Scaling up content doesn’t mean sacrificing quality for quantity.
In this guide, I discuss content scaling and give you strategies for increasing the depth of the information on your site.
What you will learn:
- What content scaling is and why you should do it
- How to effectively and efficiently scale content
- Challenges to scaling – and how to overcome them
What is content scaling?
Content scaling is the process of increasing your content output by leveraging tools, workflows and team structures without sacrificing quality.
While it includes increasing the volume of content on your website, there’s more to it than that. It’s also about efficiency, consistency, velocity and strategic breadth.
Thanks to advances in technology, the content scaling process is now more efficient than ever, as you can use AI and automation tools like Surfer AI and ChatGPT to create content, as well as generate SOPs and templates. We’ll get into the specifics of that later.
Let's look at an example of content scaling in the real world. Userpilot initiated a content scaling process that consistently increased the number of pages on its website. This correlated with a consistent increase in organic traffic.
But it’s not just a numbers game. While your strategy could include generating 100 new articles each month, fewer posts executed with a solid content strategy will drive more visitors to your site than a lot of low quality content.
For example, Planable went from publishing three articles a quarter to consistently pushing 30 live during the same period – a tenfold increase in production. This led to an increase in organic growth of 176% in six months.
Content scaling includes content creation, but it does not mean content farming. You’re not looking simply to increase the number of pages on your website. You want to build strategic systems that will enable long-term growth.
Benefits of content scaling
Regularly adding fresh and valuable content to your site benefits you in several ways, including:
- SEO visibility – By regularly adding new content and optimizing your pages, you establish more keyword coverage, which gives you a larger presence in SERPs.
- Multi-channel visibility – You can repurpose your blog posts on social media sites like LinkedIn and X,as YouTube videos or share them via an email campaign without a full-rewrite.
- Full funnel coverage – Having a broader scope of content allows you to separately target people at each stage of the sales funnel.
- Lower marginal costs – Once you have your content scaling system in place, including systems and templates, you’ll find the content creation process is streamlined with a lower cost per post.
7 Proven strategies to scale content efficiently
In this section, I’ll give you a seven-step process you can use to make your content creation process more efficient and scalable.
1. Define your content scaling objectives
The first step in scaling is to establish what you’re hoping to achieve with this new content creation. You need to establish goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound (SMART).
For example, you could set the goal of publishing 20 SEO-optimized blog posts per month that are targeted at high-converting keywords by the end of Q2.
Having specific goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) help you maintain an overall vision while staying aligned with broader business objectives like lead generation, brand visibility and product education.
Having measurable statistics about your content also allows you to make data-driven decisions about its performance and adjust your strategy accordingly.
2. Build a content plan
The next step in your scaling process is to create a content plan, in which you outline the specific pieces you need to reach your business objectives.
For a content scaling process, using content clusters is an effective strategy. Use pillar pages around major topics, with supporting pages that explore various aspects of that topic in greater depth.
For example, a website targeting the topic “email marketing” might create several pillar pages focused on key subtopics like “automation,” “subject lines,” and “deliverability.” Each pillar page acts as the main hub for its topic.
The “subject lines” cluster, for instance, would be built around a central page covering subject line best practices. Supporting pages—like “subject line templates,” “A/B testing subject lines,” and “the psychology behind subject lines”—branch off from that main page to explore the topic in more depth.
Some ways you can identify words and phrases to build your content around include:
- Google autocomplete – type your seed keyword into the Google search bar and take note of the suggestions in the autocomplete.
- People also ask – further down SERPs Google usually includes a section showing questions related to your search.
- People also search for – At the bottom of search results, Google shows you other searches performed by people who entered the same query.
- Surfer Keyword extension – a free extension for the Chrome browser, which gives you fresh keyword ideas within Google search.
While these methods can give you keyword ideas, they don't give you a way to evaluate your ideas. Plus, you need to do the clustering of topics manually.
If you're conducting large-scale keyword research and need data on metrics like search volume and ranking difficulty, a dedicated topic clustering tool will serve you better.
Surfer's Topical Map has identified 51 topic clusters related to "email marketing".
3. Create a centralized content calendar
As your content project grows, the complexity associated with it also grows. To effectively manage your content creation process, you need a way to quickly and easily track and monitor deadlines, assignments and project status.
Create a centralized content calendar that is accessible to all stakeholders using a tool like Trello, Notion or Google Sheets.
You want columns or fields covering important information like:
- Topic
- Writer
- A link to the brief
- Due date
- Status
- Publish date
- Performance note
Here’s an example of a content calendar template from Notion:
4. Repurpose & reposition content
One of the keys to scaling content is finding ways to reuse things you have already written on different channels.
For example, a blog post can be used to create a LinkedIn post, which can be repurposed in a video or added to a newsletter. Once you start looking, you’ll find ways to reuse content everywhere.
To see how this works in the real world, consider this example: Salesforce had director of software engineering Sneha Singla create a blog post on AI personalization and how it can be used to generate better user engagement.
To expand the reach of this post, they repurposed some of the key information into a short LinkedIn video.
This allowed them to use the power and engagement of a video piece to support the blog post it linked back to. This expanded the reach of both, without the need for brand new content.
This same content could also be used in other social media channels or in an email campaign.
To streamline your content scaling, establish a repurposing workflow, in which new content is published and distributed, then sliced into standalone sections.
Surfer's Content Editor can create different social media post variations using the Repurpose feature.
5. Leverage AI & automation
One of the best ways to scale content production without sacrificing human oversight it to leverage AI and automation tools. Here's how that can look like with Surfer:
- Keyword research & clustering – Surfer’s Keyword Research and Topical Map will automatically group your keywords and topics, displaying a variety of clusters.
- Outline generation – Surfer's Content Editor can swiftly generate comprehensive content outlines, either based on SERPs or a specific template.
- Content writing – With Surfer AI you will have a ready-to rank article in just a few steps.
- On-page optimization – Surfer’s Content Editor gives you information on keywords to include, including secondary and long-tail keywords, content structure and internal linking. The Auto-Optimize feature will take care of the optimization for you.
- Repurposing content – Use the Repurpose feature inside the Content Editor or a custom template to get the job done.
- Performance tracking and reporting – Keep track of your performance in the Dashboard view and set up traffic goals.
- Automated workflows – Leverage the Surfer x Zapier integration to set up automated workflows.
With Surfer you can take care of your entire content creation and optimization workflow inside one platform.
6. Use templates and style guides for consistency
As your content production ramps up, the size of your content team also tends to rise. This is where templates and style guides are essential.
A clear explanation of your voice and tone will reduce onboarding time and help you keep a consistency, while maintaining an SEO approach, no matter who is working on a piece.
You should have standard templates for important stages of the content creation process, including content briefs that include keyword, tone, internal links and information about structure.
It’s also useful to have templates for outlines and established standard operating procedures for internal reviews and publishing.
You can use one of the recommended Surfer templates or choose to Add Custom Template.
And if you need some help to get that tone of voice just right, you can Add Custom Voice which will ensure each piece of content sounds just right.
7. Prioritize evergreen & scalable topics
While some content will naturally become outdated and require updates or removal, focusing on evergreen topics from the start helps maximize long-term ROI and minimize the need for frequent rework.
Evergreen topics are those that stay relevant over time and continue to draw visitors over their lifespan. You can find information about trending and consistently popular keywords by using Google Trends.
In the example below, you can see how search interest in "how to start a business" has largely remained constant over the past 12 months, making it an evergreen topic.
Choose topics that can easily scale across different personas or industries to get more mileage out of your content.
For example, a topic like “Best CRMs” can be scaled into “Best CRMs for real estate agents,” “Best CRMs for SaaS startups,” or “Best CRMs for solopreneurs.”
Once you have a good piece of content in one of these topics, you can turn it into a Surfer template and use it to efficiently build out a library of high-intent pages that drive targeted traffic at scale.
Challenges in scaling content – and how to overcome them
Content scaling comes with its own set of challenges. Here's how you can overcome them:
1. Maintaining quality at scale
Maintaining a high level of quality at scale requires a proactive and strategic approach with robust quality assurance standards.
To ensure your new articles are meeting or exceeding your minimum standards, you should introduce a QA process with clear review steps.
Use the tools you have available to facilitate this. Use Grammarly or Hemingway for basic grammar checks and ensure you reach a minimum Surfer content score for SEO quality. 75 is a good benchmark.
Make sure at least one human review is part of your QA process.
This is especially important for AI-generated pieces to ensure originality and maintain accuracy.
2. Staying true to brand voice
It can be hard to maintain a consistent brand voice when you’re working with multiple contributors. To prevent this issue and maintain consistency, clearly define your brand voice and tone in your content guidelines.
For example, Starbucks uses different tones for different types of copy. Both are clearly outlined in the brand guidelines, including when to use each.
Experienced writers will be able to mimic your approved tone.
You can also use Surfer's Tone of Voice feature to rewrite content so it can match your desired voice.
Make sure you have a review step dedicated specifically to tone and positioning. Look at the way things are said, rather than focusing on grammar and fact-checking to make sure you’re always representing your brand the right way.
3. Avoiding content saturation
Content saturation occurs when you have too many unrelated topics or repetitive content. It makes it difficult for your site to rank highly, as it can cause content cannibalization and a drop in traffic.
For example, HubSpot saw a dramatic decrease in organic traffic from August 2023 to January 2025.
There were several reasons for this, but one of the primary ones was an oversaturation of content. HubSpot went too broad with topics when creating blog posts and as a result lost topical authority.
Schedule regular content audits which can help you spot cannibalization opportunities.
Inside Surfer's Topical Map you can choose to Download Cannibalization Report.
Based on it, you can decide whether content needs to be pruned, refreshed or merged with other pieces.
4. Keeping up with algorithm & market changes
Google frequently updates its core algorithm. To maximize the reach of your copy and your organic traffic, you need to understand the impact this can have on your site.
There are a lot of resources at your disposal to help you stay abreast of algorithm changes, including Google Search Console, SEOFOMO and Search Engine Roundtable.
You’ll also want to monitor Google Search Console to keep an eye out for traffic drops or decreasing clickthrough rates. If you see them falling, flag those pages for closer examination.
Key takeaways
- Content scaling involves increasing content output without compromising quality, focusing on efficiency, consistency, and strategic breadth.
- Regularly adding valuable content enhances SEO visibility, multi-channel reach, full funnel coverage, and reduces marginal costs.
- Define SMART goals to guide your content scaling efforts and align with broader business objectives.
- Use content clusters and pillar pages to organize topics and support strategic growth.
- Manage complexity by tracking deadlines, assignments, and project status with a centralized tool.
- Maximize content reach by adapting existing pieces for different platforms and formats.
- Utilize AI tools like Surfer for keyword research, content creation, optimization, and performance tracking.
- Use templates and style guides to ensure a consistent brand voice and quality across all content.
- Prioritize content that remains relevant over time to maximize long-term ROI.
- Implement strategies to maintain quality, stay true to brand voice, avoid content saturation, and adapt to algorithm changes.
