When SEO becomes just content production – and how to break free

Content has long been the fuel for SEO, and its importance continues as AI-driven search relies on rich, trustworthy information. 

I’ve always believed in doing the “good” and “right” things when it comes to creating content at scale – but even good things can become problems when overdone.

Too often, SEO and AI visibility efforts get reduced to publishing more blogs, landing pages, or articles in the pursuit of quick wins that executives want to see. 

While content is critical, treating SEO as a production machine creates the illusion of progress.

Activity without performance bloats sites with duplicative, commoditized, or low-value pages that both search engines and customers overlook. 

Real results come when content is balanced with technical SEO, authority building, and alignment to business goals, not when output becomes the strategy itself.

Breaking free from a content-only mindset means broadening how we define SEO success. 

The following areas show where to shift focus and rebalance your strategy.

Seek out content bloat

Use audits – whether with third-party crawlers, AI tools, or manual reviews – to surface low-value content. 

This includes:

• Duplicative or outdated pages.
• Content that’s confusing or poorly aligned to your niche, audience, or value proposition.

Realign SEO goals

If your objectives are tied too heavily to content, are vague or incomplete, or are linked only to tactics rather than a robust, leading – not trailing – strategy, they’re due for a reset. 

Step one is to revisit your overarching SEO and visibility goals. 

Then connect those goals directly to your content strategy – focusing on quality over volume – and map each piece to a funnel stage, customer journey touchpoint, or specific ROI metric.

Dig deeper: How to blend AI and human input in your content approach

Integrate technical SEO

When content dominates your SEO strategy, it’s easy to overlook the technical factors that determine visibility. 

On-page optimization may help, but without attention to site health and user experience, your content may never reach its full potential.

Crawling and indexing have always been core to SEO, and they remain critical for both search engines and LLMs. 

If your content can’t be properly discovered and sourced, it won’t surface for your audience – regardless of quality. 

Beyond that, factors like page experience and rendering influence how your site is ranked and, more importantly, how visitors interact with it. 

Poor UX can drive users back to search results, undermining the very visibility you’re working to achieve.

Leverage authority building

I’ve long said, “great content attracts great links.” 

That phrase nods to the early days of SEO, and while simplified, it still holds true. 

The problem is that content alone often creates an “if you build it, they will come” mentality – one that leaves deserved visibility and engagement on the table.

Earning backlinks, PR, mentions, and other third-party validation remains vital for both search and LLMs.

Leaving these signals out of your planning means missing a key dimension of optimization. 

Authority building should be integrated into your SEO and content strategy to add purpose and extend the impact of what you publish.

Dig deeper: Revisiting ‘useful content’ in the age of AI-dominated search

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Adopt a sprint model

You can follow agile methodology or use different terminology and approaches, but the key is to define the time periods and milestones that matter. 

Day-to-day distractions and the habit of piling new tasks onto existing efforts blur where one initiative ends and another begins. 

Combined with the shifting environment of attribution and measurement, it becomes difficult to set clear starting and stopping points in SEO and AI optimization.

When content is the main focus, the instinct is often to do more when results fall short. A sprint model helps break that pattern. 

By planning efforts in defined cycles, you can measure outcomes objectively and conduct retrospectives. 

Those insights then help you realign your overall and content strategies, bringing a more data-driven, disciplined approach to each next phase.

Dig deeper: How to create content that works for search and generative engines

Stop checklist mindsets

When I hear about a company’s content strategy, the first questions I ask are: 

• Why are they doing it?
• What is it producing?
• How were those decisions made?

Sometimes the cadence exists because it’s what the company has always done. Other times, it traces back to a best practices recommendation.

I don’t approach those conversations with a fixed cadence of my own, or with the intent to blow up what’s working. 

In many cases, the timing and tactics are sound.

The problem comes when we stop asking questions. Without a regular, healthy review, it’s easy to slip into checklist mode.

Any marketing activity that becomes just another box to tick loses its sense of investment and expected return. 

Instead of weighing the time, money, and opportunity costs against other options, we risk treating strategy like routine busywork.

Build cross-functional alignment

At SMX West in early 2020 – just before the pandemic – I spoke about the benefits of aligning SEO and PPC. 

What I couldn’t predict was how essential cross-functional integration would become in the era of AI.

Digital channels have always influenced each other, but AI raises the stakes. 

Brand, UX, IT, search, social, and content all need to work together efficiently. 

The same goes for marketing, sales, product, and leadership. 

Integration prevents SEO and AI initiatives from being dismissed as “just marketing tasks.”

It ensures they connect to business-outcome-driven KPIs, new measurement models, and company-wide AI priorities.

Dig deeper: An AI-assisted content process that outperforms human-only copy

Breaking free from content-only SEO

SEO has never been about content alone, and in the era of AI-driven search, it can’t afford to be reduced to a publishing treadmill. 

Breaking free means balancing content with technical health, authority signals, agile planning, and cross-functional alignment. 

By shifting from sheer output to intentional strategy, you avoid bloat, earn visibility where it matters, and position SEO as a driver of growth rather than just another box to check.