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.

Love your website

It is Valentine’s day, the day you are supposed to tell people how much you love and care for them.

Those that want to increase traffic to their website, must love their site. I do not mean this in some weird way. You must simply spend time on your site, making sure that you add fresh content, optimising the title tags and the images.

Valentine's Day cupcakes

I am guilty of not spending enough time on my website. I would like to update it daily, but I simply do not have time with a full time job that eats into my evenings. And then if I am out networking, I cannot update the blog that day. There are many people in this situation, working long hours and busy social/networking lives.

You can come up with all the excuses for not working on your site, but you just have to make time. Here are a few tips on how to get the most time to work on your website.

1. Spend just 30 minutes a day during the working week researching ideas, writing posts for your site. If you do not have time to publish the post, just save it as a draft and come back to it the next day.

2. Check the analytics
It is really important to see where your traffic is coming from. See what keywords people have used to find your site, this can give you ideas for new posts on your blog or new pages on your website.

3. Images
A picture paints a thousand words. Add images and optimse them with relevant alt tags on your website. Pictures catch the eye of people looking at your site and will encourage them to stay and read on.

4. Write interesting articles
Do not just write for the sake of it. Make sure you have something of value to add. I write about my experiences with seo and some of my posts are therefore written from a subjective perspective, such as the post about 301 and 302 redirects.

5. Spell check and edit
If you do not have time to add to the site, make sure you are regularly going back to read your older pages/posts. Make sure you do not have any spelling mistakes. Many sites have spelling mistakes on their site, often because they rush the editing.

6. Fun
Remember, having a website should be fun. It should not be a chore to update and change the website. If this is the case, then you should get rid of it.

The photo is gabby’s cupcakes from flickr.