If you spend a significant amount of time doing internet searches, you've probably encountered links that take you to outdated websites or websites that are of no use. These websites exist because businesses often neglect to do content optimization, which is an integral part of any digital marketing strategy. Keeping things fresh and engaging takes some time and effort, but the results can be well worth it, and doing so may not be quite as expensive as you think.
Do I Need an SEO Refresh?
If you've managed to drive traffic to your website, but the audience finds the content stale or obsolete, they won't stay there long. That audience will quickly search out the competition and take their business to sites that more directly offer the content they seek. Not staying fresh can also lower your SERP rankings; Moz explains that although no one knows exactly how Google search algorithms work from day to day, they most likely measure documents for freshness and score them accordingly.
They theorize that the highest-ranking websites have content about regularly recurring events like recent corporate earnings, trending news stories, sports scores, popular media stars and the like. Current content on social media is also very beneficial, and these platforms are updated every single second. If you are not on top of your game when something is newsworthy, your competitors will leave you in the dust.
Keep in mind that Google can also rank pages based on their original creation dates and how often the content is updated. They consider new body content more than things like comments and new advertisements, too. Newer SEO content pages, new internal and external links and new media like videos can also boost your rankings. These updates can lead to more user engagement, which also signals freshness to the algorithms.
Prepping to Update SEO Content
With an SEO refresh, you can retain and strengthen much of your content to encourage Google to reconsider it. Torque calls content optimization a "secret weapon," explaining that while many companies focus on creating new content, updating what is there is a great way to improve your site's SEO and performance. Creating high-quality content from scratch is not always easy, especially with limited resources. So how can you do an SEO refresh for higher rankings, increased traffic and more conversions?
The first part of an SEO content update is to analyze what you already have. Google Analytics can help with this in their Behavior > Site Content > All Pages. This information can show you which of your pages get the most traffic and time spent on them. You will also want to study the links, conversions and other metrics and then decide which pages need updating. Start with a few pages or about 10 to 30 posts; otherwise, you may get overwhelmed.
The next part is keyword research, which is crucial because people may have forgotten what they were searching for as little as a few weeks ago. Update your keyword strategy by adding and removing keywords. Newer strategies implement more specific keywords that use a longer-tail, like "nurseries that sell pink roses in Sacramento." As this example shows, local search is massive: Hennessey Digital claims that 46 percent of all Google searches are initiated by users seeking out local information.
Strategic SEO Content
People lose interest quickly, and industry experts claim that while 80 percent of people might read a headline, just 20 percent go on to read the rest of the content. Improving headlines on old posts can draw in new audiences and get more clicks. Many marketers prefer to do this after the content is written or updated, but you should always base headlines on keyword research.
Next, look over the content for any statistics or research data there. If you have a link to a study from 2008, the chances of people being interested in that is much lower. Also, click all outbound links because some of them may be broken. Not only is that very bad for SEO, but it is very frustrating for users. Do all of this with the site's internal links, and be sure to incorporate new ones as you add new content.
Today's top websites have multi-media throughout, like infographics, photos, surveys, visuals, and more to come in the future. Any outdated ones should be removed and replaced. Adding photos and videos is not as difficult as it used to be, but you can outsource these services if you are not familiar with these technologies. If you have a blog, remember to post regularly and spice things up with photos and other media.
More SEO Refresh Tips
Today's digital consumers are more intelligent than ever and quickly pick up grammar and spelling mistakes. These errors may not be apparent to you, but they can eat away at the credibility and authority of your website and social media postings. Grammar and spell-checking tools can help with this, but well-written content that is engaging and easy to comprehend outshines its competition by miles.
Not everyone is a good writer, of course, and if you have hit a roadblock, it's good to check out your competitor's websites for inspiration. Of course, plagiarism is against the law, so you can't steal content and repurpose it for your own needs. Here are some helpful tips for content writing, and if you still feel stymied, reach out to a company, like Wordsmyth Creative Content Marketing, that provides these services and other ways to improve and refresh your content.
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