Content Isn’t King.

SEO Strategy
Written By Tony Bosco

You’ve probably heard it a thousand times:

“Content is king!”

It’s a phrase used by SEO agencies, content marketers, and self-proclaimed gurus across the internet.

It sounds smart. It feels intuitive. But here’s the problem:

It’s dead wrong. Content is NOT an SEO strategy.

Why “Content Is King” Is Misleading

This phrase has become a crutch for SEO vendors who prioritize deliverables and your hard-earned money over strategy. Sure, content is important for your site’s relevancy. But content without authority doesn’t rank. It doesn’t matter how well it’s written, how many keywords it has, or how often you publish.

I need to reiterate this: Content without authority doesn’t rank. Period.

It doesn’t matter if you have “good” or “bad” content because 1) quality (like art) is subjective, and 2) search engines can’t determine the quality of content. Sites are ranking very highly right now that provide woefully inaccurate technical advice that isn’t just wrong, but appears to have been some AI’s fever dream. If “content is king” these sites wouldn’t rank high, but here we are.

If Google doesn’t trust your site — if you haven’t built authority — then your content is just a tree falling in the woods.

No clicks. No impressions. No value.

Here’s what those agencies don’t tell you: They sell content because it’s easy to produce and hard to measure.

Authority, on the other hand, takes time, skill, and experience to build — and many agencies simply don’t have the playbook. Instead, they say things like “we’ll build you five backlinks and provide two pieces of content each month.” They’re rarely challenged on this, and happily take your money. Meanwhile, you see very little movement in your rank or revenue. So you go to another SEO agency who swears they really know how to write content that optimized for SEO. Wash. Rise. Repeat.

This is why SEO agencies have such high client turnover; they tend to be excellent at selling services but are terrible at actual SEO.

What REALLY Drives Rankings: Authority

Google’s algorithm prioritizes who is saying something just as much as what they’re saying. That’s where authority comes in.

Real authority is built by:

  • Earning backlinks from trusted, relevant sites

  • Being referenced across your industry

  • Building topical consistency (not just volume)

When Google sees your site being cited, linked to, and talked about — that's when your content starts to work.

Content Supports Authority; It Doesn't Replace It

This isn’t an anti-content stance. Good content matters — but only when:

  • It reinforces your authority

  • It targets search terms you can realistically rank for

  • It’s part of a strategic plan that includes link-building, internal linking, and site structure

Content is a tool, not a strategy.

How to Tell If an SEO Agency Gets This

If you're shopping for SEO help, ask them:

  • How do you build authority for my site?

  • What’s your approach to link acquisition?

  • How do you prioritize content after assessing my domain’s strength?

  • What metrics do you track beyond rankings and traffic?

If their answer starts with, “We publish two blog posts a month...” — run.

If they say something like “We build you five backlinks and provide two blog posts each month..” go ahead and ask them why. Why, after diving deeply into your site, have they determined that five backlinks or two blog posts will get the job done? Why not six backlinks, or four? Why not seven pieces of content?

They will likely struggle to find an answer (and I won’t provide it for them to memorize here). The truth is they have templates, and depending on your budget and industry, they merely drag-and-drop you onto a template and then extract as much cash as they can from you until you leave, disappointed.

Here’s How I Work

I don’t start with blog topics. I start with:

  • Where your site stands today (authority, rankings, crawlability)

  • What kind of search terms you can realistically win

  • How your competitors are building authority

Only then do we discuss content, and it’s content that supports a larger plan.

SEO isn’t a checklist or a content machine. It’s about earning trust, proving relevance, and moving up the ranks for the right terms.

If you're tired of paying for content that doesn't perform, or you're unsure whether your current SEO team is focused on the right things — let’s talk.

Tony Bosco