What is informational content?

Informational content has a purpose of informing, educating, and engaging your target audience. It gives valuable insights, helps solve problems, and answers common questions. This type of content can take many forms, including long blog posts, videos, and infographics, all designed to engage your target audience and address their concerns.

This makes it different to commercial or product content, which focuses on advertising your business or the products and services you provide.

Informational content is massive for SEO. Research from The Pennsylvania State University found that more than 80% of web searches had informational intent. Although this figure may have shifted with the rise of Ecommerce, ignoring informational content means missing out on a lot of potential traffic.

Google is also changing with the introduction of AI overviews. Most of these AI based responses are shown for informational queries, and use information from websites to come up with the answer. If you want to be part of that early stage of the journey, it makes it even more important.

Informational content as part of a digital strategy

To understand the importance of informational content in digital marketing, it's helpful to see how it fits into common marketing planning frameworks, such as the RACE model.

The RACE model helps businesses create a digital marketing strategy by breaking down the customer journey. It splits marketing activities into stages, offering a clear view of how a business plans to build awareness, engage potential customers, convert leads into sales, and encourage repeat business, while improving long-term customer loyalty.

Using a framework like RACE is helpful as it covers every key aspect of a digital marketing campaign, from reaching new audiences to fostering long-term relationships with customers. The model encourages a focused approach at each stage of the customer journey, preventing scattered marketing efforts.

Informational content can play a role in multiple stages of the RACE model, depending on your industry and goals. For example, creating blogs, guides, or videos that speak directly to the challenges your audience faces can give you reach. When your content offers value or solutions linked to your products or services, it can also prompt them to act. Over time, more intent focussed content such as whitepapers or webinars will encourage conversion.

An example: Camping equipment website

Let’s say you run an Ecommerce site selling camping gear, and you want to boost winter equipment sales in the fourth quarter. You could publish a blog post like "Tips for Successful Camping in Winter," addressing challenges such as harsher weather conditions and limited daylight.

While offering practical advice, you could also include links to your own products, like high tog sleeping bags, insulated groundsheets and thermal gear. You may also offer the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter or register for a webinar on the broader topic of cooking and nutrition as an amateur camper. This type of content provides useful solutions while naturally guiding readers to consider your products, which can lead to more sales and higher revenue.

Video content and its growing role

Platforms like TikTok and Youtube have made it easier than ever to use video as part of a content strategy. Businesses can reach large audiences by informing, educating, or entertaining. Creating video content that solves problems or appeals to your audience's interests is a proven way to boost reach and engagement. Platforms like TikTok Shop even allow viewers to purchase directly, which can work for low consideration purchases, effectively joining up the full funnel.

The benefits of informational content for SEO

Informational content doesn't just support your marketing efforts; it also plays a key role in improving SEO performance. Blog posts, in particular, help strengthen SEO strategies. Here are some key ways that informational content benefits SEO:

1. Authority and expertise

Creating quality informational content helps establish your website as an authority in your industry. By building topical authority, search engines can better understand what your website specialises in.

This approach aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) guidelines and increases your chances of ranking for related keywords. As a result, your site can attract more organic traffic and build trust with potential customers.

A great way to build authority through content is by using topic clusters. This involves creating a central "pillar page" that covers a broad topic and linking it to more detailed content pieces, known as "cluster pages." Over time, this structure helps your site become a go-to resource in your field, both for users and search engines.

2. Targeting long-tail keywords

Informational blog posts are often designed to target long-tail keywords, which are longer and more specific search phrases. These keywords are generally less competitive than shorter, generic ones, making it easier to rank for them. Even though long-tail keywords tend to have lower search volumes, they can collectively drive significant traffic.

This is especially true given the rise of voice search and improvements in Google's natural language processing, such as the BERT algorithm update. Google is now better at understanding the intent behind more complex search queries, which means it's easier for your content to be found in conversational searches.

Because long-tail keywords are more aligned with user intent, content targeting these keywords is more likely to satisfy the user’s needs, leading to higher click-through rates and better engagement.

3. Internal Linking

Producing informational content naturally supports internal linking, helping connect related blog posts and important landing pages. Internal links are key for building content clusters and establishing topical authority. They also help users navigate your site easily while making it simpler for search engines to discover and understand your content.

Internal linking also distributes link equity, especially from high-authority pages like the homepage, which tends to have the most backlinks. By adding relevant internal links to new blog posts, you strengthen your site’s overall structure, which can improve your chances of ranking higher across all your content.

4. Link Acquisition

Strong informational content forms the backbone of a good link-building strategy. When you publish valuable, well-researched content, it becomes a resource not only for your audience but also for other professionals in your industry. High-quality content is more likely to earn backlinks from other sites that use it as a reference.

Having a rich library of blog content also creates opportunities for outreach. You can approach potential link partners or guest post hosts with confidence, showcasing your well-performing content as proof of your expertise. Sometimes, you might even find that people approach you for collaborations!

5. Continual Traffic Generation

A key goal of an SEO blog strategy is to create a steady flow of traffic through evergreen content. Evergreen content focuses on topics that stay relevant over time and consistently attract search interest. When this type of content ranks well and is regularly updated, it can provide a reliable source of organic traffic, keeping users engaged with your site long-term.

Final Takeaways

Informational content is a powerful tool in digital marketing, helping businesses connect with potential customers at every stage of their journey. It’s also a key part of a strong SEO strategy, helping boost your website’s authority and expertise.

The most effective websites combine informational, commercial, and transactional content to meet user needs throughout the funnel, taking a well-rounded approach.

That said, creating quality informational content can be time-consuming and resource-heavy. Our team of SEO experts are experienced in using best practices and creativity to craft content strategies that work. If you’d like a free audit to show you where your content is lacking, get in touch.