Each of these tools helps you track and observe data. But if you want that data to be effective, you need to know what metrics are worth tracking. Let’s consider a few KPI examples that are particularly worth keeping an eye on if you want to gauge the effectiveness of your content.

KPIs that we use to measure content effectiveness

There are many different content marketing metrics that you can watch when it comes to content. Each one provides a different value. For instance, tracking the amount of time a person spends on a page can help you decide if your content is answering the searcher intent of those who are finding it through the SERPs.

With that said, there are a few statistics that are particularly relevant to optimizing content performance. Here are four of the best KPIs to track content marketing success.

SERP rankings for content visibility

Your ranking in the SERPs is one of the most obvious KPIs that indicate your content is doing well. Search engine results pages are the digital equivalent of physical foot traffic. If your valuable content is tucked way down on the SERPs, it isn’t likely the consumers you created it for are going to find it.

To boost your SERP rankings and build brand awareness, you want to consider the utility and purpose of your content marketing strategy. Who is it for? How does it help them? The better you can address these factors, the more likely your content will resonate with its intended audience and the more likely they’ll be able to find it in the SERPS.

It’s a good idea to keep Google’s E-E-A-T content standards in mind when considering SERP rankings. E-E-A-T stands for Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. If your content satisfies the E-E-A-T standards, it’s more likely to perform well.

Site traffic for organic synergy

Showing up in the SERPs is a good start. But, as a content marketer, you also want people to click through to your website.

This generates traffic, which builds synergy across your website. The more people click through to your site, the more likely Google is to move it higher in the search rankings. This makes it more likely to generate traffic, creating a repeating cycle of benefits.

It’s important to note that we’re talking about organic traffic here. You can pay for traffic through things like pay-per-click ads, but paid campaigns are limited in scope and can be very expensive.

Quality content that answers customer pain points should generate organic website traffic all on its own. Tracking that metric ensures it is actually doing so.

User engagement for content impact

It’s great for your content to show up in a search engine and even for consumers to click through. But to truly be effective, it should spark action, as well.

When consumers engage with your content, you know it’s performing. Members of your target audience are finding what they need, and it’s prompting them to interact with you and, ideally, proceed further down your sales funnel.

Engagement metrics can take many different forms and can occur both on and off of your website. The right marketing automation tools make it much easier to track these touchpoints across channels. Onsite engagement could be signing up for an email form or requesting a demo. Offsite engagement could be clicking through an email or commenting on a social media post.

Whatever form it takes, it’s worth tracking to see if your engaging content is resonating with its intended audience.

Conversions for true performance

The most powerful KPI of all is conversion. This is when a consumer takes a specific action that you’ve defined as important.

Conversions often overlap with user engagement. However, they are also more detailed and important to your specific marketing goals.

For instance, a customer clicking through a link in an email may be engaged. But if they request a demo or sign up for a newsletter, that may be an action that you’ve identified as particularly important.

You can create conversions that are unique to your marketing needs in Google Analytics. Tracking these is a great way to gauge if your content is not just performing but doing so in the specific areas you need it to.

How to find the right KPIs for your content

As you identify your target audience, create timelines, and otherwise map out your content strategy, remember to keep content metrics in mind. Partnering with the right content marketing agency can help ensure these metrics are being tracked correctly and consistently. Setting the right content KPIs gives your content marketing efforts a greater impact by ensuring that they are delivering the results that you’re looking for.

Even if they aren’t performing well, good KPIs help you identify shortcomings quickly so that you can pivot and make adjustments where necessary. They are a powerful and necessary tool for any content marketing campaign.

How we wrote this article

For this article, our growth marketing, SEO, and PR team pulled directly from the dashboards we live in every day — GA4, Google Search Console, CRM and marketing automation reports — to isolate the KPIs that actually get discussed in real client reviews, not just listed in strategy decks. We pressure-tested the usual suspects (traffic, rankings, engagement, conversions, ROI) against what we see move pipeline, revenue, and brand lift in ongoing campaigns.

From there, we cross-checked our short list against fresh guidance from leading industry sources on content measurement and KPIs, including recent frameworks and research from Content Marketing Institute, WordStream, Planable, Entail AI, and others. That combination of in-the-weeds client work plus outside expert perspective is what shaped the four “anchor” KPIs we highlight in this piece: SERP visibility, organic site traffic, meaningful engagement, and conversions tied back to content.

Throughout, we focused on practical benchmarks and examples you can realistically pull from common tools (GA4, GSC, email platforms, and social analytics) so that any KPI we recommend is something your team can actually measure and optimize week to week.

The post Best KPIs to measure content effectiveness [New research] appeared first on Relevance.

If you’re assembling a content marketing strategy that will work for your brand, you don’t want to skip steps or leave things half-done. Let’s go over some of the most important areas and elements of content strategy that can help you find a repeatable content creation structure and supercharge your next growth marketing campaign.

Why is content marketing important today?

It may be changing, but content marketing remains more relevant than ever before. It is one of the best ways to inform and educate audiences. It is also a great way to build brand awareness and establish authority through thought leadership. Even credibility, developed through a good SEO strategy, benefits from (and often hinges on) quality content.

If content marketers want to use this powerful marketing medium to reach a target audience, though, they have to think twice about their content marketing objectives. Past content marketing strategies are quickly becoming dated.

Things like advances with AI and Google SEO updates are shifting content marketing objectives. Many of the types of content marketing that a content marketer uses will remain the same. However, the way they’re used and how they fit into content strategy make a huge difference in whether a campaign features effective content marketing or not.

One way to maintain high-performing content is to remember the most important areas of content marketing so that you can address these every time you create an asset for your marketing efforts.

The 6 areas of content marketing

Let’s consider six of the most important content marketing objectives to focus on. These specifically pertain to content marketing and the content creation process.

If you’re fleshing out your content development plans, here are half a dozen key areas you want to have in mind as you prepare to generate a library of content marketing resources.

1. Content strategy is your foundation

You may want to dive into the creation process, but make sure you have a rock-solid content marketing strategy in place first. This functions as your plan of action.

A good content strategy aligns your resources with your goals and ensures that everything you make has a purpose. You want this in place first so that you can use it as a roadmap to keep you on track as you go along.

2. Content creation must be purposeful and holistic

Once you have your strategy in place, it’s time to make the actual content. Don’t treat this step lightly. You may have a personal vision for your content, but how does it fit into your larger strategy?

What is the purpose of each content type? If it’s written content like a blog post, what part of the funnel does it help? If it’s a social media post, does it reflect your industry authority? If it’s a podcast, is it brimming with unique educational insights? As you write, illustrate, and record valuable content, make sure each item has a clear purpose.

3. Content distribution gives you momentum

Most pieces of content will focus on a single distribution channel. A “how-to” article, for instance, will live on your company blog. However, that doesn’t mean you can only promote it in that space.

You can also distribute your content through various channels. From ads and social media to emails and newsletters, look for ways to push new blog posts in front of more faces. This gives it a better chance of seeing content marketing success right out of the gate.

4. Repurposing content optimizes its effect

You can also repurpose content across different customer-facing channels. Repurposing might feel a lot like distribution, and they are similar. But there is a key difference.

Repurposing existing content represents an extended creative cycle. In it, you repackage content in different formats (such as summarizing a blog idea or quote into a social post). The right content repurposing tools and social media scheduling tools can make this process far more efficient. This indirectly extends the lifespan and reach of each piece of content you create.

5. Analyzing content reveals weak links in the chain

Once you’ve strategized, created, distributed, and repurposed your content, it’s time to analyze its impact. You can use tools like Google Analytics and native social media or newsletter analytics dashboards to see how well your content performs. Consider things like organic search engine traffic, link clicks, time spent on page, and other conversion metrics.

The goal here is two-fold. First, you want to see what content performs well. Second, you want to identify what content falls flat on its face.

6. Optimization helps you improve

Once you’ve analyzed your content, it’s time to optimize it. (Pro tip: this can take time. Search engine optimization, for instance, can take half a year to start generating organic traffic. Be patient!)

You can optimize both lagging and engaging content. For the latter, consider ways you can integrate CTAs and otherwise improve on content that is already buzzing. For the former, look for ways to update calls-to-action, links, format, keywords, technical SEO, and other factors — dedicated content optimization tools can streamline this work to get things moving in the right direction.

Focusing on the 6 key areas of content marketing

The digital marketing world is a vast and intricate place. Content is just one part of that world, but it remains an essential one.

If you want your brand’s content to make a difference in your business goals, you may want to consider working with a content marketing agency. They can use the elements listed above to create a clear, repeatable, and successful content marketing strategy so that every piece of content is a comprehensive contributor to your larger marketing efforts.

The post The 6 areas of content marketing appeared first on Relevance.