As SEO’s I don’t know if there’s anything else we rant about more than building out your evergreen content.
You’ve got a great brand, and great products but your blog sucks, it’s just news updates from 2017 that no one read then and definitely no one is going to read now.
We need to start with a content audit, we’ll cull off all the old, irrelevant posts that never did and never will get you traffic, we’ll create a topical map and work out what old posts we can keep and starting completing the topical map with brand new evergreen topics – so then as well as having a great brand, and great products you’ll have a magical evergreen blog that will forever bring that free SEO traffic that comes from it and lasts forever.
Ok, no maybe we don’t say that. But that’s what the clients hear.
They hear “the SEO will find keywords we’re missing YAY, create content for those keywords that will then bring us new customers YAY and then we can sit back and let the clicks and money roll in from those blog posts for eternity”.
And, maybe SEO’s are still selling that dream – but it’s not entirely the case when next up we pitch ‘content optimization’.
“But why would we need optimization, we already have those articles?”
My quick answer is “If you’re not first, we’re not finished”.
Yeah, even when we as SEO’s, content marketers, researchers and copywriters do our best to create the greatest blog post of all time – it doesn’t always just land at no1 in Google.
Sometimes it does, and that’s great!
But what happens tomorrow when your competitor does their research, they manage to write an even better, simpler, more effective article and now we’ve dropped to 2nd.
And what about a year from now, 2 years from now. Maybe new research, a study or survey has been released. Maybe our client now even sells a better, new and updated product. But we already covered that article – so let’s forget about it forever and continue working on our topical map – creating new, exciting articles for keywords we haven’t covered yet.
Or, maybe instead .. we open Rank Revival, and instantly see which content has been declining in traffic, use the built-in competitor audit to see what they’ve changed – and the ‘information gain’ report to add insights the competition hasn’t even thought of yet.
The latest Google leaks have shown us what most SEO’s already knew. Freshness is a ranking factor, and letting old articles just sit there forever aging is always going to lead to traffic decay.
Always on content audits aren’t a nice to have, they’re a necessity for all online businesses. Whether you’re a multinational corporation, a travel blog, an ecommerce store, or an affiliate helping your readers make buying decisions by reviewing products.
“If you’re not first, you’re not finished”.
If you’re a single website owner, a business who handles their own content or an agency working with clients.
Having an always on, content auditing and refreshing process is just as important as creating new content. If you’re not doing this for your clients already you’re both letting them down, and missing an essential upsell.
Yeah, I’m selling software here. https://rankrevival.com/ is an always-on audit for content marketers. It’s also free to use the dashboard, it prioritizes the content that has been declining in traffic so you know where to start, and let’s you take notes of what you’ve changed in the article and when.
Skip the GSC exports, spreadsheets, vlookups and whatever other time consuming way you were doing it before. And, give your writers, and editors an easy dashboard so you can spend time working on the higher level marketing activities that you should be.
Or, if you’re not the do it yourself type, and looking for experts in SEO and Content Marketing to help you get more eyes on your business, Intender Media offers content creation, content optimization and link building and outreach.
15 years in SEO, agency, in-house, affiliate and freelance.
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