Website Traffic Analysis
In recent years Google have tweaked and updated their search algorithm on numerous occasions, and as we now look at a more quality based search the need for old tactics and indeed old content to be removed from sites is paramount to future growth and success. However, it is still important to keep so old content on the site because you could lose any SEO benefit you have already built up from them. The key to this strategy is removing what you need and freshen up what you can.
Where do we start with addressing these problems then? The answer is first in researching…
• Finding the Content That Needs Work
There are many ways you can locate the content that isn’t doing so well, and usually your first priority is to delve deep into Google Analytics to help provide some insight into pages that are either not getting visits from organic search, have poor bounce rates and exit rates, or where visitors just don’t spend enough time on that page to convert.
By looking into the landing page data in Analytics you will be given access to all this information which can help you begin to draw up patterns on the pages that have issues. Perhaps the content is too long for modern day best practice methods or perhaps the content is just simply out-dated with old facts, figures, data and information. All these can not only lose you traffic but they can be brand damaging.
• Deleting the Content that is not Being Linked Too
After you have rounded up the above points you are going to be left with a certain amount of pages on your site that needs work. The next thing to do is find out if your content is being linked to, so simply use a tool like Open Site Explorer to see if you have any backlinks. If you have no backlinks or traffic going into that page then you are better off deleting it and 301’ing the page somewhere else.
If you do have links pointing in then you now need to check what kind of links they are, and if they hold a certain level of authority. If they do then this is where you need to make a decision on what you are going to do with that page and any search engine optimization provider will advise you that the content is reworked and updated so you don’t lose important links.
• Don’t Delete Content That Has Been Socially Shared
The next issue is deleting old content that has been shared through social media as you will be removing the chance for that to continue being shared (especially if it is not of a time-sensitive nature). However, this is where a certain amount of judgment needs to come into play because you also need to think about if that post will likely be shared again at any point in the future, and why would anyone want to share it. Of course, time sensitive stuff can probably be deleted here because it holds no value to anyone today.
• Don’t Rely on Content
One thing we do advise is that you should never just rely on content marketing to build up sites organic traffic, because there are other areas of marketing that can help you just as much. As they say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket – spread them out.
Although content makes up a considerably part of most digital campaigns in the current era you should be looking at other ways to build up and check website traffic such as social giveaways, PR events and product launches.
• Do Some Keyword Research
Finally with old or new content you should always do keyword research. For example is that old content from two years ago still effective in terms of the keywords it is targeting? Keywords don’t change dramatically over a short period of time but when it comes to years, what was once a big top 5 hitter may not have been overtaken by other keywords in the industry.
If your old content is focusing on something that doesn’t drive the traffic now and you can visually see a decline on traffic on that page in Google Analytics then it may be time to freshen it up or delete it altogether and 301 that page into a new page where you have targeted the big hitting keywords.
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