Marketing professionals want to keep their websites fresh with new content. This is understandable, as new content can help them stay ahead of trends, meet emerging customer needs, and improve their website’s SEO. However, it is important to avoid over-publishing new content. This can hurt a website’s rankings.
Improving your website’s SEO requires a two-pronged approach: creating new content and optimizing existing content. New content can help you attract new visitors while optimizing existing content can help you improve your rankings in search engines.
Let’s talk about New Content vs Optimized Content in detail and find out which one is better for you.
Know what you have
Smaller companies should perform an SEO audit at least once per year. Larger organizations may want to do audits more frequently.
Regularly reviewing old pages and creating new content are both important for improving your website’s SEO. When reviewing old pages, it’s important to make sure they are still accurate and up-to-date. You should also check to see if the target keywords are still relevant. You may need to update the title tag and meta description if not.
Even if a page is already ranking well, you can still improve its SEO by making a few updates. This could include changing an image or writing a new introduction. These “refreshes” can help your page get even more traffic.
It’s also important to keep an eye on the keywords your competitors are targeting. You can use keyword research tools like Ahrefs and Moz to help you with this.
You can use Google Search Console and Google Ads’ keyword planning tool to help you track keyword trends. This will help you identify new keywords to target and ensure that your existing content is still relevant.
Keeping older posts Up-to-date is Important
Most bloggers don’t update their old posts, but this can be a mistake. Out-of-date information can hurt your website’s ranking in search engines, and it can also be misleading to your readers.
Google’s algorithm takes into account the freshness of content when ranking websites. If your posts are out-of-date, they’ll be less likely to show up in search results. This is especially true if other websites regularly update their content with the same keywords.
In industries where accurate information is critical, such as healthcare and finance, out-of-date content can be even more harmful. For example, an old blog post about COVID-19 that contains outdated information could mislead readers about how to protect themselves from the virus.
To avoid these problems, it’s important to update your old posts regularly. This doesn’t mean you have to rewrite them from scratch. You can simply add new information, fix any errors, or update the formatting.
By keeping your old posts fresh, you’ll help your website rank higher in search engines and provide your readers with the most accurate information possible.
The Myth of Evergreen Content
Even evergreen content can become outdated. Topics that seem universally relevant, such as “how to write an effective email headline” or “how to make a good first impression at a new job,” can become outdated over time.
The design of the page may no longer match the current theme, the page may contain broken links or the value of the page may be diminished by its lack of links to newer pages on the website.
Outdated pages can hurt your SEO and credibility. If an e-commerce page doesn’t note that a product is out of stock, or if the packaging on the product in the image doesn’t match what will ship, it can lead to visitors questioning the credibility of your business.
Updating older pages can improve your SEO and save you time. Updating older pages is a great way to improve your SEO without having to create new content.
It takes much less time to update an existing page than it does to create a new one. The average blogger takes four hours to generate a blog topic, perform research, and write a new post. Updating an existing post can take as little as 30 minutes.
Properly-maintained pages can grow in value over time. It can take months for new pages to reach the top of a search engine results page (SERP). Quality older posts can remain at the top page, assuming you continue to build on the effort.
One reason for this is that, over time, more and more websites will link back to the page if it remains valuable. A page with many backlinks signals to the Google algorithm that the information is of high quality, which will lead to it being ranked highly.
New pages are Equally Important
New pages are still important for SEO. 92% of marketers say that new page creation is very or somewhat effective for SEO.
New pages allow you to target long-tail keywords. These terms may not get as many searches per month as the ones targeted on your website’s main pages, but they play a critical role in improving your SEO.
Fewer websites compete over long-tail keywords, which makes it much easier to rank highly for them. They also generally take less time to incorporate into text since they require less explanation given their specificity.
New pages allow you to capitalize on emerging search terms. For example, the term “ChatGPT” saw a staggering 400,000% increase in search volume year over year.
Sharing your brand’s commentary on the latest trends can demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the products and services you offer. It also deepens the relationships between you and your current and prospective customers by showing them you care about the issues most pertinent to them.
New pages can also play a significant role *
Best way to update old content?
There are many ways to update a blog post or page, here are some tips on how to update old content:
- Check for accuracy and relevance
Make sure that the information in your content is still accurate and relevant to your target audience. If it’s not, you’ll need to update it.
- Add new information
If there have been any new developments in your industry or niche, be sure to add that information to your content. This will help keep your content up-to-date and relevant.
- Don’t try to rewrite the entire content
If your content is still mostly accurate and relevant, you don’t need to rewrite it from scratch. Instead, focus on updating the parts that need it the most.
- Improve the writing
Take a look at the writing in your content and see if there’s anything that could be improved. This could include things like grammar, spelling, or clarity.
- Use a content optimizer tool
There are several content optimizer tools available that can help you to improve your content. These tools can help you to identify areas where your content can be improved, such as grammar, spelling, and keyword usage.
- Add images or videos
Images and videos can help to break up your content and make it more visually appealing. They can also help to improve your SEO.
- Update the title and meta description
The title and meta description are important for SEO, so make sure that they’re still relevant to your content.
- Promote the updated content
Once you’ve updated your content, be sure to promote it so that people can find it. You can do this by sharing it on social media, submitting it to directories, or writing a blog post about it.
Maintain a Balance between New Content vs Optimized Content
Maintaining a healthy balance between publishing New Content vs Optimized Content is crucial for maintaining a fresh and relevant website or blog.
- Set a schedule. Decide how often you want to publish new content and how often you want to update old content. This will help you stay on track and avoid getting overwhelmed.
- Prioritize your content. Not all content is created equal. Some content will be more important to update than others. Prioritize your content based on its importance, its relevance to your target audience, and its performance in search engines.
- Automate your content updates. There are several tools that can help you automate your content updates. This can free up your time so that you can focus on creating new content.
- Gather feedback from your target audience. Ask your target audience for feedback on your content. This will help you identify areas where your content can be improved, and it will also help you determine which content is most important to update.
- Track your results. Keep track of your results so that you can see what’s working and what’s not. This will help you adjust your content strategy as needed.
Conclusion
The best approach for you will depend on your specific goals and resources. If you’re looking to attract a large number of new visitors, then creating new content is probably the best option. However, if you’re already getting a good amount of traffic, then optimizing your existing content can be a more efficient way to improve your rankings.
Just keep in mind that improving your SEO takes time, effort, and dedication. It requires you to be patient, pay attention to detail, and be willing to experiment.
If you’re looking for help with your SEO, contact OTT SEO. We have a team of experts who can help you improve your organic search strategy and generate more qualified leads. We have helped our clients generate over 5 million qualified leads through our industry-leading digital marketing strategies. Contact us today for a free site review.