When Is It Time To Update Content?
Sometimes it can be difficult judging exactly when you need to update content on a site. Clearly it’s beneficial to have refreshed copy on a page as it provides the search engines with something new to index. However, you don’t want to inadvertently ruin your rankings for a search term. So what’s the solution?
When You Need to Update Content
Keyword update – Content needs to be updated if you change your keywords. More often than not you’ll have been targeting a certain search term with the previous copy incumbent, so this will have to be adjusted.
Update the on page stuff, including headers as well as the body copy to reflect this. But also don’t forget about your Meta and perhaps even the site URL for the page. All of these subtle tweaks will inform the search engine’s of your change of focus.
Duplicate issues – If you’ve decided to use the content elsewhere (a big no-no by the way) then you should really consider an update. Equally you may have had your site ripped off by somebody else. You shouldn’t be punished, but sometimes Google can make mistakes. Either way, it might be a good idea to consider an update.
Outdated – One day, maybe not any time soon, your content might seem a little old hat. Whether it is no longer representative of the services you offer or just references things from 2008 you need to give it a spruce up.
Don’t lose sight of what the page is all about and what it is targeting though. If you haven’t changed keywords, then make sure you maintain that same focus to help ensure that the only ranking effects are positive.
When You Need to Think Twice
On a whim – Unless your site really isn’t performing well in terms of conversions, traffic or rankings, then you need to maybe consider your options. Search engines put a lot of weight on content when they come to work out what a page is all around, so if you start unnecessarily tampering with it, you could well end up losing rankings and custom.
Adding more keywords – If your content is working fine then why bog it down with unrelated keywords. Remember that the search engines won’t reward you for using the same term dozens of time on a single page. It sees this as spammy and you won’t receive any benefit whatsoever. Plus visitors will see right through this and your content will be worse as a consequence.
Generally speaking though it is a matter of having common sense about the whole thing. If you’re struggling to get visitors to convert, can’t get a decent ranking or current copy is hopelessly outdated then of course you should be looking at writing some new content.
But tinkering with a successful site needs some strategic thought. You can’t just re-write a page without any thought of the SEO impact, particularly when shifting keywords. Whilst you shouldn’t be scared to make necessary updates, you don’t to be constantly updating without any thought of who you’re writing for.
