Companies that treat SEO like a checklist tend to plateau …fast. After running SEO campaigns for over 500 brands, our team at Relevance has learned that even in an AI era, the investing in AI matters. When you treat it like a portfolio of revenue plays, instead of a “to-do” item, it keeps generating returns for years. 

We’ve seen a single content refresh double demo requests in 90 days. We’ve also watched six-figure SEO investments stall. Not because the work was bad. It was just disconnected. There was no purpose, focus, or intent behind all the keywords, backlinks, and metadata. 

After working with so many brands, one of the most common problems I see is that a good team fails to achieve success with their SEO strategies because their marketing is siloed. A siloed strategy means no single piece gets to truly meet its potential. They can have great keywords, great backlinks, and a strong technical foundation, but if there is no strategy, that means we are missing the connective tissue of marketing that helps take solid ideas from the whiteboard to actual ROI in the boardroom.

The ultimate takeaway we’ve found over the years? Never let your SEO strategy exist in a vacuum. Blind execution leads to wasted resources and low ROI. If you want SEO marketing to work, you need to tie every SEO decision back to your larger business goals and KPIs.

I want to break down what modern SEO marketing looks like, why it still matters in an AI age, and how to build your own SEO marketing strategy. Generic advice isn’t enough in this area anymore, either. I’ll back up all of these concepts with over a dozen rock-solid examples of how major brands have used these SEO strategies to succeed (often with the help of our team at Relevance). 

Ready? Let’s dive in.

What is SEO marketing? 

SEO marketing is the practice of enhancing a website’s content, structure, and authority so search engines — and AI tools — connect the right audience to the right page at the right moment. It combines keyword research, link building, and technical optimization to attract, convert, and retain customers, turning organic search into a compounding revenue channel. 

The 4 types of SEO marketing

Optimizing your site’s content for search engines takes a multi-pronged approach that we tend to break into four different categories.

On-page SEO involves creating high-quality content centered on one keyword theme. You can optimize your content by including the keyword in your page’s title, URL, meta description, and headers.

To master off-page SEO, you must build your backlink strategy. Once you’ve created linkable content, identify external sites where your audience gathers. Then, ask for a backlink (be sure to clarify what’s in it for them and their audience).

Technical SEO might sound complicated, but it’s really as simple as providing a good user experience. You can do this by following web design best practices when it comes to things like your site structure, mobile-first design, load speed, and security.

If your business serves customers in a particular geographic area, local SEO is critical. Incorporating local keywords into your content and having an active social media presence can help your brand show up to in-market searchers nearby.

Why SEO marketing matters 

The average internet user now spends 6 hours and 38 minutes online each day. The younger a person is, the more likely it is that the number goes up. That means your target audience (and the people behind them, growing into the next generation of customers) are online a lot. 

What does this have to do with SEO marketing? As a digital marketer, one of your primary marketing goals is to get a segment of the billions of people online to spend a little piece of that time paying attention to you.

SEO helps you improve the visibility and ranking of your website, whether it’s in search results and traffic from a traditional search engine or social platform, or it comes from an AI-generated source list. When this happens organically, it means you didn’t pay for it with ads.

Paid vs. organic traffic

Both traffic sources have their place, but organic traffic is often considered more valuable for a few reasons. First, BrightEdge research has found that 68% of online experiences start with a search engine, which means ranking organically can put your brand in front of people at the moment they are already looking for answers, products, or services. 

You don’t have to pay for organic traffic directly. You earn it through branding and content strategy efforts. Those efforts do require investing resources, but that investment pays dividends over time.

Organic traffic also tends to have a higher conversion rate, because those visitors are actively seeking out your content, products or services. For these reasons, SEO marketing is seen as a long-term investment in your brand that increases in value as you keep putting in the work.

The AI angle with SEO

It’s important to point out that AI isn’t replacing SEO. If anything, as AI tools improve and come alongside traditional search in more meaningful ways, it is making SEO more important — good SEO, that is. 

The biggest mistake I am seeing right now is companies trying to choose between SEO or AI, and seeing them as competing strategies. Across our clients, the brands I am seeing perform well in AI search are the ones that regularly and consistently invest in SEO efforts as well. It shouldn’t be a “one or the other” situation, but both strategies should be implemented and executed in tandem to truly see success and growth.

Simple SEO tactics and shortcut techniques are no longer good enough. A clean, comprehensive SEO strategy ensures that your content not only ranks high in the SERPs. It is also easy for AI tools to cite it when they use it to craft an answer. 

This is important in a world where the presence of an AI Overview summary drops clickthrough rate (CTR) from 15% to 8%, and 60% of Google searches end without a click. SEO lets you make sure people know it’s you talking, even if they never actually reach your site — and that has value in the form of brand awareness and trust-building, at the least.

SEO marketing for beginners

If you’re looking for an SEO for beginners approach, the SEO world might feel huge (and it is). The good news is that you don’t need to go far to take your first steps toward optimization. To reach SEO success, you need to take four steps:

1. Perform Keyword Research

There are SEO tools dedicated to keyword research. But as a beginner, don’t over-complicate this step. When optimizing your website content to keywords, go with what you know best – your business and your customers. Ask yourself:

• What do we sell?
• Who do we help?
• What would someone search for if they were looking for what we sell?

If you sell clothing for dogs, some keywords that might come to mind are:

• Dog clothing
• Dog sweaters
• Clothes for big dogs
• Winter coats for dogs

For more inspiration, use Google or an AI tool to search for other related keywords and see what’s suggested. If anything jumps out to you, add it to your list. It’s important to pick a relevant keyword based on the search intent. And don’t worry about including every keyword under the sun – four or five keywords might encompass your offering.

2. Work the keywords into your web content

Match each keyword to a web page on your site. If a keyword is on your list but doesn’t fit any of your content, that’s a sign that you might need a new page for that topic.

Once you’ve paired each relevant keyword with a page, make sure it appears in these key areas:

• Title tag
• Slug (URL)
• Meta description
• Headers
• Body

Incorporating your keyword shouldn’t be difficult or sound unnatural. If you have a hard time working it in, it might not be the best keyword for that page.

3. Create a content plan

Because search engine algorithms prioritize fresh content, you should consider starting a blog if you don’t have one already. Posting a high-quality blog post consistently is one of the most effective ways to build your credibility and start ranking higher for the keywords that are important to your business. 

Thanks to the keyword brainstorming you’ve already done, you should have some good ideas for topics. Keep your team on track by putting together a simple content calendar with each article’s topic, author, and target publish date.

Your SEO content plan should also include regular reviews of your static web pages. Depending on how dynamic your organization is, auditing your website content two to four times per year is usually enough.

4. Link building

One of the main signals search engines use to determine your authority is the number of backlinks. That is, how many times are other sites linking to your content? Link building is a great SEO tool to support your SEO efforts. If your content has a lot of backlinks, people likely find it helpful and reliable.

Once you’re consistently publishing high-quality content, you’ll collect some backlinks without trying. Look at you go! But to really take your SEO strategy to the next level, you’ll need a link-building plan. Earning a backlink can be a simple off-page SEO technique. Start with these steps:

• Identify your best SEO content. This could be an article, page, guide, or case study.
• Decide who to reach out to. Whose audience would be interested? If your content is a guide to dressing your dog for winter, you might identify dog associations (American Kennel Club), lifestyle publications, and veterinarians’ websites.
• Craft your pitch. Do your best to find the person responsible for your target’s content and reach out to them. Send a message detailing how your piece can help their audience. Make their life easier by suggesting where to insert the link and the anchor text (the words linked to your site).

How to build your SEO marketing strategy

As you get better at SEO, you’ll find SEO strategy can come in many shapes and sizes. We’ve narrowed them down to three key strategic approaches — here they are, with the examples that follow showing how each one looks when you use it in real life.

1. On-site technical optimization

Technical SEO is the foundation on which the rest of your SEO strategy is built. We’re talking about things like website speed, navigation, and accessibility. They aren’t sexy, but they hold up the rest of the metaphorical house. These optimizations might not be apparent in your content, but your readers will definitely notice them.

2. A keyword-driven content strategy

On-page SEO encompasses everything from your topic to keywords to embedded media. If technical SEO is the house’s foundation, on-page is everything inside it – from the furniture to the trendy wallpaper. And solid on-page SEO starts with a thoughtful, keyword-driven content strategy with an E-E-A-T focus.

3. Acquiring backlinks

Backlinks are part of an off-page SEO strategy that focuses on links from external domains that point to your content. Search engine algorithms view backlinks as an indicator that other users find your content helpful. Consider them the “A-list guests” whose testimonials prove your metaphorical house is worth visiting.

Now, let’s see what these look like when you encounter them in real-life SEO examples that have not just followed the concepts but proven them.

14 SEO marketing examples (by funnel stage)

Below are 15 SEO examples, organized in three groups: acquisition plays, authority plays, and retention plays. They follow the funnel from discovery through the customer journey. Each one includes a real brand executing an SEO tactic, why it works, and the metric we’d hold it accountable to.

Acquisition plays (capturing new demand)

1. Building topic clusters around revenue keywords, not vanity terms

The Example: When HubSpot wanted to invest in SEO, we created a “marketing hub” cluster. This started with a pillar page on marketing automation. We supported it with over 40 supporting articles on lead scoring, email workflows, CRM integration, and attribution. Every page funneled back to the pillar and to a product CTA. Their cluster ranked for over 8,000 keywords tied directly to their ideal customer profile (ICP). 

The Lesson: Early on, we made the same mistake most SEO teams make: chasing volume. Big keyword numbers, impressive traffic charts, happy clients, until someone asked, “How many of those visitors became customers?”

I remember one client who came to us with a keyword they wanted to focus on. I had a call with them 12 months later when they said they wanted to leave because they weren’t seeing any leads from that keyword. That discussion led to a change in how I viewed SEO strategy. It was at that time that I realized we needed to take more of a lead on strategy. Since then, we’ve stopped focusing on the flashy keywords but on the ones that will actually lead to strong business outcomes. 

Every SEO engagement at Relevance now starts with revenue data, not keyword tools (though the right keyword research tools are still essential). We pull from things like CRM notes and sales-call transcripts. The phrases prospects use when they’re comparing vendors or justifying budget rarely have the highest search volume, but they convert at as much as five times the rate. From there, we build clusters around up to three “money terms” supported by comparison pages, use-case content, implementation guides, and objection-busters.

Metric: A pipeline influenced by cluster URLs, not sessions.

2. Ship a free, product-led SEO tool

Example: Ahrefs’ free Backlink Checker earns roughly 6,000 referring domains on its own and feeds the paid product. We modeled our own free GEO audit tool on the same idea: in competitive SERPs, utility outranks opinion every time.

Lesson: Free tools earn backlinks passively, generate branded searches, and capture leads exactly when someone is evaluating whether they need help. An ROI calculator, audit grader, pricing estimator, or template generator tied to a real pain point will outperform most blog content on a per-page basis. Start narrow. Solve one specific problem well. Iterate on it like a product, not a one-off marketing asset.

Metric: Referring domains earned per quarter and tool-to-trial conversion rate.

3. Programmatic SEO for templated, high-intent pages

Example: Zapier’s “[App A] integrations with [App B]” page generates tens of thousands of templated pages from a single schema. Each one targets a real long-tail query. The pattern works because each page solves a specific integration problem. It’s not thin content dressed up.

Lesson: If your product solves variations of the same problem across industries or use cases, programmatic SEO can be a cheat code. Define a strong page template, then generate pages targeting “[solution] for [industry]” or “[use case] software” queries.

The success variable is quality control, not volume. You need tight templates, real value on each page, guardrails against duplicate content, and a workflow for pruning what doesn’t perform. On one B2B SaaS rollout, we launched 600 programmatic pages and only kept the top 120 that drove assisted pipeline within six months.

Metric: Indexed-and-clicked ratio (pages that earn at least 1 click/month).

4. Turn customer questions into search-optimized “answer hubs”

Example: GoDaddy’s help-center articles routinely outrank third-party blogs for “how to” queries about domains, email, and hosting. They mined support tickets to build the content map.

Your customers have already written your SEO roadmap in your support tickets, chat logs, and sales objections. High-intent questions like “How do I migrate from [competitor]” or “What does implementation look like for [use case]” often have strong search demand and weak content in the SERPs.

Lesson: Pull a few months of support and sales conversations, cluster similar questions, and turn each cluster into a search-optimized answer hub. Include text, short video clips, screenshots, and templates your team already uses. 

Metric: Support deflection rate on hub pages combined with organic demo requests from hub URLs.

5. Refresh decaying content instead of only chasing new topics

Example: We’re in the middle of refreshing our own blog as this is written. Over 1,600 articles, most older than a year. We’re not doing it because it’s fun. We’re doing it because we’ve watched what decay does to a content library, both ours and our clients’.

Lesson: Run a quarterly refresh sprint. Update examples, add fresh data, improve internal links, tighten CTAs, and realign with current search intent. Dedicated content optimization tools make this faster. Don’t be afraid to consolidate thin or overlapping posts into a single stronger asset.

For one B2B client, we refreshed 18 mid-funnel articles and saw a 27% increase in organic demo form fills over 90 days. No new content. We were just being smarter with what already existed.

Metric: Percentage of refreshed URLs that improve position by at least 5 spots within 60 days.

6. Coordinate paid and organic to dominate the entire SERP

Example: NerdWallet’s piece on “best credit cards” runs paid sitelinks at the top of the SERP and holds the #1 spot for organic. The whole above-the-fold belongs to them.

Lesson: SEO and paid search often sit in separate silos, which wastes a lot of potential. Treat the SERP itself as your focus for both. Start with a short list of “make or break” queries. For those terms, align ad copy, sitelinks, and organic title tags so the whole SERP tells one coherent story. 

Use paid to test messaging. Then roll winning angles into your SEO titles and meta descriptions. Use organic search-term reports to find cheaper long-tail queries worth bidding on.

Teams that run search this way usually find better blended customer acquisition costs (CAC) across channels, even if individual return on ad spend (ROAS) metrics fluctuate.

Metric: Blended CAC on priority keyword cluster, not channel-isolated ROAS.

Authority plays (earning the right to rank)

7. Treat local SEO like a performance channel, not directory cleanup

Example: Domino’s Pizza store-locator pages. Every location has a unique, conversion-optimized landing page with hours, photos, reviews, and an order CTA. They treat it like an ad account, not a directory listing.

Lesson: If you have any physical presence or service area, local SEO is a performance channel. Many multi-location brands find that a handful of high-performing local profiles can drive a disproportionate share of high-intent customer actions, including calls, direction requests, and website clicks. SOCi research found that a one-star improvement in average Google rating was associated with a 44% increase in Google profile conversions, while every 10 new reviews improved profile conversion rate by 2.8%. Define your core Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) keywords, build location-specific landing pages that actually convert, and update profiles weekly, not annually. 

A practical stack includes consistent NAP (name, address, phone) data, location pages with real photos and social proof, localized offers in the copy, and reviews managed as a KPI with an owner and a playbook for asking customers. We break the four categories down in our guide to the 4 types of SEO, and our local SEO complete guide walks through implementation.

Metric: Calls and direction requests per profile, per month.

8. Use digital PR and data content to earn real authority links

Example: When Relevance worked with a telehealth brand, we paired anonymized client data with relevant news angles and earned over 700 media placements that contributed to a 6X lift in organic customer acquisition. That’s not link building in the traditional sense. It’s authority Google rewards.

Lesson: At some point, on-page optimization hits a ceiling. You need authority. This is where our PR and SEO teams at Relevance work together in a way most agencies can’t: both disciplines live under one roof. Digital PR turns your brand into a source journalists cite, not just another blog competing for the same keywords.

We pair original data, surveys, or anonymized client insights with compelling angles. Then we pitch to relevant publications. The goal isn’t vanity placements. It’s relevant, high-authority links to commercial pages. 

Metric: Referring root domains earned per quarter to commercial URLs.

9. Run technical SEO as an experiment backlog, not a one-time audit

Example: Most clients we inherit from other agencies arrive with the same artifact: a 60-page technical audit PDF that no one implemented. We rebuild it as a ranked, scored backlog tied to revenue impact.

Lesson: Treat technical SEO as a running experiment backlog tied to crawl efficiency, indexation, and page performance. Prioritize everything by revenue impact, not by how scary the issue looks in a crawl report. That might mean fixing Core Web Vitals on top revenue pages before cleaning up every 404. Agree on success metrics in advance, such as organic revenue for affected templates and time to first byte on key URLs. 

When growth, product, and engineering align on a ranked backlog, technical SEO shifts from a scary black box into a series of manageable sprints.

Metric: Revenue-weighted issues resolved per sprint.

10. International SEO as a deliberate expansion lever

Example: Canva’s localized landing pages. They don’t just translate; they re-shoot photos, swap testimonials, adjust pricing, and rewrite headlines for each region. Their international organic share is one of the highest in SaaS.

Lesson: If you’re already seeing traffic and trial signups from other countries, international SEO might be your cheapest expansion path. The mistake is adding hreflang tags and calling it a day. Pick one or two markets, commit to localized content, and align everything from pricing pages to testimonials with that region.

Start with existing “pull” as your guide. Which countries already show strong usage or revenue per user? For those markets, build localized versions of your highest-converting pages, not just your home page. Work with native speakers so the copy reads native, not translated.

Metric: Organic-sourced trials per priority market, per month.

11. Optimize for AI Overviews and generative search (GEO)

Example: Investopedia and Healthline now show up inside AI Overviews far more often than competitors because their content structure (clear summary up top, scannable subheads, defined terms, citable stats) maps cleanly onto how generative engines extract answers.

Lesson: Generative engines like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity pull from sources that demonstrate clarity, citation-worthiness, and topical depth. According to Relevance’s AI visibility statistics, AI Overviews appeared on roughly 15% of US queries by late 2025, and click-through to traditional results dropped almost in half when an AI summary appeared.

What that means in practice: lead each article with a tight, factual summary. Structure the body with descriptive headings and short paragraphs. Cite original data. Write product and service pages so an LLM can confidently identify what you do and who you serve. The best AI SEO tools we’ve tested help operationalize this without inventing fake “GEO hacks.”

Metric: Share of voice in AI Overviews and traffic from AI assistants in your analytics.

Retention plays (Compounding gains)

12. On-page SEO that actually gets a response

Example: Beehiiv’s onboarding articles (“How to monetize your newsletter”) rank for high-intent queries because the on-page work is meticulous. They include a descriptive H1 that matches the searcher’s exact phrase, internal links to the product, schema for how-to steps, and one clear primary keyword per page.

Lesson: On-page basics still work well. They create synergy when they work together, too. Write a title that matches the searcher’s actual phrase. Use one primary keyword and two to three supporting variants per URL. Add internal links with descriptive anchor text. Use H2s to answer the questions a reader would Google next. 

Metric: Average position improvement on optimized URLs in 30 days.

13. Use SEO to power lifecycle and retention content

Example: Beehiiv (again) wins on retention because their “how to grow your newsletter” and “how to monetize” guides double as activation playbooks for new users. The SEO content and the in-product onboarding reinforce each other.

Lesson: SEO is usually framed as a top-of-funnel acquisition channel, but it’s also incredibly effective for activation and retention. Help docs, onboarding guides, and “how to get value from [product]” content all have search demand, often from customers who are struggling quietly. Meeting them in the SERP can reduce churn and unlock expansion. A small CTR uplift on these pages — from a sharper title tag, nothing more — adds up fast at scale. We have a full playbook on writing meta description tags that actually generate leads and a primer on broader SEO best practices if you want the foundation work.

Map your lifecycle emails (a solid email marketing platform and marketing automation tools are helpful here) and in-product education to search behavior. For every major activation milestone, ask “what would someone search for when they get stuck here?” Then build content for that query. In one PLG motion, weaving SEO-friendly activation guides into onboarding reduced time-to-first-value by 18% for organic cohorts.

Metric: Activation rate on cohorts that touched a retention SEO URL.

14. Document everything as a case study (and publish it)

Example: Relevance’s own case studies in content marketing and SEO. They’re not just sales collateral. They earn backlinks from journalists looking for original SEO data, and they rank for “[industry] SEO case study” queries.

“SEO case study” pulls roughly 1,900 monthly searches in the US with a relatively low keyword difficulty (KD) of 14. Most companies do the work, but never write it up. If you’re running real campaigns, documenting them publicly (with permission) earns links, builds authority, and ranks for searches your prospects are doing during vendor evaluation.

Metric: Referring domains and branded search lift after you publish each case study.

What ROI can SEO marketing deliver?

If you’re wondering how SEO can grow your revenue, let’s look at a hypothetical example. Say your website gets 1,500 visitors per month from a mix of organic and paid sources. Your conversion rate is 5%, and your average sale is $85.

1,500 x 3% = 45 sales x $85 = $3,825 per month

By implementing some simple SEO strategies, let’s say you spend $1000 on a blended SEO strategy. The result is that you increase your number of visitors to 2,800 per month. Your revenue is now:

2,800 x 3% = 84 sales x $85 = $7,140 per month

That’s a $3,315 boost. While the results aren’t always predictable, well-done SEO does boost organic search. And organic search conversion benchmarks are at 4.9% (nearly as high as paid, but without the ongoing cost). When done right, your SEO content will pay for itself — and then some — over time.

How long does each SEO tactic take to rank?

If you’re wondering how long SEO takes to kick in, here are some estimates from our team for different SEO approaches:

SEO tactic comparison chart

Build your SEO strategy as a portfolio, not a checklist

SEO isn’t a marketing “to-do” item. Nor is it a checklist. Make it an integral part of your marketing strategy. Invest in it as a way to establish a stronger brand presence and generate long-term visibility for your brand over time.

When I started at this agency 7 years ago, we were able to help secure clients backlinks and could see great movement in their keyword rankings and in turn, their organic traffic. Over time, that’s shifted as SEO has become more sophisticated and AI visibility has joined the scene. Because of that, we’ve moved into a more exciting stage of marketing. We can’t depend on isolated tactics like we used to, but instead have to build stronger brands, understand our audiences better, and honestly be stronger and more strategic marketers to see the wins we want to see. If you ask me, its a more exciting and challenging time in marketing.

Visibility engineering may be taking the place of traffic generation in the AI era, but SEO remains a driving focus behind both. Make sure it’s at the heart of your digital marketing plan in 2026 and beyond.

SEO Marketing FAQs

What is SEO in marketing?

SEO marketing uses search engine optimization to attract, engage, and convert visitors from organic search as part of a broader digital marketing strategy. 

What are the 4 types of SEO?

The four types of SEO are on-page, off-page, technical, and local. Each covers different areas, from content and backlinks to site performance and maps listings.

What are the 3 main SEO strategies?

Three core SEO strategies are technical optimization, keyword‑driven content, and authority building via backlinks and digital PR. Together, they form a repeatable SEO strategy example you can adapt into full seo campaign examples.

How do I start SEO as a beginner?

Start with simple keyword research, fix basic technical issues, and publish a few focused articles. If you’re asking how to do SEO or where to start, Use this guide to find an example of SEO before inventing your own.

Is SEO marketing worth it, and what’s the ROI?

Yes, SEO marketing is usually worth it when tied to revenue. A solid SEO marketing strategy compounds over time into steady traffic, leads, and sales as you learn how to build your strategy.

How long does SEO take to work?

Each SEO tactic takes a different amount of time to have an effect. A topical cluster might start showing results in three months, whereas on-page optimization can show results in 30 days. The key is to give all SEO time. Don’t rush the results. Do your research, set KPIs and benchmarks, and then measure results over time.

SEO vs. PPC — which is better?

This is a common question. In reality, SEO is a long-term strategy, while pay-per-click (PPC) is a tactic that gives an immediate advantage through paid traffic to a site. Both are valuable and they can create better results when used together as complementary parts of the same strategy. Read more here.

The post SEO Marketing Examples: 14 Real Strategies That Drive Revenue (2026) appeared first on Relevance.

• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO
• Technical SEO
• Local SEO

The most effective SEO marketing strategies use these to create synergy and dominate a market increasingly overshadowed by AI search tools. Let’s take a look at how each SEO technique helps you get more qualified traffic to your website and build your brand.

What is SEO, and how is it different from SEM?

SEO refers to the process of optimizing your content to rank higher. It’s an organic tactic – meaning the only investment is the time it takes and the resources invested during that time. 

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the opposite side of the same coin. It refers to paying for an ad placement at the top of the SERP.

Both SEO and SEM can help you achieve your content marketing goals by complementing each other. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you’re an online retailer specializing in running shoes. Your organic SEO goals will typically fall near the top of your marketing funnel. You might use SEO to gain organic traffic searching for informational keywords like “how to choose a running shoe.” This will help you establish your brand as an authority. If your audience finds your content helpful, they’ll think of you when they’re ready to buy.

To win traffic searching for transactional keywords like “buy XYZ brand running shoes,” you’d likely be more aggressive. Those users are more likely to bring immediate value to your company by making a purchase. In this case, SEM is your best bet.

It’s worth noting that the line between when to use SEO and when to use SEM blurs easily. Many brands use SEM to pay for top-funnel traffic if they know those users will be profitable down the line. For example, a user searching “best running shoes under $500” is still in the research phase. But they’ve indicated they’re willing to spend a lot on shoes. Even though they’re not ready to buy, it might be worth it to pay for their eyeballs on your content.

Here’s another example. Maybe your blog has a high-converting pop-up that invites readers to get email notifications when their favorite shoe brands go on sale. Since a user on any piece of content could convert, it might make sense to pay for search traffic, even on informational keywords.

Regardless, the best uses of SEM and SEO tend to be woven together. While we’ll focus on the variations of SEO you can use in this resource, remember that as you build an SEO strategy for your brand, you want to remember SEM as a way to amplify it even further once it goes live.

The 4 types of SEO

Let’s break down the four different kinds of SEO tactics in detail. Here they are again in the order they’re presented below:

1. On-page SEO
2. Off-page SEO
3. Technical SEO
4. Local SEO

Let’s dive in…

1. On-page SEO

On-page SEO is where the Relevance team starts with every new client engagement. It includes the tactic most people think of first when they hear “SEO”: high-quality content. This is the content that helps position your brand as an industry leader. 

Search engine algorithms are more sophisticated than ever, and Google gets better at recognizing truly valuable content with every update. The same qualities that help content rank in search also increase its chances of being surfaced in AI-generated answers.

As you invest in a strategy, it’s important to differentiate between black hat and white hat SEO. Black hat SEO techniques game the system, and search tools can see them from a mile away. If you want to show up in a search result, practicing white hat SEO techniques is key.

How do you know if you have high-quality content that uses white hat SEO techniques? You’re on the right track with your content if it:

• Centers on one keyword phrase or theme
• Educates or entertains your reader (or both)
• Has credibility indicators like original research and citations
• Includes new insights rather than regurgitated info

High-quality content is structured for both people and search engines. Scannable headings, concise writing, logical organization, and credible outbound citations make your content easier to understand, navigate, and trust.

Including keywords in your content

When you sit down to create SEO content, your focus keyword and closely-related keywords should appear in all the following areas:

• Title tag
• Slug (URL)
• Meta description
• Headers
• Body

Including your keyword shouldn’t be difficult or unnatural. If you’ve created a focused, high-quality piece, it should happen almost organically. 

How do you decide which keywords to focus your content around? Ask yourself: What would a user’s search intent be if they were looking for this content? What types of keywords would they use to inform their search: informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional?

Here are a few tips for researching keywords:

• Use keyword research tools – there are free and paid tools, including Google Trends (for inspiration) and Google Keyword Planner (for research and search volume).
• Check out the keywords your competitors are using, like Mangools’ tool.
• Consider using long-tail keywords (phrases that are longer and more specific) to catch niche searches with lower competition.

The 3 most important on-page ranking factors

Here are the three most important ranking factors for writing on-site content.

• Written to search intent: If your user is looking for information with their search, your content shouldn’t focus on a transaction.
• Helpful: Your content is easy to read, educational, and credible. It includes fresh insights and perspectives.
• Focused on a keyword: Here’s where your keyword research comes in. Crafting your content with a focus keyword in mind is much easier than retroactively optimizing it. Include your keyword in the title, URL, headers, meta description, and image tags.

2. Off-page SEO

This is where our digital PR team shines. Great content alone isn’t enough. Search engines and AI platforms look for third-party validation, and backlinks from reputable websites are one of the strongest signals of authority and credibility.

Search engines look for signs that other users have found your content helpful. These are called backlinks (links from external sites). That’s why creating linkable content is the foundation of off-page SEO.

So what’s the difference between high-quality content and linkable content? High-quality content answers a searcher’s question. Linkable content goes one step further by giving other websites a reason to reference it.

Linkable SEO content has been specifically crafted to attract attention and earn backlinks. It often includes:

• A focus on data
• Quotes from industry leaders
• Podcasts, videos, and other engaging media

Building your backlink strategy 

Creating high-quality, linkable content is the first step. We’ve secured hundreds of media placements for clients using this approach, but even the best content benefits from strategic promotion. While your content will likely earn some backlinks on its own, actively pursuing additional backlinks will help you get the most out of it.

Link building isn’t just about publishing great SEO content. To get more backlinks, identify trustworthy, popular sites within your space. 

Track down who’s responsible for their digital content, and craft an email. Ask them to consider linking to your content. Include a summary, how it benefits their readers, and where the link could go. Be specific, including the anchor text (the text that links to your content) you’d prefer them to use. That makes the ask as easy as possible for them.

3. Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the type most teams neglect — and it is often the reason great content underperforms. To make the most of your content, it’s important to make sure your website meets modern technical standards. We run technical audits for every new client, and the issues we uncover—including slow load times, broken crawl paths, and missing schema—almost always explain ranking underperformance.

I can’t count how many times we’ve run a technical audit and surfaced something major the client had no idea was there — a canonical tag quietly deindexing half their content, a load time killing their rankings. I had a client tell me just last week that our audit caught a handful of things their dev team had not noticed. They were too deep in their own work to see it. Sometimes that’s the whole value of an outside set of eyes: we’re looking at your site the way Google does, not the way you remember building it.

Technical SEO – Image Credit: RelevanceThese are quiet SEO killers, and they point to the need to optimize elements like:

• Site structure
• URL structure
• Loading speed
• Security
• Mobile performance

These components are important to search engine algorithms because they impact accessibility and user experience. Your content might be brimming with unique insights but if it takes 90 seconds to load, most users won’t stick around to find out.

You can run a simple SEO analysis aimed at making sure you’re following web design best practices. Your topics and audience should be clear. Simplify your site structure as much as possible to focus on the essentials. To get a sense of technical performance, run your site through Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool, too.

4. Local SEO

Local SEO is the fourth type. It doesn’t apply to every business, but if you serve customers in a specific geographic area, it deserves as much attention as the first three types combined. 

Local SEO – Image Credit: Relevance

The most important factors Google weighs directly here are proximity, relevance, and prominence. 

• Proximity — how close the searcher is to your business location. You can’t manipulate this, but you can make sure Google knows exactly where you are through consistent, verified location data.
• Relevance — how well your business matches what the searcher is looking for. This is where local keywords in your content and your Google Business Profile categories do the work.
• Prominence — how well-known and well-reviewed your business is, both online and off. Review volume, review quality, and citations from other reputable sites all feed this.

In practice, that means:

• Creating high-quality content that includes local keywords — not just “plumber” but “emergency plumber in [city].”
• Fully building out your Google Business Profile: accurate categories, complete service lists, regular posts, and prompt responses to reviews. An incomplete profile is one of the most common local SEO gaps we find in audits.
• Keeping active, location-tagged social accounts, since engagement signals feed prominence.
• Optimizing your website for mobile, since most local searches (“near me,” “open now”) happen on a phone.
• Auditing every mention of your business — website, directories, social profiles — for NAP (name, address, phone number) consistency. Even small mismatches (a missing suite number, an old phone number on Yelp) can quietly undercut how much Google trusts your listing.

Optimizing for local SEO can also lower your content marketing expenses since it allows you to focus on a defined geographic audience instead of competing nationally.

How we build technical, content, and link authority

Here are three steps we use to bring all of these types together into an active, focused strategy.

1. Start with technical SEO: the foundation everything else sits on

We always start here. It doesn’t matter how good your content is if Google can’t properly crawl and index it. We’ve seen sites with genuinely excellent articles sitting in Google’s “crawled — currently not indexed” bucket simply because of technical debt nobody was monitoring.

Here’s what a technical SEO audit looks like in practice at our agency:

Crawlability and indexation

The first thing we check is whether Google can actually find and process your pages. That means reviewing your XML sitemap, robots.txt directives, canonical tags, and internal linking structure. 

On a recent engagement with a B2B SaaS client, we discovered that a misconfigured canonical tag was pointing over 40 blog posts to the homepage — effectively telling Google to ignore all of that content. Fixing the tag alone was enough to recover indexation for pages that had been invisible for months.

When I found that misconfigured canonical on the SaaS client’s site, over 40 of their best blog posts were pointing back to the homepage — Google had been told to ignore every one of them. The team had spent months wondering why great content wasn’t ranking, and it came down to a single tag. That’s why I never assume a content problem until I’ve ruled out a technical one. Too many times the pages aren’t underperforming. They’re invisible, and nobody’s been watching the backend.

Site speed and Core Web Vitals

Google’s Core Web Vitals Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift) are confirmed ranking factors. We use a combination of Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and Ahrefs site audit tools to benchmark performance.

These point to some of the most common speed killers we see across client sites: unoptimized images, render-blocking JavaScript, excessive third-party scripts (especially chat widgets and analytics tags stacked on top of each other), and bloated CSS. Fixing these typically requires collaboration with a dev team, which is why we build technical SEO into project timelines rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Mobile experience and accessibility

Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning it primarily evaluates the mobile version of your site for ranking decisions. We test every client site across device sizes and flag issues like tap targets that are too small, horizontal scrolling, and text that requires zooming. These aren’t just SEO issues. They directly impact conversion rates.

Structured data

Schema markup helps search engines understand what your content is about and can unlock rich results (FAQ dropdowns, review stars, how-to steps) that dramatically improve click-through rates. We implement structured data as a standard part of every technical audit. For one client in the healthcare space, adding FAQ schema to their top 20 pages increased organic CTR by 18% within six weeks.

2. Next up, focus on on-page SEO: where content quality meets search intent

On-page SEO is about creating content that earns its ranking. This is where most teams focus their energy, and for good reason. Content is what users actually interact with. But there’s a massive difference between “content that exists” and “content that ranks.” Here’s how to execute your strategy to achieve the latter.

Keyword research that goes beyond volume

We don’t chase high-volume keywords for the sake of it. Our keyword research process starts with understanding the client’s actual business goals and customer journey. From there, we work backward to identify the search queries that map to each stage.

For example, a marketing automation platform doesn’t just need to rank for “marketing automation” (impossibly competitive for most companies). They need content targeting queries like “how to set up lead scoring workflows” or “email drip campaign best practices.” These are terms with clear intent that attract people who are actually in-market.

We use tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console to identify keyword opportunities, but the real skill is in understanding search intent. Is the searcher looking for a definition, a comparison, a tutorial, or a product? Matching your content format to intent is the single biggest lever in on-page SEO.

Content that demonstrates E-E-A-T

Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) isn’t just a set of guidelines — it’s the lens through which Google’s quality raters evaluate content. After working through multiple Google algorithm updates, including the Helpful Content updates that devastated sites relying on generic, AI-generated content, we’ve seen firsthand how critical genuine expertise is.

What does E-E-A-T look like in practice? At Relevance, it means:

• Experience: Writing from actual practitioner experience means we don’t publish theoretical SEO advice. We write about techniques we’ve tested across real client engagements. When we say a tactic works, it’s because we’ve measured the results.
• Expertise: That means having qualified authors with real credentials. Every article we publish has a named author with relevant professional experience, not a generic brand byline.
• Authoritativeness: Building topical depth requires comprehensive content hubs — like our content marketing strategy guide — that demonstrate deep knowledge across the subject.
• Trustworthiness: This focuses on citing sources, being transparent about limitations, and keeping content updated. Outdated statistics and broken links erode trust with both users and search engines. We’ve circled back around and updated this very resource more than once so you know you’re getting the best, up-to-date advice possible!

On-page optimization fundamentals

Beyond content quality, the mechanical aspects of on-page SEO still matter. For every piece of content we publish, we optimize:

• Title tags and meta descriptions that are written to include the target keyword naturally while compelling clicks from the SERPs. We A/B test title formats across client sites and consistently find that titles with specific numbers or clear value propositions outperform generic alternatives.
• Header structure strategy also uses H2s and H3s to create a logical hierarchy that both users and search engines can follow. This also improves your chances of appearing in featured snippets.
• Internal linking connects related content to distribute page authority and help users navigate deeper into your site. We typically aim for 10-15 contextual internal links per long-form article, pointing both to pillar pages and to related supporting content.
• Image optimization involves descriptive alt text, compressed file sizes, and modern formats like WebP. This is one of the most commonly overlooked on-page factors we encounter in audits.

3. Build authority through strategic link acquisition and digital PR

Even as search and AI evolve, backlinks remain one of Google’s strongest ranking signals for SEO. Every quality backlink from a relevant, authoritative site tells Google that your content is worth referencing. But the approach matters enormously — we’ve cleaned up more bad backlink profiles than we can count.

Our off-page strategy is built on digital PR and genuine value creation, not transactional link exchanges. Here’s what that looks like.

Our link building playbook

Create linkable assets first: Before any outreach, we make sure the client has content worth linking to. Original research, proprietary data, comprehensive guides, and interactive tools naturally attract links because they provide unique value. The best backlink strategy starts with the best content strategy.

Data-driven digital PR: We help clients extract newsworthy stories from their data and pitch them to journalists and industry publications. Done well, a single data story can generate dozens of high-authority backlinks from one campaign. We had one client in the growth marketing space publish an original research piece that earned dozens of referring domains within months. That was more than the previous year’s entire link-building effort combined.

Relationship-based outreach: Mass email outreach with generic templates doesn’t work anymore (and arguably never did). We build genuine relationships with editors and writers in our clients’ industries. When we pitch a link opportunity, it’s because we’ve identified a specific piece of their content where a link to our client adds real value for their readers.

Competitive backlink analysis: Using tools like Ahrefs, we analyze where competitors are earning their backlinks and identify gaps. If a competitor has links from 10 industry publications and our client has links from three, those other seven publications become priority outreach targets. This ensures the link-building effort is focused on the domains that matter most for competitive rankings.

Avoiding tactics that backfire: We won’t participate in link schemes, PBNs (private blog networks), or paid link placements that violate Google’s guidelines. We’ve inherited sites that were penalized by these tactics, and the recovery process is painful and slow. Building authority the right way takes longer but creates a durable competitive advantage.

The 5 SEO factors to prioritize

To review, here’s a checklist of the five factors to build your SEO strategy. Each one strengthens the four types of SEO covered above.

1. Strong technical foundation

The best integrated SEO plans are built on a solid technical foundation. Content-focused marketers might be tempted to skip technical SEO (or at least save it for last). But it’s the cornerstone of high-ranking content.

2. Keyword-optimized content matched to search intent

Keyword research is prospect research. Consistently including a keyword research step in your SEO strategy helps you validate your assumptions. It allows you to ask, “What topic is our audience actually searching for? What kind of language do they use when searching?” When you skip that step, you’re optimizing for guesses instead of data.

3. On-site interlinking

Building links between your own website content helps search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website. From Google’s perspective, on-site interlinking passes link equity back and forth between your pieces of content.

4. Backlinking

Building backlinks is one of the most important off-page SEO factors. Search engines view backlinks as a sign that others have found your content helpful. If your strategy is to publish excellent content and sit back as the backlinks flow in, you’re missing opportunities. There are sites out there with an audience that would love your new content. But that publisher likely won’t find your content without a friendly introduction.

5. Helpful content

Last but certainly not least, great content is a vital component of your strategy. If you don’t get content right, the other factors we’ve discussed won’t matter. Publishing helpful content should be the bread and butter of your on-page SEO. 

Organic SEO signals worth tracking

As you leverage the power of things like hyperlinks, keywords, and search intent, how can you use Google Analytics data to know if things are working?

Many people talk about organic SEO in terms of website traffic, and that’s important. But it also includes related items like CTR (click-through rate). That is, how often people who see your links click on them. Heat mapping, where a person navigates to on a web page, is also important. So is dwell time (how long a visitor spends on a site). 

Where SEO is heading

AI tools are taking over the search world quickly — and that is having a clear impact on SEO. But it’s changing search engine optimization, not eliminating it. 

Google itself made this clear in May of 2026 when it said that AI-driven search optimization, things like AEO and GEO, are still SEO. Foundational SEO best practices (like those laid out in this resource) remain critical to ranking in AI Overviews and generative search.

When Google confirmed in 2026 that AEO and GEO are still SEO, it validated what we’d already been telling clients for two years: the fundamentals don’t change, the emphasis does. We started restructuring client content for AI citation (direct answers up top, real FAQ sections, clean schema) well before it was the industry consensus. The teams panicking about AI ‘killing’ SEO are usually the ones who never nailed the fundamentals in the first place. If your content is genuinely helpful and technically sound, AI is just one more place it gets to show up.

AI Overview SEO may look slightly different in areas. For instance, including an FAQ and answering a search query in the first paragraph of a resource have become more important if you want to be cited in AI tools. But the foundational pieces of SEO that help content organically shine online remain firmly in place. 

What’s different is emphasis, not substance. To be cited in AI-generated answers, it helps to:

• Answer the core question directly in the first paragraph, before adding context.
• Include a clear FAQ section — AI tools frequently pull directly from these.
• Use structured data (schema) so search and AI systems can parse your content’s meaning, not just its words.

The key is finding a growth marketing partner that can grow with you as this AI-driven wave continues to evolve SEO and search moving forward.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 4 types of SEO? 

The four main types are on-page SEO (content and keywords), off-page SEO (backlinks and digital PR), technical SEO (crawlability, speed, and structure), and local SEO (proximity, relevance, and prominence for location-based searches). The strongest strategies run all four together rather than relying on just one.

What’s the difference between on-page and off-page SEO? 

On-page SEO covers everything you control directly on your site — content quality, keyword targeting, title tags, and internal linking. Off-page SEO builds authority beyond your site through backlinks, brand mentions, and digital PR. Both signal quality to search engines, but off-page relies on third-party validation, not your own claims.

What are the 5 SEO factors to prioritize? 

Prioritize a strong technical foundation, keyword-optimized content matched to search intent, on-site interlinking, backlinking, and generating helpful content. Those five elements give you some of the biggest impact across SEO campaigns. Technical SEO ensures Google can find and index your pages, so the rest can build on that foundation to earn rankings, traffic, and authority.

Is SEO different from SEM? 

Yes. SEO focuses on earning unpaid, organic visibility in search through content, technical optimization, and backlinks. SEM includes paid search ads that appear instantly at the top of search results. Most effective strategies use both together, pairing SEO’s long-term authority with SEM’s immediate visibility.

What is organic SEO? 

Organic SEO is the work you do to earn unpaid search traffic, rather than buying clicks through ads. It usually includes high-quality content, technical improvements like site speed and crawlability, and link building through digital PR. It takes longer to show results than paid search, but the traffic it earns tends to be more durable.

How is AI changing SEO in 2026?

AI is reshaping how content gets discovered — search engines and AI tools increasingly reward the same fundamentals: crawlable sites, high-quality content, and clear structure. Google has confirmed that optimizing for AI Overviews and generative search is still SEO, not something new. 

Talk to our SEO team

There’s a lot to learn when it comes to SEO in marketing, and there are specialists in each of these four categories. So what’s the most important lesson here?

SEO strategy is ultimately about the user experience. As search engines become more sophisticated, the gap closes between what’s prioritized by the algorithm and what’s helpful to the user.

When it comes to SEO best practices, the most important one is making sure your website is easy to use and meets your audience’s expectations. Keeping your customers top of mind is the North Star that won’t steer you wrong as you navigate SEO. If you want help building a strategy that ties all four types together, book a call with our team — we will audit your current setup and show you where the biggest opportunities are.

The post The 4 Types of SEO (And How to Execute Each One) appeared first on Relevance.