Content Removal For SEO

Find out how you can boost your website traffic by removing your old content and creating much more engaging, valuable copy.

Is your old content maximising your SEO?

You can use software like Google Analytics to find out whether their content is up to scratch and serving its purpose. If it is, it will be generating as many unique visitors as possible, increasing the website's conversion rate, and maximising SEO. If the content isn't performing well - i.e. it's not getting many page views, or users are not spending enough time reading it – you need to make some improvements.

The days of generic SEO are long gone

Back in the early days of SEO, when Google was still in its primitive stages, websites could easily get away with dull, generic content that would be little more than waffle and would be replicated with only minor keyword/phrase changes on other pages.

Over the past ten years or so, however, the incredible growth of e-commerce and the number of commercial websites has resulted in much stronger online competition to win customers' business. Inevitably, this means businesses have to spend significantly more time to create good quality content that gives customers the information and answers they demand.

Online sales are booming

Think of Black Friday in November 2015, for example, when UK online retail sales reached an astonishing £1.1bn, the highest on record for a single day. Today, we live in a highly advanced e-commerce market, where businesses have unlimited opportunities to market their products and services to a global marketplace.

The danger of content cannibalisation

One of the biggest problems with generic, repetitive content is when a website has many pages that feature the same keyword or key phrase, which is known as content cannibalisation and can be detrimental to SEO. If there are many pages of very similar content on your website, Google may interpret them as duplicates, and this will mean the search engine won't interpret your website as the 'authority' - the one with the most relevant keywords for your niche.

Consider lengthening your existing content

Today, many companies are expanding their existing online content, rather than rewriting it from scratch. As long as your original content is good quality, you needn't waste time rewriting it all; instead you can simply add extra selling points or elaborate on what you already have. For example, if you already have dozens of different product pages that are around 150-200 words long, you could lengthen each description to 400-500 words, or more.

Choose a variety of keywords

For better SEO, focus on a variety of keywords that can naturally direct visitors to different pages on your website. For example, a hotel chain based in the U.K could write a local guide to each of the hotel's locations, linking back to the hotel with keywords such as 'weekend breaks in (location)', or 'short breaks in (location)'.

Is your old content evergreen?

If you accidentally included dates, or information that quickly became out of date, in your old content, make it evergreen so it will remain relevant for many months or years to come. Understandably, your customers aren't going to spend much time on a page that appears to be stuck in the past, and the less time each users spends on a page, the less relevant your keywords will be and the lower your SEO ranking. Treat your content like your employees, products and services - it's an invaluable asset that can do wonders for your business when it's implemented correctly, but can seriously damage your growth when it's poorly executed.



Author bio:

Danny Hall co-directs FSE Online, one of Essex’s leading SEO companies. Danny specialises in technical SEO supported by quality content and stylish design.