High-quality, original and relevant content is important for your readers as well as your position in search results. But what happens when you need to edit your content? Whenever you make changes to your website, Google takes stock and reassesses where it ranks. This means simple edits, content updates or even layout tweaks need to be carefully thought through, to avoid slipping down the search results.
The good news is that with a careful consideration, editing your website can actually boost your Google ranking. Read on to find out how...
Why do I need to edit my web content?
Web content serves several purposes. On the one hand, it is there to inform your client base and promote your products or services. On the other, it sends a signal to Google that your site is relevant and authoritative, worthy of a top spot in its rankings.
You might want to edit your web content for any number of reasons – changes to the products or services you offer, updating blog content, expanding your product line, or to remove items you no longer sell.
After you've posted content, it's important to check Google has received the right 'signals'. This should be reflected in when you appear in search results for different keywords. Over time pages with relevant, engaging content go up in the rankings, and pages that generate little user engagement go down. In particular, Google looks for helpful content that shows Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness or E-A-T for short. If your content doesn't tick this box, that's another reason to edit it.
Content optimisation
Often, when people talk about "content optimisation", they are referring to content that is optimised for search engines. In fact, when you create content that is user-friendly, it becomes search engine friendly. Google tries to rank websites according to how useful they will be to its users, and so by considering what your users want, you're inadvertently working out what Googles wants. This is true whether creating on-page content or managing a link building campaign.
Editing content – and "optimising" it – enables that content to better meet your readers' needs (and subsequently, Google's).
How you do this is not the same for every piece of content, nor is it the same for every company. It depends on what you want your content to achieve.
This might be:
- Informing customers of a new offer, product or service;
- Increasing shares on social media and drawing attention to your brand;
- Boosting traffic to a particular page on your site;
- Ranking higher for a given search term.
Once you've pinpointed this, you can see what edits and changes your content might need.
Don't change things for the sake of it
You know the saying: Don't change a winning team. In other words, if your page is doing well overall but you just want to make some tweaks, be aware of the following:
- Ensure changes are small and focused.
- Keep your meta title, description and URL the same – these are the most crawled elements.
- Pay close attention to keywords and ensure you use keywords a similar number of times in the new content.
Content optimisation and keywords
The keywords that your content ranks highly for are a good indicator of how Google has interpreted your page. Sometimes, you might be lucky and find your content is ranking well for keywords you hadn't even considered, but if you have the opposite problem, then it's time to find out why.
Begin by searching your target keywords. Have a look at where you rank, and then read the web pages that come above yours.
Identify any "topic holes" that are missing from your content and consider how you could include these too. These "topic holes" are important because they give a clear indication of what readers expect when searching for that keyword or phrase.
See if there is anything else they are doing better. Is it clearer? More compelling? Perhaps it contains images or videos to illustrate a point. Then, go back to your own content and identify any off-putting features.
- Do you have a dreaded "wall of text"? (Remember: If your reader had wanted to study War and Peace, they'd probably not have headed to your site!)
- Can you break up your content to make it feel more accessible to readers?
- Would an illustration or image bring additional interest?
- How does your content compare in terms of its length?
- Could your headline be more accurate?
- How about varying your sentence types and lengths?
A content deletion strategy that maintains your Google ranking
Whether it's because web content is outdated or no longer relevant, deleting content can be a sensitive process that requires careful planning to avoid harming your SEO ranking.
If done incorrectly, it can lead to a drop in organic traffic and negatively affect your website's visibility on search engines. Therefore, it's important to follow some best SEO practices when deleting content.
Apply the following content deletion strategy:
- Create a spreadsheet of the pages you're considering deleting.
- Use Google Analytics, Semrush or Ahrefs to measure the traffic to each page in a table.
It's important to 301 redirect deleted pages to a relevant page as this way you retain the benefit of any backlinks to them and visitors arriving at them still see a valid page.
Hubspot explained their content deletion strategy when they removed 3,000 outdated pages on their site. The result?
They gained search engine traffic, rather than losing it. This shows the importance of following a detailed plan and applying best SEO practices during this process.
Expanding your blog pages
When you expand your site, an SEO strategy also helps ensure you gain the maximum return on investment from the time invested.
- Focus on keywords you're not already targeting with other pages.
- Consider whether there's an existing blog post you could update, rather than reinventing the wheel and covering the same topics again and again.
- SEO studies show that backlinks carry equal weighting to on-page content. Split your content between adding to your own blog and managing a link building campaign by writing guest posts for third-party blogs that include a link back to your own site.
In conclusion
Writing is not for everyone. If the mere mention of the idea turns your stomach, then consider enlisting a little support from a digital marketing agency. Their writers will create original content written for your clients and for Google. They can also help with tackling keyword research and fine-tuning those other complex SEO aspects.
Editing web content is a necessary part of improving your site. Done judiciously, it can bring benefits to your readers and attract potential new customers too – and if they're impressed, Google will be too!
Copyright 2023. Featured post made possible by Rajhu S Goraai.