Despite all the changes that have transformed the online landscape, one golden rule has been inescapable: Content is king. But the thing about content is that it has a certain shelf life. You post a blog, it generates a few hits, and then it’s forgotten as Google’s algorithm moves on to the next big thing. So the solution there is obvious: Just make more content. But is there something else you could be doing, something that could breathe new life into your old content?
You could be sitting on a search engine gold mine.
You may not realize it, but you could be sitting on a search engine gold mine.
Your old content, gathering digital dust at the back of your server somewhere, is just a quick optimization away from generating new traffic and bringing even more potential customers to your site.
This reoptimization will not only help your efforts to improve your page rankings quicker and easier, it will also force you to go in and change any outdated information. Before you begin, you’ll want to take a look through old content and see which ones would benefit most from some reoptimization. Start with those pages featuring outdated content, whether it’s something as simple as updating data or eliminating anything that has since been discontinued. Take a look at organic traffic for each page and see which ones are seeing a slow decrease. Take a look at where the page sits in Google’s search results – if it’s past the second page, it’s going to be a lot trickier to move up.
It’s time to get to work.
Once you’ve identified older pages that could benefit from optimization, it’s time to get to work.
Start by running a test on TextOptimizer. This handy tool gives you some key words and phrases that you can use to place higher on search engines based on semantic analysis. There are paid and free versions of the tool, but essentially it gives you one-stop shopping for simple fixes you can make to ensure search engine algorithms are finding your page based on what your customers are looking for.
Next, you’ll want to close the keyword gap. This is a somewhat newer tactic, but highly effective for determining which keywords your competitors are capturing better than you are. You’ll want to use this if you see your page doing well for certain queries, but underperforming in others. Start by running a Google search on those keywords, and then running the top two results through Serpstat’s URL vs. URL tool.
It creates an easy-to-use Venn diagram showing where you and your competitor are both showing up, but more importantly where you’re not. It also breaks down these key terms your competitor is using that you aren’t, showing the relative value of each, giving you your marching orders for reinvigorating old content.
Go right to the source: Google.
Another great way to find keywords that could help you out is to go to right to the source: Google.
Or more accurately, their users. Google’s “searches related to” tool can give you a slew of helpful clues for terms to include in older content to give it a boost. Rather than being based on any kind of analysis, it’s based on user behavior, letting you reverse engineer insight into what your customers are searching for.
Once you’ve done all that, you should have at your disposal a brand spanking new list of keywords that will help boost your old content back to the front page of Google and keep that traffic rolling in. Either find ways to incorporate it into existing content, tweak h2 or h3 subheads to reflect these terms or even upload new images tagged with these terms and your old content will deliver like new again.
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