It’s time to update your content if it isn’t performing the way you expect or if old articles you have published are no longer relevant.
It’s the right time to optimise your content that isn’t performing well.
It’s the act of revising, tweaking and editing old content, in order to improve its ROI. It is important to make the content more useful so that it can eventually become effective.
- Search ranking
- Read it.
- Engaging in activities such as comments or shares.
- Conversions are possible
Optimizing underperforming content can often be a cost-effective way to increase your . Optimizing doesn’t require you to create new content. You can simply rejigger the existing pieces and improve them.
This is a great practice for all brands with content, especially as part of a . It ensures that every piece works towards your goals and not hinders them.
You will first need to determine which pieces of content are not performing well. Then, take the steps necessary to optimize and improve it.
What to do to find underperforming content
What can you do to identify underperforming content?
To find these metrics, you will need to examine specific metrics.
You can use tools such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Google Analytics to analyze this data and identify your weakest content.
Search Ranking Metrics:
- Keywords that are organic
- Position average
Look at the organic keyword statistics of your content, and especially how it ranks in Google, to identify underperforming content. Attention to:
- Any ranking between #5-10. Optimizing them further can lead to higher rankings.
- Anything below #11: Optimize further and rewrite these to help you reach Page 1. Depending on your keyword,
Engagement metrics and traffic:
- Views
- Sessions
- Rate of bounce
- Time on the page
- Social shares
- Comment
What pages are experiencing the most traffic loss?
What pages receive little or no engagement?
They are excellent candidates for optimization.
Seven questions to optimize underperforming content
Identify the underperforming content you want to optimize. Then ask these questions:
1. Is it possible to win with the keywords that you are targeting?
First, consider whether your keyword is winnable. If you find your content not performing well, then take a look at your website.
If you target the keyword content strategy in a text piece, and it languishes on page 5, that could be due to two things:
- A small brand or brand new that is still building an online reputation.
- There is a lot of competition in the content strategy market. Well-known names such as HubSpot and Content Marketing Institute rank at the top of Google.
A new site or one with low authority is unlikely to rank among the top 10 search results for this keyword.
Switch keywords to focus on what you actually can win if that is the case. Long-tail keywords can be easier for smaller or newer brands to rank for, especially if they are long-tail. These keywords also account for .
Instead of targeting content strategy, you might instead target “content strategy for beginners” and “content marketing strategy to SEO.”
Long-tail keywords can be a winning strategy as they are much more precise and reach searchers who have more specific goals.
This is because these searchers are actively searching for solutions and not simply browsing.
2. Are you optimizing your content using enough keywords at strategic locations?
Consider whether a piece of content is optimized if it has been well-written.
Google as the best practice for optimizing your SEO.
- Use The right keywords people will use to search your content.
- Using The right words at prominent locations .
How well you rank in searches will depend on how keywords are used and placed.
Google will not give you enough signals to say “Hey!” It’s unlikely that Google will notice you.
Here are some tips to help you use keywords and place them in your content
-
Add your
Focus keyword
In
All
These are the best places to optimize your business:- The H1 heading, also known as page title.
- The meta title and description should be placed at the end of each other.
- The first paragraph.
- At least one H2 heading.
- At least one H3 heading.
- Sprinkled throughout the text body.
- Image alt text inside image (for images on the page).
-
Inclusion
Synonyms and variations
These are the places where you should use your keyword focus:- At least one H2 is present in the text (depending how many are included).
- At least one H3 (same above).
- All throughout the text.
- Inside image alt text.
- Never keyword stuff. Always try to include keywords that are helpful and descriptive for your readers.
- Use keyword-optimized headings to organize and structure your content. They make your content more readable and easier to understand. Search engines also use headings to determine if your site is relevant for the query.
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3. Do your headings and subheadings, meta title and meta description have enough strength?
People often overlook the smallest details, such as writing strong headings and a descriptive meta description. This is a big mistake.
This little piece of work is a great deal. Searchers can click on your link from a list of similar results by simply looking at the meta title. This is especially true if it’s more descriptive or thoughtfully written than other alternatives.
Google searches for “how make caramel popcorn” yield almost the same results. Only one of the results mentions “easy” within their meta titles. This is enough to convince me to click on it.
Keep this in mind when creating meta titles and descriptions for underperforming content.
This can spark your reader’s curiosity and interest. It can also draw them deeper into the piece which could have a positive impact on its performance.
Here are some tips.
- Increase the length of your headings. These headings can be more descriptive and creative, making them prime places to add keywords.
- Consider headings and metadata as hooks . Headings are more than just a way to divide your content into sections. Your headings can be used as hooks to pull the reader along the page. Your meta description can also be used as a hook to grab the attention of the user and make them click on your link from the search results.
- Talk to your reader. What makes a hook? Talk directly to the reader. As if they were sitting right in front of you, address them. Their concerns should be addressed. Improve their quality of life.
- How to create good headlines. Learn to create a strong headline if you aren’t confident in crafting these types of pieces. This knowledge is also applicable to headings and metas. at Copyblogger can be a good place to begin.
4. Do your links, statistics and facts have become outdated?
This is one way to improve underperforming content. It should be up-to date and useful for modern readers.
Are the stats cited in content from 2016? This is too outdated, particularly since studies are updated (or new) by companies every few years.
It is a good rule to follow: If your statistics are older than 5 years, you should find new . Unless it is fundamental or groundbreaking in your industry.
It is okay to cite statistics that are from unique studies and have not been replicated or updated.
Then, how about links? Is it still useful to have links to other websites and resources? Are they pointing to the right pages? Do the links are authoritative and of high quality? Update if they are not.
Last, make sure your content is relevant. If 2020 is mentioned in a blog that has been around for a while, make sure to update the references.
5. Does the quality of content meet expectations?
Consider the following: Let’s suppose that your content optimization piece is quite short. You would expect it to be longer.
Perhaps the article doesn’t cover the subject fully or delves into irrelevant topics.
Maybe the topic requires supporting statistics, or data to add weight. But it doesn’t.
Oder it could be missing images or spelling errors.
These issues are all related to content quality – how , relevant, accurate, and informative/entertaining/empowering the content is for your particular audience.
In all these cases, it is possible to make minor changes that will increase the quality of your code without having to rewrite everything. Take this example:
- To make the article more comprehensive and usable, add additional information.
- Reduce the number of irrelevant parts and include more information relevant to the concerns of your audience.
- To increase the engagement, find relevant images that you can add to your content.
6. Do you think the content needs to be completely rewritten?
You can sometimes not save low-quality content.
Some pieces might need to be completely reworked. You’ll need to delete all of it and then start again.
What can you do to know when content needs to be rewritten?
- The text is poorly written, lacking structure (read headings) and logical flow.
- This misses both the main point and the purpose of the topic.
- This focuses more on the brand than the audience.
- This article focuses only on an event that is long past.
- It is still possible to win the targeted keyword for the brand, and it is well worth the effort/investment of rewriting.
7. Are there site problems that prevent crawling or readability?
When optimizing content that is underperforming, remember to zoom in to see the larger picture.
There are several ways that your site could be contributing to poor content performance.
- Your site is not being viewed by all visitors.
- It is not possible for search engines to crawl it and index it.
If your website loads slowly it can impact your engagement and rankings. A slow loading webpage is not something people will want to wait for.
Perhaps your website isn’t designed for mobile browsing. This means that people who try to view your content via smartphone browsers are unable to read it.
Poor site design may also affect its usability. For comfortable reading, ensure that there is enough contrast between your text and background.
Also, avoid long paragraphs – they can be hard to read from a monitor.
Last, but certainly not least: Make sure Google and other search engines the pages you want to index.
There are times when a small error may be overlooked. For example, a “noindex” tag might have been accidentally added to the code of one your blogs. This tells search engines that the page will not appear in their results.
Optimize your underperforming content to improve your ROI
It is possible to optimize your content and get the best ROI.
Every piece of content needs a certain level of investment. This includes the time, effort and money spent creating it. You can stretch your investment by optimizing and updating it.
Content that performs better will yield even greater positive returns.
This means that your content assets will last longer and continue to perform well into the future, bringing in more passive traffic, leads and conversions.
To get best results, it is important to continue the optimization process as part your . This will help ensure that all your content is working towards your .
These opinions are not necessarily those of Search Engine Land, but they do reflect the views of the guest author. Here are the names of staff authors.
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