Don't let your content gather dust, refresh it and here's how
If you're too much focused on publishing new content but haven't paid attention to pieces you've published in past, then this is for you!
Heya Creative minds,
Things have been quite busy lately, and thankfully, Bengaluru's evergreen weather is back in its form, and we're finally feeling refreshed!
Speaking of evergreen and refreshed, we want to ask — how long has it been since you checked the results of your previously published pieces?
We see experts talking about evergreen content often. However, most brands think they can dust their hands off a content piece once it's live.
Or, because it has been almost 6 months, and you tracked it for the first few months, but after that, no check-in!
Maybe, those content pieces are vibing to People by Libianca Fonji, singing, "I've been drinking more alcohol for the past five days! Did you check on me?"
Well, you can't blame us; these trendy reels just got in our heads.
But circling back to the topic, not paying attention to previously published pieces can contribute to a drop in your traffic because search engines love fresh content!
So, you're literally self-sabotaging your brand's content efforts by not refreshing your old content pieces.
And let us guess, your next question is, "BUT, how do I pick the pieces I need to refresh?"
Here are 3 primary ways how:
Analyze the CTR
Head over to your Google Search Console and check your published pieces' CTR (Click-Through-Rate).
Now, for example, if you see a piece with a good amount of impressions but low CTR, this means something's wrong.
You may need to tweak the headline for people behind the screens, not just the search engine.
Pay attention to your best yet
Go to Ahrefs' top search tab for the best pieces with a higher traffic percentage. We'd recommend you not to waste time on pieces not ranking for any keywords or the ones with low search volume.
The real meat is where you see the right mix of traffic and high search volume; this will make sure the conversions keep flowing in.
Time to get sneaky with competitor analysis
Your ranking position was #2 on the search engine's first page, but suddenly you're now #6 or maybe #7. If this is happening with you, it's time for competitor analysis.
Yes, you need to put your detective hat on and compare the results beating you.
You'll want to look for the following:
The keywords they're already ranking for
The way they’ve structured their content pieces
Spotting any similar pattern in most of the ranking articles?
As we mentioned in our previous issue, sometimes you must follow what's working rather than thinking out of the box.
Next, it's not so much of a differentiator but not also something you shouldn’t be ignoring—word count.
If the majority of the ranking articles are of 2000+ words and you've posted something like 500 or 1000 words, this might be your mistake you need to rectify.
What kind of stats they've added or reports they've cited?
If you see numbers and reports from a year back research, whereas you've cited a 4-year older stat, it will signal to Google that your information is outdated and drop you to a much lower position on SERP.
Updating your old content pieces is as important as publishing new ones. Or else you'll never know if the content strategy is working or if you're adding more to a dead pile of content assets.
As this newsletter issue has already been long enough, we'll discuss how to approach the content refresh in the next one.
Stay hydrated, and share this with someone you think should be reading about refreshing content.
Cheers,
Aanchal and Uddalak