A neglected way to be found in more web searches
Michael Gray
I help companies that serve accountants create marketing communications to increase sales and build relationships.
Last week, I was able to attend an American Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) boot camp event, featuring Neil Patel.
Neil is highly respected as an online marketer. His company, NP Digital, compiles and analyzes a lot of data about online marketing results, including search engine optimization (SEO).
According to Neil, blog posts (and web content) aren’t being updated enough. He suggested that for every new post, seven should be updated. When search engines evaluate the ranking of websites, they try to determine how useful they are to online searchers. One of the indicators of usefulness is the “freshness” of content. For example, one reason Wikipedia is one of the most highly ranked information sites is it’s updating content daily.
Most of us are so focused on generating “new” content that we neglect what we have already posted.
When deciding what content to update, consider what your target searchers are likely to be searching for, called search intent. Your own statistics should indicate which posts were previously popular and that have fallen in search results. Also analyze search statistics for the same subject on the web overall. You’ll get the biggest payback for popular subjects relating to your products or service.
Consider adding examples that are more current and more relevant, or add examples that were originally omitted.
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Include actionable advice and cut irrelevant detail.
The content that gets the most engagement tends to be “How to” (38.53%) and “Listicles” (like “13 ways to…”, 32.71%).
Instead of using a new URL, keep the URL of the content you’re updating. The search robots will note the update.
Updating blog posts and other web content represents a neglected, significant opportunity to improve your website’s search results and be found by more web searchers.
Doing this update also requires a lot of work. Would you like some help updating your web content? I’m available to help a few clients. Contact me at [email protected] to schedule a preliminary discussion.