When it comes to SEO a large amount is written and spoken about backlinks, and that is understandable given the power that they can add to a website ranking. However, there are many things that website owners can do closer to home, which can also result in increased rankings.
What we are talking about are some strategies that are often overlooked or are simply not known by the website owners as actions that they can take with regards to the SEO of their website. They include onsite optimisations plus making use of tools that are available to you.
Updating Your Existing Content
One mistake many website owners make is that they think once a piece of content has been published on their website, that it is there for eternity and can basically be forgotten about. Existing content should be seen as something which is organic, and just like the plants in your garden, content can be given new lease of life.
This is especially true of articles and blog posts that you may have on your website and which are older than 12 months. It is likely that some of the content is out of date anyway, so it is not even of any use to someone who might happen to stumble across it while browsing your website.
In order to properly update your content, you need to take a 7-step approach as follows:
Select The Content To Be Updated: You will want to find articles that are getting most traffic, but which rank towards the bottom of the first page or are on page 2 of Google. You also want the content that has been written well but does not include the keywords you are trying to rank for.
Establish Your Starting Point: If you are going to assess how well the updates you are making work with regards to ranking, you need to note what the current position is. Check the ranking of your content now, so that you can compare it when you make the changes and updates.
Rewrite and Edit Your Content: Knowing which keywords you want the content to rank for, you can now update the content and include those keywords in it, without resorting to anything like keyword stuffing. You could update it further by adding new developments that are applicable and including recent examples of relevant news.
You might also want to include information about new products and services which you have released since the original content was published.
Increase The Length Of The Content: More does not always necessarily mean better, but in the case of SEO, longer content with larger word counts does seem to perform better than short content with low word counts, most of the time. It is important that you do not simply add a load of waffle to pad out your content. You want to increase its size by adding relevant and interesting material.
Make The Content Stickier: By sticky we mean in the sense that when someone lands on the content page, what they find means that they stick around for longer to read, look at and enjoy it. This can be achieved, not just by improving the text, but by adding multimedia elements such as images, infographics, or videos.
Remember time on the page is also a ranking factor, so the longer they are there the more Google will believe, and rightly so, that the content is good. When that happens, it can mean a positive boost to your rankings as Google now sees your content as providing a great user experience, otherwise, why would those visitors stick around.
User experience is now one of Google’s prime ranking factors so this is definitely one which you need to focus on, not just with this updated content, but any and all new content you create.
Implement Internal Linking: Not all backlinks need to come from other websites, and the practice of internal linking is a great way to share the ranking power of each and every page on your website. Create hyperlinks from your updated content to other pages, and likewise like from other pages to this page.
There is no hard and fast rule as to how many internal links you should seek to create, but you can try for 10 if the length of your content allows. Also, do not forget to add the occasional link out to other websites, as this adds to Google seeing all these links as being added and applied naturally.
Make Today The Publishing Date: Most content platforms such as WordPress allow you to edit the date that a piece of content is shown to be published so when you are finished updating, change the publish date to today. This not only lets visitors see it is fresh content, but Google sees it as new content too and will recrawl it.
