Updating Your Site Content

How are your numbers? Website traffic? Conversions? Sales? List size?

If your content isn’t performing as well as you expected, or older pieces you published months or years ago are no longer relevant or pulling their weight, it needs to be updated.

It’s time to optimize your underperforming content.

Tweaking, editing and rewriting old content can work wonders, not only with your audience, but with Google, as well. The goal is to improve the content so it will eventually start:

• Ranking on search engines.

• Getting read.

• Getting links.

• Gaining engagement such as shares or comments.

• Earning conversions.

How to Identify Underperforming Content

One of the best ways to identify underperforming content is by looking at your organic traffic using Google Analytics or something similar, like Clicky or StatCounter. 

How has the content performed on a monthly basis since it was published?

When did the content begin underperforming and why?

Did you stop linking to it? Did you stop sharing it on social media? Was it featured somewhere, but not anymore?

What would have made it better when it was originally published?

More information? Adding a video? Adding a survey?

Content can and should be improved on a regular basis. Don’t wait for it to underperform.

Technical SEO

Two of the most important ranking factors are that the site is mobile friendly and that it loads quickly.

Google prioritizes mobile using its Mobile First algorithm because since 2017, more than half of all Internet traffic has come from mobile devices. By 2022, that figure had risen to ~60% of worldwide traffic.

In fact, 92.1% of Internet users go online using a mobile phone, according to StatCounter.

Sites that are designed with only desktop in mind do not usually show up well on the small screen, but mobile-enabled sites usually show up well on desktop, so you’ll want to make sure your site is ‘responsive’ or mobile-friendly.

To verify that your site is mobile-friendly, use Google’s Mobile Friendly Checker 

Site speed is another important ranking factor, in-part because websites tend to load slower on Smartphones. For that reason, Google penalizes slow-loading sites.

You can measure your site’s speed and even get recommendations on how to improve it using a number of online tools, including Pingdom.

Is your site fully indexed by Google?

You can run a simple query to find out. 

site:yourdomainname.com/

The SERP will return a list of all pages indexed and list to total results at the top of the page.

This search won’t tell you what keywords you’re ranking for - only that they have indexed the pages.

You may also find pages that you would prefer not being indexed, such as download pages or some gated material.

If you find pages that have not been indexed, you’ll want to cross-link to those pages from other pages on your site.

Whether they’re indexed or not, if you’d like more traffic to certain pages, you can link to them from other pages on the site.

You may want to link from your top performing pages to get more eyeballs on the content. Find the top performers in your analytics package.

Is your content fresh?

Are you creating new content on a regular basis? Are you updating older content?

Search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo!, Yandex, etc. consider fresh and relevant content as a ranking factor.

Revising Content for a Sales Slump

If your sales are off, it could be for any number of reasons. If your traffic is steady, but sales are down, the offer may be the problem.

Is the product or service still of value? If not, you may want to change what you’re promoting.

If your offer is still valuable, you may want to promote it differently by changing image(s), copy or testimonials.

How are your reviews?

‘Prosumers’ do more product research online than ever before, which means they may evaluate your offer in as many as ten different sources. 

The term ‘prosumer’ was first used by Alan Toffler in his 1980 book, The Third Wave, as is defined as, “anyone involved in the design, manufacture, or development of a product or service.” 

Even if they’re not ‘officially’ involved.

Regardless, they are greatly involved in creating content (reviews, comments and testimonials) that can impact your conversions.

Why Reviews Are Important

80% of 18-34 year olds have written online reviews. 80%!

41% of consumers 55+ have also written reviews.

That’s a lot of reviews.

91% of 18-34 year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

89% of consumers read the business’s responses (so it’s important to respond in a timely manner). 30% says those responses to reviews are key when judging local businesses.

A BrightLocal survey shows that consumers pay most attention to the average star rating followed by the quantity of reviews then recency of reviews.

When asked, “Do you read online reviews to determine if a business is good or bad?” 93% said Yes!

57% of consumers will only use a business with a star rating of 4 or more.

Focus on the big things. What comes up most often?

I have restaurant clients and since the pandemic, the biggest complaint we’ve seen in their reviews is the cost of food.

We remind them that inflation is everywhere - that the high cost of gas affects the price of everything delivered and that food costs are roughly 30% of the cost of the sandwiches and sides that are served.

Responding to complaints puts things in context for your prospects and customers and it may discourage additional complaints.

It’s time to E-A-T!

Context, personalization and authority are three important factors for closing deals. Revising your content to improve context and authority can increase conversions.

Google uses similar evaluations with its E-A-T algorithm, which includes the Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust of both the content author and the site owner.

E-A-T is not a Ranking Factor, per se, but it affects how Google values your site to try and deliver the very best results for every query.

And now they’ve added Experience to E-A-T. 

You may be able to improve conversions of both new and older content by improving how Google evaluates your E-E-A-T.

An Offer That Converts + Qualified Traffic

I’ve said for years that there are many factors contributing to website success. Two of the biggest are creating an offer that converts and getting qualified traffic to the offer.

However, an offer that converted at one time may not convert as well today and almost any offer can be improved with proper testing and revision.

You can often find content that is not resonating with prospects. It’ll show up as a high Bounce Rate and lower Duration in Google Analytics. 

Other Factors Affecting Conversion

Your product range is limited. Highlight new products and improvements regularly.

Your competitor's website is prettier than yours. 

     Or it's better organized. 

          Or more functional. 

               Or better written.

Revise & Promote

Once your content revisions are complete, it’s time to promote it again, which will attract new readers and signal Google to re-crawl and re-evaluate your content.

Building natural new links always helps any content and adding one or two QUALITY links will be favorably received by the Google Gods.

Share it like it was brand new on Social Media; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TokTok, Instagram - any platform that your Target Personas use regularly.

In conclusion...

Is the site design 3 years or older? Consider revising the design and User Experience to be more competitive.

Is your site mobile-friendly?  If not, it’s time to make it so.

Do you have broken links or images? Fix ‘em!

Have your competitors updated their site recently? Evaluate and respond.

Are there new functions to add to your site? Ecommerce?

Pay attention to your Key Performance Indicators. Update whenever you can improve your content.