What is Content Decay?
There are 4.4 million blog posts posted every single day. That’s a lot of content to compete with. Google prioritizes fresh, new content over older content that hasn’t been updated in a long time. With so much new content being posted every day, you can’t allow your website to become a victim of content decay.
Your ranking in SERP falls naturally over time because of the way Google (and other search engines) work. You’ll likely lose your SERP spot out to new competitors. However, there are ways to fix your content and avoid content decay.
How Does Content Decay Affect SEO?
If you allow your content to decay, you will experience a steady decrease in your organic ranking according to analytics tools like Google Analytics. Because content decay causes you to lose your high ranking, it can also cause a decrease the traffic that comes to your site. A decrease in traffic often also means a decrease in customers and income. A drop in ranking that keeps your site on the first page can still greatly affect the traffic your website receives every day. This is why it’s necessary for your website to be optimized for search engines.
You should use your Google Analytics account or another free tool to check your keyword rankings. Checking where your pages rank can help you assess your own site, helping you decide what pages need updating and which don’t.
How to Deal with Content Decay for Organic Traffic?
You put time and effort into your content. If it was once a post or page with high traffic or a high ranking, getting rid of it completely isn’t going to help anyone. You should refresh your content and add new information to bring it up to date. Google and other search engines will consider this new content, as updating your content changes the posting date.
If your website needs a content refresh, you should use the following tips and tricks:
Expanding the Word Count
Studies show that the average word count of blogs and pages that rank on the first page of Google is 1,447. If your blog post doesn’t have at least one thousand words, you should consider going back in and updating it. If the subject doesn’t have room for more content, you shouldn’t force it. But adding new content and expanding upon old concepts with new ideas is always a good strategy.
Tackle articles with a low word count first, around 500-800 words. You should also focus on content that ranks low (on the second or third page) and ignore anything that ranks lower than that. You can always go back and update more content in the future, but work on the “almost there” content first.
Updating Outdated Figures
If you included any figures that showcase statistics or data within your content, make sure to update those as well. You don’t want to have any outdated data on your website when there’s new, fresher data available. If you change your content, but not your figures, you will likely confuse readers, which may cause them to click away from your content and return to their Google search.
If you add any new data or information that would benefit from a figure, you should add that as well. Figures and infographics are important, as people have different learning styles. Some may better understand written information, while some may understand an infographic easier.
Building New Internal Links
If your content is old, your internal links are likely old too. With all the content you’ve written since then, there’s bound to be more links you can add. Internal links serve as an internal network for your website, allowing viewers to click through pages to find exactly the information they’re looking for without ever touching the menu or having to search for it.
Decaying content will likely have old links to other decaying content, so freshening these up can really boost your ranking. Just make sure that you’re linking to strong content that ranks well.
Combining Overlapping Content
If your website has similar content that doesn’t rank well, you might want to consider combining some of those pages. Having one strong page is much better than having three weak ones. Make sure that the topics are related and fit together well. When you combine overlapping content, you should also update all information and add more links to make sure it’s as fresh as possible.
Should I Hire an SEO Company to Manage My Content?
Yes. Site Social SEO is a full-service digital marketing firm that works with small businesses to rank online. We produce high-quality content for our clients that is based on keyword rankings, content marketing principles, and user-friendliness. This is the trifecta for a content marketing strategy that will gain your website organic traffic. As an SEO company, we use the industry-leading content decay tool and analytics account to collect console data to track content decay to continually update your website.
To see how we can help your business grow, contact us online or call us at 407-712-0494.
