What Content for What Site: The Right Match

Blog Posts, Landing Pages, PDPs, Clusters, Content Pillars... A guide on where to start.

Last Updated: September 2025.
Reading Time: 20 minutes
Reading Setting: Quiet place. With coffee.

Welcome, entrepreneurs, to the arena of clicks and algorithms! You have a project, an expertise, an ambition; you're ready to start a business; you have your financial projections, a strategy, a graphic charter, a visual identity, and a superb, yet desperately empty, website?

You'll need to furnish it, bring it to life, make it the cocoon of your community, and forge a textual soul for it—the very heart of your offering. But where do you begin? What content should you create? How? Where? And why? To convert? To explain? To persuade? To drive traffic? You cannot talk about web content without talking about SEO.

Whether you plan to produce your content yourself, with or without the aid of AI, or whether you plan to call upon an expert in UX and SEO writing—Call Me GhostWriter, for instance—this guide is here to help you identify your needs on a case-by-case basis. It will discuss the different types of web content that should feature on a website, their function, and their specific characteristics. It will cover their place in the sales funnel, their utility in an effective ranking strategy, and their importance for user experience.

This isn't a practical tutorial; it's a compass. Are you lost? Hold tight and follow the thread, heading straight for the top of the search results pages in the labyrinthine World Wide Web.

Textual Web Content: The Skeleton of Your Site

Why, nowadays, still speak of textual web content when the internet is a festival of videos, images, and dynamic creations that are infinitely easier to consume? Well, despite the tidal wave of multimedia content flooding the SERPs, text remains the backbone of any website and the semantic DNA of your brand—both in the eyes of visitors and algorithms alike.

Role and Utility of Textual Web Content in 2025

More than a mere shop window, web content is your primary tool for shaping User Experience (UX) and determining your ranking in search results. Like the nuclear core of your site, it works tirelessly to inform the user, establish your credibility, and convert your prospects. Its roles are manifold:

• Speaking to the User: Textual web content answers questions, dispels doubts, establishes authority, and prompts action. A successful user experience often relies on precise and engaging copywriting, which guides the user with fluidity and conviction.
• Forging or Reinforcing Your Identity: You wouldn't want your site to be visited one moment and forgotten the next. You wouldn't want to be just another vendor nor would you want your clients and prospects to confuse you with the first competitor who comes along. Your textual content is your online tone and voice; it should be unique and bear your indelible mark.
• Signalling to Search Engines: Google's algorithms won't seek you out if you don't attract their attention. Yet, search engines (SEs), the lords of the SERPs, do not see images and videos; they read the text. It is the analysis of your keywords, your sentence structure, and the overall relevance of your content that decides the fate of your web page. On this point, quality is crucial: a shoddy text is worse than no text at all. For humans, it signals amateurism. For algorithms, it's a red flag indicating that indexing you carries a risk—the risk that you might harm the image and experience of their cherished users, for your visitors are primarily theirs.

Before proceeding further, and before we delve deep into the thrilling world of copywriting, sales funnels, and semantic optimization, we must revisit a fundamental tenet governing web content conception: the holistic approach.

Web Content, UX, and SEO: The Essential Holistic Approach

While web content can wear many faces and pursue various objectives, one constant must always be kept in mind: think holistically. Everything is connected.

User Experience (UX) will only be good if the content is relevant. The content will only be relevant if it is correctly indexed (SEO) and, therefore, properly answers the adequate queries. The content will only be correctly indexed if the user experience is good. And for the user experience to be good, the user must experience the content, which means it must be correctly indexed.

Are you starting to feel a slight headache? That’s normal—you’re on the Call Me GhostWriter blog.

Without further ado, let's begin to dissect this alchemy.

Determining Your Web Content Needs: The Three Pillars of a Coherent Strategy

Determining the ideal type of content to publish on a website is not an exercise in divination, but a rational analysis based on precise criteria. The medium is the message, as McLuhan said; what you wish to say will therefore determine how you say it.

Everything starts by examining the three variables at the origin of all things.

The Target and the Objective: Who? Why?

Before considering the format, consider the usage.

Whom are you targeting?

Define your audience and your targeted persona.

Is your visitor a novice or an expert in your field? Are they young or middle-aged? Are they likely to be sensitive to major causes, to share identifiable values? Are they eco-conscious? Are they a rebel? Are they accustomed to purchasing online? And how healthy is their bank account? Are they employed? Be precise. Addressing everyone amounts to addressing no one; this is a mistake paid for dearly in engagement.

For what purpose are you targeting this persona?

Your content can serve several objectives simultaneously (think holistically...), but it is essential to prioritize them. Are you aiming for notoriety (making yourself known)? Visibility (getting seen)? Authority (establishing your expertise/credibility)? Conversion (changing a prospect into a client), or perhaps retention (maintaining a link with your clients). Each objective demands its own editorial approach.

The Customer Journey Stage: Where? When?

The famous sales funnel. Also called an hourglass, or simply the funnel for those who prefer anglicisms. Seen from afar, it just looks like a paradigm invented by the marketing world to give itself airs, but it is more than that.

Discovery/Awareness

This is called the ToFu—the Top of the Funnel: it's the summit of the funnel where the need is born. The user peers over the entrance of this gaping tunnel to discover that they have a problem and that its solution lies all the way at the bottom. At this stage, they are looking for general information, and we respond with easily accessible content, which is entertaining or highly informative, targeting them and their specific problem.

Evaluation/Consideration

Their curiosity has been piqued; the user is now engaging with the tunnel. This is the MoFu—the Middle of the Funnel. The user now knows the problem they need to solve and is looking for the best solution. They are comparing offers. The content must be in-depth, technical if necessary, and begin to position your solution as the superior choice.

Decision/Conversion

Here they are in the BoFu (Bottom of the Funnel), seeking the best way out. Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is played out here. The user is ready to purchase; they just need to choose you. The content aims to reassure them, to validate their choice—and to give them a little push, if need be. It must be ultra-specific: social proof, testimonials, technical details, and CTAs (Call to Action).

Retention

Retention is the neglected stage of the funnel; some marketing professionals do not even consider it as such. It consists of catching the client as they exit the BoFu with their brand-new purchase in hand, to bring them right back to the top of the funnel and invite them for another ride, like on a fun water park slide. Retention may not look like much, but it is highly profitable nonetheless. Loyal clients are clients with a zero Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC); their impact on your paid campaigns is far from negligible.

The Nature of the Offering and the Keyword: What?

A technical subject calls for technical content; an emotional subject for narrative content. Keywords must not only describe what you offer but also signal the intent you are targeting.

Be careful not to rush headlong into the pitfalls of SEO: aiming for clickbait keywords that cast a wide net to generate traffic, only to be instantly penalized by SEs because the navigation behaviour of said traffic demonstrates that you disappointed your visitors, is particularly counter-productive.

Informational Keywords

"How to fix...?", "What is blockchain?", "What web content should I order from an experienced web writer to feed my site?" Keywords targeting questions call for solidly informative content for the ToFu.

Transactional Keywords

"Buy software X", "Price for service Y", "Order quality web content"... Transactional keywords demand persuasive and technical content, already positioning your offering as unique and unparalleled, and designed for the MoFu-BoFu stages.

This triptych (Target/Objective, Customer Journey, Nature of the Keyword) allows one to move from a vague question ("I need content") to a precise requirement: "I need textual web content for the MoFu of my B2B personas, targeting the keyword 'solution X vs Y comparison' in order to establish my authority." Once this requirement is formalized, all that remains is to dip into the toolbox.

The Different Types of Web Content: Choosing Your Weapon

Faced with the abundance of formats, one can quickly become paralyzed. But panic not—this is just a list, and not everything concerns you. Now, granted, each type of content has its distinct assets, and if you are slightly anxious about launching your site into the SERPs, you might feel the need for a little bit of everything to cover every SEO angle and to stack the odds in your favour. But this is merely an impression. It just means you are at the top of my funnel, that’s all.

The Foundations: Clusters, Pillar Content, Blog Posts, and Long-form Articles

You are currently reading a Pillar Content (Pillar Content). It is also known as a Long-form Article, and it is lengthy content (often over 3,000 words), encyclopedic, didactic, and exhaustive, aiming to establish strong thematic authority on a generic and competitive keyword. It is highly structured, contains a myriad of internal links, and nobody ever reads it in its entirety—but that is immaterial. The long-form article is not a long blog post. Their position in the funnel, their intention, and their objectives differ significantly.

The Blog Post, being shorter (often 600 to 2,000 words), quickly answers a precise question by targeting the long tail. Its tone is educational, accessible, and potentially entertaining. It can afford to skim the surface of its subject (without becoming useless); it is made to be consumed quickly and shared just as easily. It often serves as a cluster (satellite).

In an ideal world, Clusters and Pillars organize harmoniously to form the solid foundations of a website. Through internal linking, the winning SEO strategy consists of grouping the cluster blog posts—each detailing a specific point of a single theme—around a long-form pillar content article that comprehensively addresses the said thematic as a whole. Internal linking strengthens the authority of each of these content pieces, and this is the kind of site architecture that appeals to the ears of SEs.

Conversion: PDP, Product Description, and Landing Pages

The Product Detail Page (PDP) and the Product Description are not entirely similar. The former is longer, more technical, and sits in the MoFu/BoFu threshold. It emphasizes the benefits of the offering, but avoids completely omitting its weaknesses: it addresses a visitor who is already half-convinced and looking for complementary information. It is not the moment to force them to look for details they cannot find on your competitor's PDP.

The Product Description is the last stage of the BoFu; it is the one that features the "Buy" button. It abandons rationality and relies on storytelling to give the user the excuse they need to take action.

The Landing Page is an extremely focused web page, designed for a very specific marketing campaign. It is a constricted zone of the funnel, bordering on claustrophobia; it contains no links, footers, or headers that risk distracting the visitor. There is no escape—they must take action or close the tab, at the risk of missing out on an exceptional offer forever. Its content is a direct incentive to action; it must be engaging, rational enough to convince, emotional enough to awaken a sense of urgency, need, fear of missing out (FOMO), and the desire for gain—a good deal that no one would want to pass up.

Trust: Case Studies, White Papers, E-Books... The Proofs of Authority

Trust is a crucial factor in prompting action. It is what can sway the client toward one site over another, by leveraging a well-known cognitive bias: loss aversion. This is a behavioral theory demonstrating that we, as human beings, are more afraid of losing than we are eager to gain. In other words, possible losses weigh more heavily than possible gains in the cost-benefit analysis. Trust-building web content therefore aims to reassure the visitor by proving to them that they certainly won't be disappointed by doing business with you.

The Case Study aims to prove the effectiveness of your offering through a real-world example. It is structured in a triptych (Problem / Solution / Result) with factual and credible figures.

The White Paper is a dense report demonstrating acute expertise. It is typically a downloadable, highly detailed PDF. Its download is usually "gated", protected by a contact form, which allows you to nurture your database of qualified leads. It targets visitors who have already passed the MoFu and are approaching the BoFu with rational skepticism.

The E-Book is somewhat in the vein of the White Paper, but it targets a broader audience. Its style is pedagogical, and its layout is polished—it seeks to mimic a published book. This is content that gives an impression of value, enough for the visitor to judge that it is worth giving you their email address to download it. It allows for data collection and contributes to building your notoriety.

The FAQ is central content. It answers all visitor questions, and especially their final objections. It reassures them, improves SEO, and eases the burden on your customer service.

Off-Page Textual Content: Newsletters and Social Media Posts

Newsletters (and other emailing practices) fall under a branch of marketing called Outbound, which consists of pushing your message toward the user, rather than bringing the user to the message. This is an aggressive marketing technique, often positioned near the ToFu, but which can intervene at any stage.

Posts intended for social media aim to promote your website, federate your community, and build your notoriety. Their intention and format depend on each social network as much as on your objectives.

Institutional Web Pages (Home, About, Contact...)

Last but certainly not least. Institutional pages are the foundations of your online presence. Without them, your site simply does not exist. They are necessary at every stage of the sales funnel and perform a colossal job: guiding navigation, arousing trust, making an impression... In short, they officially introduce you to your visitors.

Should you really publish textual web content there? For both UX and SEO, your site's institutional pages play on several fronts. They can become major assets for ranking when carefully written and containing a significant amount of relevant text, but if you cannot guarantee high editorial quality, I recommend focusing on brief and concise content, and never mind the semantic optimization.

Why? Poor quality content, if unreadable or unstructured, will invariably cause a high bounce rate (visitors immediately leave the page). A high bounce rate is a negative signal for Google and can lead to positioning penalties, harming SEO. In this case, it is better to optimize your SEO through a UX-first approach, meaning by relying on the positive signals that satisfactory navigation will send to the SE.

In summary, these pages are the bare bones of the basis: they must exist to ensure the credibility and navigability of your platform. The UX must be handled with utmost care here, but enriching them with textual content is a real bonus for SEO.

These content types are not rigid definitions, but a framework for defining one's needs and guiding one's content strategy. Nothing prevents you from using long-form content as a trust asset or offering e-books without collecting data. The essential thing is to establish a strategy that is coherent with your objectives and... holistic.

What Web Content for Which Entrepreneur?

Just because a format exists does not mean you need it. Exit the funnel and prioritize your needs. The most frequent mistake made by young companies is rushing into content formats that are too resource-intensive for their stage of development.

Micro-businesses/Freelancers: Focus on Visibility

Self-employed professionals and micro-businesses often have a limited budget, both in time and money. The content to prioritize includes clear and optimized Product/Service Description Pages, the FAQ, and highly targeted blog posts focusing on long-tail keywords—ideally local ones to reduce your competitive ocean.

I do not recommend white papers, case studies, or e-books: these formats demand a quantity of work and research that would vampirize your operational resources. Ten short, excellent blog posts are better than a single, low-quality long-form article.

SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises): Focus on Growth

PDPs and the regular publication of blog posts remain the basics, and this is the time to invest your time or money in Pillars. Assert your authority, build your credibility, and show Search Engines that you are a significant player in your sector.

If you have a small budget for paid marketing, now is the time to test landing pages. Case studies also begin to be of interest for improving your conversion rate as you seek to expand.

B2C E-commerce Sites: Focus on Escaping the Competition

Unsurprisingly, an e-commerce site requires PDPs and product descriptions, but it also benefits from having a robust FAQ. Online competition is fierce in virtually all sectors, so anything extra you can offer your visitors is worth pursuing. Long-tail, purchase-intent blog posts are highly recommended, and long-form articles can make a significant difference if your market targets enthusiasts and you know how to speak to them.

B2B Companies: Focus on Credibility

When selling to professionals, one must be professional, and this inevitably involves the production of technical content that demonstrably proves your cutting-edge expertise. White papers are the undisputed kings for B2B service companies; they are costly to produce and target clients ready to invest in your expensive solution. Pillars also fare well, but short, light blog posts find less of a place in B2B strategies. Be wary of poorly moderated User-Generated Content (UGC) and low-quality content that could damage your brand image and completely discredit you.

In the world of web content, quality grows exponentially while quantity remains linear. One exceptional piece of content on a specific keyword will generate more returns than ten average texts. Do not scatter your efforts; focus on areas where your expertise is strongest and where demand is present but poorly satisfied. Do not be distracted by trendy formats. Try not to panic if everyone has a landing page except you.

Yes, an optimal content strategy includes different formats and different channels, but before you can optimize, you must do (i.e., create content).

Creating Content for Your Website: The Three Paths of Content Production

Once your needs have been established and the list of all the content you require is complete, a central question remains: how should you produce it? There are three main options, each with its trade-offs. The choice depends on your financial and temporal resources, as well as your intrinsic competencies.

The Content Creation Dilemma: In-house, External, or AI?

The Best Qualitative Choice: Web Writer and Agency

From a purely qualitative perspective, the agency or freelance writer are by far the best options. Large enough marketing agencies are, moreover, accustomed to working with an arsenal of SEO tools that guarantees you are at the forefront of optimization—which, by the way, is not the same as a guarantee of being well-indexed.

They are also the options that demand the largest financial investment, and if you are reading this content today, it is certainly because this option does not appeal to you, otherwise you would be busy with your subject matter expertise, leaving your chosen subcontractor to deal with their SEO stories.

The Best Economic Choice: In-house... And AI?

Would you like to hear that Generative AI is the cheap and effective solution to your web content problem? I would be delighted too. I would be producing high value-added content in three clicks, selling pages for $15 like in the bygone days of my Fiverr beginnings, shifting massive quantities every month, and spending the rest of my time on vacation in fabulous places. But no, AI is not capable of producing quality content alone, or even nearly alone—at least not yet. Worse still, it has so thoroughly flooded the web with uninteresting content since 2022 that Google was forced to react. The Search Engine had to update its algorithm to stem this invasion, which was detrimental to the customer experience and the survival of the internet, and now life is very complicated for everyone (the WWW world, I mean).

Today, low-grade AI-generated content is heavily penalized by E-E-A-T and HCU. I do not recommend tempting the cursed fate: salvaging a site that Google has sunk to the bottom of its SERPs for violating its quality criteria is significantly more delicate (not to say hopeless) than indexing a brand-new site with nothing to hide—which is already no small feat on today's competitive web, let's be honest. So, what should you do?

The safest economic choice is to produce your quality content with your own two hands and, eventually, to use AI strictly for drafting, if you are not comfortable with the exercise. If writing doesn't repel you and you have a fluid style, you will certainly save time by foregoing AI, however counter-intuitive that may seem. AI allows you to save an indecent amount of time producing low-quality content. That is not what you want when launching your site, and working from a completely flawed draft quickly becomes more time-consuming than starting from a blank page. Confine AI to brainstorming if you insist on using it, and above all, do not blindly entrust it with the conception of your content outlines—it is, without a doubt, what it does worst at the present time.

The Final Word: A Touch of Philosophy

Choosing the ideal textual web content for your site is not a matter of chance; it is a strategic and holistic approach that requires dissecting your target, the specific stage of the sales funnel, and the nature of the targeted keyword, all with the goal of maximizing your Return on Investment (ROI). The blog post serves notoriety, the pillar builds authority, and landing pages are the soldiers of conversion... Every piece of content has its place and its role, but also its cost.

While, in the face of the tsunami, Google heavily favors quality and precision, the pitfalls to avoid are dispersion and superficiality. A welcome paradox: while thematic and semantic precision is key, content production is an investment that can accommodate some approximation (outside of technical formats). Content is a modular, creative production that can overflow rigid formats while maintaining acceptable effectiveness. Content that is not optimized is not necessarily bad. Let's just say it is potentially less profitable—in terms of time, if not money. Therefore, if you lack the budget to outsource, do not give up on producing your content under the pretext that SEO impresses you or that you don't know where to start. Trust yourself. You are an internet user, a visitor, a user. If, with a healthy dose of perspective, your content truly pleases you when you reread it, then it is certainly qualitative enough for Google and for your visitors.

Rather than chasing after a plethora of SEO techniques—which you likely won't have the time to master effectively alongside your core business—focus on the intrinsic quality of your content and the uniqueness of your voice.

The World Wide Web is a labyrinth, but by concentrating on the value brought to the user, you hold the right end of the Ariadne's thread. All that remains is to walk the path, perhaps in small steps, but with the certainty, at least, of moving in the right direction.