Content is still King

I read a great article on search engine land by Damien Bianchi

The article was about refreshing content on your website and this made me start to think about some of the work I have done on sites and how that has affected rankings.

Content is King

Photo is from flickr

If you want to change the content on your site, you should consider for what reasons and which areas of the site.

You should also consider the SEO impacts. Do not just update the content for the sake of it. If the site is already ranking well, don’t change it. If you must amend some text, just amend a small area.

Damien Bianchi gives three tips to avoid having your rankings drop.

1. Run a rank report for all URLs that will be updated

I call this a benchmark report, you need to measure where you are currently ranking for your keywords. You should also see which keywords are driving the search traffic which will show the top priority URLs. I have helped clients change content on their website and have seen a drop in rankings for key terms. It has sometimes taken four weeks to see rankings get back to the positions they were previously. From my experience, another URL may be ranking for the key term which is an unexpected result for the market team.

2. Establish 301 redirects

If you are refreshing the content, it may include removing sections of pages or whole pages of the website altogether. If a page that is ranking well and is driving a lot of traffic is removed, then this traffic and link juice is not passed on to the new page. To avoid this valuable traffic and link juice from being lost, you should put a 301 redirect on that URL.

3. Carry out research and plan new content

When a client asked me for help with a content refresh and wanted help optimising pages, it involved a lot of research. It is important to use the seo tools such as Google keyword to find out the keywords that are driving the most volume. If you are working with the paid search team, it is also a good idea to find out the keywords generating the highest impression data and clicks. This is a more accurate representation of the terms that are driving the most traffic.

If you have any other experiences of content refresh where you have seen a change in rankings and traffic, let me know.

301 redirects vs 302

What is a 301 redirect and when do you need to use it?

This post will address the question and explain the difference between 301 and 302 redirects.

A 301 redirect is a permanent move from the old domain. It is the search engine friendly way to for redirecting your webpage. It should also preserve your search engine ranking for that page. It is the most efficient way of moving domains especially if you have to change file names.

As Matt Cutts explains, a 302 refers to the HTTP status code that you get in your browser when you request a page. A 302 status code means the page has moved temporarily to a new location.

Matt Cutts say that the 302 redirect can be on-domain or off-domain.

- On-domain 302 Redirect – the 302 temporary redirection is implemented in the same domain. The disadvantage it that it is simple and not prone to hijacking.
For example www.example.com/ecard.asp is redirected to www.example.com/ecard/new-year-2010.asp
- Off-domain 302 redirect – a redirect from one domain to another domain that are claimed to be temporary. When a search engine receives an off-domain 302 redirect, it should crawl, index and return the destination page.

A client asked me for advice when changing their content on the page. They were changing their page titles and the content and they wanted to know if they should implement a 301 redirect. You did not to use a 301 redirect unless you are changing the URL. This brings me to another point that was raised. The difference between underscore and hyphens in URLs.

Are hyphens and underscores seen as different by the search engine? The answer is yes, they are. Google does not treat underscores and hyphens the same – underscores are not counted as spaces.

So the URL:
“www.working-in-london.co.uk” is seen as different to “www.working_in_london.co.uk”
The search engine reads the later as “www.workinginlondon.co.uk”

However, from a user point of view, it probably isn’t a good idea to have both URLs as they look the same. Read more at Search Engine Journal