What do you do to make sure that all the content on your site is still relevant? Why is this even important? It seems that for some of you, the biggest problem with blogging is... However, you want to see relevant content in your existing posts. And this could very well become an even bigger problem! In this article, I will explain why it is so important to have fresh content on your website. And then I'll give you some tips on how to achieve this.

Why is relevant content important?

Since you don't want people to find information on your site that is no longer valid, it's important to keep your content up to date. If you have optimized your post well, chances are that people will find it through search engines. First of all, this is the whole essence of its optimization. Imagine a blog that dispenses SEO tips to its readers. Old posts should not contain advice that no longer works. People would make terrible mistakes with their SEO strategies.

Why is fresh content important for SEO?

Keeping content fresh is also important for SEO reasons. If you rewrite an article, Google will notice changes in that particular article. If you update your content regularly, you are actually showing Google that your site is alive and up to date. You can either update the article (with or without changing the date) or republish the post.

1. Most importantly: update your cornerstone articles

My most important tip for keeping your content relevant is to focus on your top articles. These articles should become the best articles on your website. For these articles you want to stand out in searches and therefore they should be updated first.

A simple example. I write about blogging and SEO optimization content. The most important article is. Every week I add new post about this theme. I'm doing some research for this. I learn about new features and trends. These new discoveries should also be covered in my main (cornerstone) article. So I regularly take the time to update my complete guide. And you should do the same!

2. Update posts that generate a lot of traffic

Updating can be labor intensive. And if your site gets really big, this could become your main job! If you're faced with deciding which articles to update first, take a look at which pages generate a lot of traffic. And start with them. These are the pages that your audience actually sees. They have the highest priority when displaying fresh content.

3. Delete posts that are truly outdated

As your blog grows and you post a lot on it, some of your content will just slowly become outdated. Some posts are consistently popular, but not all. If no one reads the articles, you might decide to delete them en masse. This will clean up your site nicely! If you decide to delete a post, be sure to read about how.

Do you know all the entry points to your site? Are you sure that the user will turn into a buyer, regardless of which page he lands on?

We won't talk about proper structure and usability. Let's talk about what to do with existing pages, how to understand that some of them are irrelevant or “not working.”

Pay attention to 3 main indicators: bounces, traffic and conversion.

High bounce rates

A visitor's refusal is considered to be viewing one page for less than 15 seconds.

Bounce rate affects more than just the page's position in search results, but also for sales. In fact, this is an omission of the target customer. Refusal to further explore your site is a clear indicator that the visitor did not like the page in some way.

Advice from eTXT. There is no single measure of normal failure rate. For service sites, failure rates are approximately 6–18%, for online stores - 25–37%, for information resources - 30–50%. Everything is individual. Try to improve this parameter, and then, probably, your positions for all queries will improve, since this is a clear positive signal for search engines.

Best eTXT copywriters:

681 / 2

230 / 0

127 / 0

429 / 1

921 / 11

617 / 10

3 / 0

You can identify pages with the highest bounce rate in Yandex.Metrica like this:

• “All reports” - “Sources” - “Sources: summary”
• Select the time period - quarter
• Grouping by “Login Page”

We sort by the “Bounces” column and see which pages have a higher bounce rate: you need to work with them first.

What exactly should I do?

Find out what queries lead users to a “low-quality” page. Also in Yandex.Metrica, in the “Grouping” menu, add the “Search phrase” parameter to the “Login Page”. The most popular pages and the phrases that lead to them.

In our example, the phrase “smartphone for 1000 rubles” has the highest bounce rate - 13.9%.

Having opened the article, we understand that the user did not find what he wanted:

Options for changing content:

• find and offer the reader smartphones for exactly 1000 rubles (since the page is in the top for such a request),
• remove such keywords from the article and “tailor” the page to a query, for example, “smartphones for 2000 rubles.”

Advice from eTXT. You can't just add a set of keywords to old text. Search engines view such methods negatively. It is best to rewrite the article again, adding the correct keys. The subject and URL of the page should remain the same, but the meta tags can be updated. After changing the content, positions may drop, this is normal - soon there will be new positions for new requests.

What else can affect visitors’ refusal to view your page:

• overkill with advertising blocks,
• “dim” solid text without accents or formatting,
• low page loading speed,
• lack of navigation and further paths to explore the site.

Think, improve every page.

Reduced traffic

If there is a noticeable drop in traffic on some pages, this is a sign that the content is not liked by users or search engines.

Particular attention should be paid to this for multi-page sites that periodically experience a loss of traffic on individual pages, but this is imperceptible against the backdrop of the scale.

Advice from eTXT. Adjusting the content on a page and bringing back traffic is much easier than attracting users to new pages.

What to do?

First, you need to find pages where traffic has noticeably decreased. We use Yandex.Metrica:

1. “Standard reports” - “Contents” - “Login pages”

2. in “Grouping”, select the “Search engines” item so that it is clear from which PS the traffic to the page comes from:

3. select a period of six months to see the change in traffic clearly.

If there are a lot of pages, choose 3–5 to display so that you can see on the graph which one is “falling”.

Example (period - six months):

We see a clear drop in the red curve. Using the URL address, we look at what the article is and from which PS the traffic is dropping - an article about “Translation Transformations”, visitors from Google.

Such articles are most often in demand among students, so a surge during sessions is natural. We check by looking at the period for the year:

The seasonality of the request is clearly visible in the graph: August and early September are “dead” times for students.

What can cause a drop in traffic:

1. Irrelevant content on the page:

• If you sell ice skates, it's natural for your traffic to decrease in the summer.
• Irrelevant materials - “How to mark New Year 2013” ​​or “Best Refrigerator of 2010”. Dates need to be monitored and updated along with the page content.
• Products that have gone out of sale, for example, Nokia 1110. In this case, you can at least stop the decline in traffic by offering similar products and comparing their characteristics.

2. PS restrictions may be imposed on a separate page, for example, for:

• overspam
• duplicate content
• non-unique content

If your content is relevant and answers the user's question, it's worth considering. Check everything possible options and act immediately, because the entire site may fall under sanctions.

3. Technical errors due to which the page becomes inaccessible: changing the url address, accidentally closing the page from the index, non-working code and others. Before you panic, check whether the page is even accessible for indexing by search engines and is displayed correctly?

Advice from eTXT. Update existing content regularly: add comments, complete articles. This lets search engines know that the site is being monitored and traffic can be directed to it.

Low page conversion

Page conversion is a percentage showing the ratio of users who visited the page and those who took any desired (targeted) action. For example, they clicked the “buy” button, “call”, “download”, viewed a certain number of pages, etc. If people, when they get to your page, do nothing, this is most often bad - it means you did not convince them.

How to check page conversion in Yandex.Metrica

1. Set up goals on the site - determine the action you need from the visitor (place an order, register, depth of views, click on advertising, etc.).

2. After setting the goals, create a report: “Standard reports” - “Contents” - “Login pages”.

3. In the “Metrics” section, select “Target Metrics” and specific goals, the achievement of which we want to see:

4. Let's look:

Two goals have been selected (displayed in the last two columns), they are of the same type (clicking on advertising blocks inside and after the article):

In this case, special attention should be paid to articles where not a single goal has been achieved or only one of two of the same type is achieved. Let's look at an article that shows a significant difference in achieving goals - “Choosing a webcam for streaming.”

In our particular case, it is enough to add advertising blocks, and the problem will be fixed, the page will work in full.

What else can you do to improve conversion:

1. Check what is written in the PS snippet - what do people see before visiting your site? What do they expect to see? Are you meeting their expectations?

Advice from eTXT. Change the snippet. Check through the search which fragment Yandex chose as a snippet and correct this part of the article, making it more attractive.

2. Check if the page responds to the request. If the user comes across the request “order a product”, then there should be an order button on the page, if “latest news” - then the current one information content, if “find out the definition” - then the page should contain detailed explanation, etc.

3. Look at the design of the page from the outside: does it have pictures, headings, lists, buttons, etc. Is it clear what actions you expect from the visitor?

4. Check what the user sees when they get to your site - what is the first screen like? Are there call-to-action buttons or is it all advertising?

6. Is registration necessary to achieve the goal, or is registration the goal? In any case, simplify it or remove it completely, if possible. Authorization via social networks - best option for most users.

Think, analyze, improve!

2 more reasons to update content

Low uniqueness of content and errors in texts. There is an opinion that search engines pay less and less attention to uniqueness, and they do not know how to check errors at all. But should you believe the rumors?

Uniqueness

Checking the entire site for uniqueness with the eTXT program is quick and convenient. To do this, you will need to install the program on your computer - it is completely free.

If non-unique fragments or even pages are found, check whether traffic on this page has dropped. If yes, it is better to rewrite the entire article, perhaps search engines They think that your site is not the original source.

Advice from eTXT. When adding a new unique article to the site, use the “Webmaster: New Texts” service.

Errors on the site

If you do not have your own full-time proofreader, submit the entire site for verification - the best option. If you think that there can be no errors in your texts, submit at least one or two articles for verification. If errors are found, the proofreader will point them out to you, and this will be a reason to check the entire site.

Let's sum it up

All three indicators are closely interconnected, you need to work on them regularly, and update the content - only then will it always be relevant and effective. Remember, search results contain pages, not sites.

Ordering content and services on the eTXT Exchange allows you to solve many problems associated with the low efficiency of content marketing. Select the most suitable copywriters, rewriters, use the services of our proofreaders and the program for checking the uniqueness of texts. All this will help improve the quality of your content and the success of brand development.

Are you increasing traffic to your website by implementing a content marketing strategy? If so, then you know how valuable a resource this set of techniques is for a website owner. The only downside to content marketing is that it takes a lot of time to create content that is worthy of your audience's attention. It’s not just a matter of wasting time as a resource on developing worthy online content, but also the fact that many website owners have a hard time coming up with the ideas that serve as its foundation. This article is intended as a guide to turning existing content into new content in seven different ways.

1. Extract topics for new articles from comments on your blog

Do your blog readers often leave insightful comments? The success of a blog is determined by the ability of its author to captivate the reader so much that he will certainly leave a comment on the article after reading it. Often visitors notice nuances that the author might have missed. Either readers object to him on something, give arguments in favor of a different point of view, thereby joining in a fruitful discussion. From time to time (depending on the number of comments on your blog content), someone will leave a comment that is quite suitable for writing a completely new article based on it.

If, while reading the comments on your blog, you suddenly find one among them that immediately makes you think of a new article, then you should proceed as follows:

* Take your time, think carefully, make sure the topic is worth covering.
* Contact the author of this comment and ask permission to use his/her comment as the basis for your article.
* Write an article, remembering to cite the person whose comment formed the basis for its idea.
* Send a link to the article to the commenter to show him/her what you ended up with.

2. Turn eBooks into blog posts

E-books are an excellent marketing tool for website owners. The benefits of using e-books:

* Ability to supply your audience useful information on specific issues.
* More detailed coverage of the topic than when writing a standard article.
* Huge potential for SEO promotion.
* Securing the author's reputation as an expert on this topic.
* Suitable for use as a channel for collecting information about your readers (for example, "Include your name and address Email, and you can download our e-book for free").

As you can see, if you haven't gotten your hands on writing e-books yet, it might be worth a try. E-books provide another benefit to website owners - they allow them to "cut out" new content from the old one. Some time after the publication of the e-book, you can start posting its sections in the form of independent articles. Of course, you don’t need to reproduce its contents word for word on your blog; you can make a selection of fragments, supplement them with fresh data, and then publish them. Once you decide to present your e-book as a collection of articles, proceed as follows:

* Re-read your e-book to identify sections that are interesting and could be reproduced as stand-alone articles - look for passages that you have something to add to, as well as chapters on topics that have undergone some recent revision, so you can update your material by re-publishing it as a blog post, etc.
* Select each fragment suitable for turning into an article and come up with names for them.
* Start processing the material - either expand the topic or vary the finished content.
* Optimize new article for ease of search and publish it on your blog.

3. Evolve LinkedIn Discussions into Blog Posts

Have you ever participated in a discussion within the LinkedIn community about a certain topic? Community social LinkedIn networks- an excellent resource for communicating with people with similar interests to yours within a certain topic. Any member of the LinkedIn community can ask for a discussion on any topic within the range of common interests of the group. For example, if you were a member of the LinkedIn marketing community, you might start discussing the latest features on Twitter, how to solve marketing problems through the Foursquare network, etc. After a new discussion is announced, each community member has the right to express their opinion on the issue brought up for discussion in the form of a comment. Thus, an open dialogue develops on a given topic. For most people, this is usually enough. And creative website owners get ideas for new blog posts from LinkedIn discussions.

During LinkedIn discussions, someone always makes an interesting point or a comment that is quite suitable for further development into a more extensive opus. For you, creative website owners, this is the opportunity you've been waiting for. You can take a LinkedIn discussion and turn it into a blog post on your website. This is done like this:

* Look through the LinkedIn discussion again, make sure it is enough for an entire blog post.
*Contact someone involved in this discussion and ask permission to link to them.
* Write an article mentioning this LinkedIn community, the discussion itself and its participants.
* Post a note, return to the LinkedIn discussion page and leave a comment there with a link to your article.
*Thank the LinkedIn discussion participants for the opportunity to use their comments in your post.

4. Turn blog posts into web pages

Do a couple of high-impact articles on your blog consistently outweigh the rest of your site's online content in terms of attracting visitors? If so, has it ever occurred to you to turn these articles into separate pages for your website? Some articles, depending on their topical focus, would look great as website pages. Here are examples of note topics that allow you to expand their volume to full-fledged web pages:

Website owners often publish blog posts on the above topics, which begin to attract a large percentage of traffic to the entire site. As a website owner, you would do well to not overlook the clear value of these articles to the many visitors to your site. Those of you who don't find these materials would probably benefit from having such articles featured more prominently on your website. This is where the ability to turn articles into web pages comes in handy. If you already have notes ready to be turned into web pages, then proceed with them as follows:

* Select 1-2 articles for this moment attracting more traffic to you through search than all others, AND thematically suitable for elevating to the rank of web pages on your site.
* Create a new web page on your site and fill it with your text.
*Read new page, making edits and formatting the article to meet web page standards.
* Test the page and click on the "Publish" button.

5. Create online videos from blog posts

Are you thinking about increasing the share of online video in your resource content this year? The cost and turnaround time for professional online video production has dropped dramatically compared to just a few years ago. It's easier than ever before to get online video for your website, and I encourage anyone reading this article to at least consider using it on your site in some form or another.

So you've decided to increase the amount of online video on your website. Shine! What will this “movie” be about? This is not an idle question. Just like when writing blog posts, many website owners struggle to find topics and stories for online videos. One of best solutions in such a situation, scroll through your blog posts and look for articles on topics that can be covered through interesting (and short) online videos. Recycle and transform these blog posts into online videos.

If you want to turn blog posts into online videos, follow this plan:

* Search your blog for posts on topics that can be covered through interesting online videos.
* Look through each article and decide what you will focus on in your video.
* Skip the fluff as you need to keep your online videos within 30 seconds to 1 minute (if possible).
* Write a script based on a blog post.
* Prepare your filming equipment and awaken your own talent.
* Set a date/time for video shooting.
* Take video footage.
*Edit it.
* Publish your video to YouTube or your own website.

6. Turn single blog posts into multi-part posts

Have you ever written really long blog posts? It definitely happened to me. As a rule, I have a lot of thoughts that really want to be put into words, and all of them are equally important. I think there are probably a lot of such people. I'm sure if you look at your blog right now, you'll find several articles that fall under the definition of "too long." And perhaps you will also find articles in the “could write more” category there. Why not take advantage of this situation by breaking up one blog post into a series of articles?

How this method What’s good is the ability to look through all your previous publications and start “serially” breaking down the longest articles, supplementing each new note with fresh information and publishing them one at a time. In addition, you may look through your blog and find a number of notes there that clearly require continuation. In this case, instead of adding information to the finished article, simply make it a series, writing one or two notes after it. Here's how to do it:

* Compose full list articles that you think can be supplemented and developed.
* Find one or two additional topics related to the source material.
* Write articles.
* Publish one and plan in advance the release of the remaining “series” by dates.
* Return to the original version of the note and add links to the second and third parts after their publication; in this way you can attract the attention of readers of the first article to its continuation.

7. Turn tweets into blog posts

Do you use Twitter? For sure! Twitter is a great channel for connecting with your website visitors, both current and future. It's also very handy for driving traffic back to your website or blog! I discovered another valuable property of Twitter - it is a real nursery where the seeds of interesting ideas sprout with new content. Whether I'm sending a tweet or receiving it, I often find myself thinking that I... um... should probably write a note about it. Twitter is designed to be a means of sharing information, and when people share information, many new ideas are born. The best way to use this phenomenon to your advantage is to turn “tweets” into blog posts. If you are looking for this good way, then follow our method:

* Re-read the “tweet” several times and think hard about whether it is enough for a whole note.
* If someone else's "tweet" gave you an idea, contact the person who posted this information on the feed and get permission to write an article with a link to the original Twitter message.
* Write an article mentioning the author of that very “tweet”.
* Post your “tweet” and send a link to the person whose message inspired you so much; thank him.

It's up to you!

Everything has to be updated at some point: Mailbox, wardrobe, hairstyle and music collection. Unfortunately, content is no exception. Each article is like a loaf of bread that tends to go stale. Maybe not as fast as bread, but still. Updating content takes less time and effort than creating new content, so don’t be lazy and get to work! You will learn exactly how to “revive” your content from our tips.

Why update content?

Reason 1. Many people think that you shouldn’t do this, since old articles are buried in the depths of your blog and no one will see them. But this is a misconception because your old articles will also show up in searches and provide irrelevant information. And anyone who once found outdated information from you is unlikely to come again.
Reason 2. Not every reader who is now familiar with your blog read it a month or a year ago. And even if you read it, it’s not a fact that you read every article published. By updating your content, you will give it a second wind and give your readers “new” useful and relevant information.

Which articles exactly need to be updated?

1) Identify your least read posts
Blog analytics will help you with this. Please note the following:

Most in a simple way find out how many times your article has been shared on social networks - using a universal tool for tracking links to web pages in different in social networks Shared Count. This service works with seven popular social networks at once: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Delicious and StumbleUpon. All you need to do is enter the link of the post, news, article, and then the program will show you the number of shares, likes and comments on social networks. This way, look for articles that are shared less frequently.

2) Determine the relevance of the content
In addition to metrics, you need to track the relevance and relevance of the content. For example, users of your site have recently begun to ask questions about subscriber segmentation, and you have previously written a detailed article on this topic, which is located somewhere in the bowels of your blog. Instead of writing a new article on the topic, which Google might identify as duplicate content, simply update the article you've written and add some color to it.

Methods and tips for revitalizing content

1. Use old post with the original URL. We recommend keeping the same URL so that Google does not consider your updated article to be duplicate content. To do this, take your old post, update its contents and save.

2. If you change the name, at least keep the keywords. Keywords should be left the same in order to appear higher in search results and receive visitors by keywords. Try not to change the title of the article radically; it is better to leave it similar to the original.

3. Editor's note. If you have updated an article, but there are still old user comments on it, we suggest that the editor leave a small note under the updated entry to clarify the situation. Here's what you can add at the end of your republished content:

4. Content accuracy. Over time, some parts of the article become outdated and lose their relevance. For example, old statistics, examples, information about a new product, past events, etc. How to fix this situation? Read your article again and look for what is outdated. The first step is to remove the parts that are no longer relevant and add new headings to the parts that need to be slightly changed and expanded.

Follow these tips to keep your content up to date:

• Remove irrelevant content
• Update an outdated blog post
• Replace outdated data and examples with more recent and relevant ones
• Update screenshots if necessary. This is especially important for step-by-step tutorials
• Add modern success stories and cases
• Check and replace internal links (especially if there are currently resources that better cover the information you need)
• Update your CTA. After you update the article, evaluate whether the existing call to action is appropriate for the changed content.

5. Optimize your meta description. The meta description doesn't affect your content's ranking, but it can affect your search click-through rate. Make sure your meta description accurately reflects what the article is about and is enticing enough for people to click on the link from search.

6. Publish updated content! Once you've done all the previous steps to update an outdated article, it's time to publish and give it a second life. And now is the time to think about how else you can notify readers about the “new” article. Effective tools are email and push notifications.
Send push notifications immediately after the article is published. They arrive instantly on the user's desktop even if the browser is turned off.

An email can be sent as a digest of articles for the week or as a separate letter announcing one article, like this