Does your website or webshop not have a high position in the search results of Google or other search engines, but have you done your very best to write the right texts? Do not panic! By making small adjustments, you can improve your position in the search results. No, you don’t have to write completely new content for this, but you can optimize the (old) content. How can you do that? I’ll tell you that in this blog!
Why is it important to keep (old) content?
The content that you have previously placed on your website or webshop has already built up value. With the previously accumulated value, you can give the new content a boost. Let’s just say a push in the right direction. In addition, it is also quite a challenge to constantly have to create new content, so why not reuse the old?! It is important to check whether the content generates sufficient visitors to your website or webshop and thus contributes to your (online) objectives.
How can I best optimize my (old) content?
Before you start optimizing the content on your website or webshop, it is wise to first find out what content you deliver. It is often thought that only new content can contribute to generating new (extra) visitors and in that way contribute to the (online) goals you have set, but nothing could be further from the truth! By using Historical Content Optimization (HICO), you can optimize old content and achieve your goals faster. I can imagine that you do not know exactly what is meant by historical content optimization, Hubspot describes it as follows:
”Historical content optimization means updating and optimizing your ‘old’ blog content so it’s fresh, up-to-date, and has the ability to generate even more traffic and conversions than it already does. By ‘old’ we mean posts that already exist on your blog.”’
In other words, optimizing the existing content on your website or webshop, so that you can generate more visitors and conversions than the content already does.
What is the best way to get started with optimizing old content?
As mentioned before, the content that is already on your website or webshop is already indexed in the search engines and has therefore already built up an authority (value). It is therefore wiser to optimize existing content, instead of creating entirely new content. This doesn’t mean you don’t have to create new content at all. It’s a good mix of both. After all, content that you add to your website or webshop today will be ‘old’ content next month.
I can imagine that this may seem like a lot of work and you have no idea where to start. It is easiest to subdivide the content by (online) purpose. What goals do you want to achieve and what content ensures that? By using Google Analytics you can analyze which content ensures visitors and conversions. In this way you can divide the content into four groups:
- Lots of visitors, lots of conversions
- Many visitors, few conversions
- Few visitors, many conversions
- Few visitors, few conversions
Depending on your (online) objectives, you can determine what are few/many visitors and what are few/many conversions. This of course differs per organization. Are you stuck? Then take the average of the number of visitors and conversions, you do this per division of your content. For example, you have both a physical and online clothing store, your (online) goals are:
- Generate more website visitors webshop
- Generate more visitors physically in the store
- Encouraging online purchases
- Subscribe to newsletter
You divide the content of your webshop under these four goals. For each goal, you can see how many visitors and conversions the content you have placed in it has averaged, and that way you can classify the content in the aforementioned groups.
Many visitors, many conversions?
Make sure to constantly monitor this content. Has anything changed? Then quickly read on how you can optimize this content and ensure that the content gets more visitors and/or conversions.
Many visitors, but few conversions?
Have you categorized much of your content into group two? Then you have a lot of traffic on your website or webshop, but no or few conversions. If that is the goal of the content, then it is wise to start optimizing. How:
Write conversion-focused, also known as CRO. Whether this is necessary can be read in Google Analytics, are the metrics of the bounce rate and the average session duration both low? Then you can assume that the visitor can find the page, but the content on it does not match the visitor’s needs. In the text, focus on the following points:
- The conversion target
- The best matching offer
- Use enough conversion elements
- Use eye-catching call to action buttons
- Use pop-up forms
- Use enough internal links that point to relevant pages
Few visitors, but many conversions?
Despite the fact that the content generates a lot of conversions, you also want more visitors to come to your website. To increase the number of visitors you can do the following:
- Rewrite the content and make sure it is current and relevant.
- Optimize the metadata. Do they match the search intent and the actual content on a page? If not, you will see that the bounce rate of this page is very high.
Few visitors, few conversions?
Then there is real work to be done. If you have (too) much of this content on your website or webshop, this can have adverse (SEO) effects. This affects the position you have in the search results of Google (or other search engines). To optimize these pages you can:
- Apply the aforementioned tips in this blog blog
- Tackling pages with a high bounce rate
- Turn off content that is of no interest to anyone and redirect to relevant content
- Set to noindex or no-follow if the content is still relevant for purposes other than SEO
- Merge with other content on the same topic
Monitoring and registering content
If you have modified content, it is important that you register it. If you don’t do this, you will no longer know what you have done and therefore not why the content on your website or webshop performs better or worse. Create an easy overview in Excel, so you know exactly what you did last time. It is useful to note:
- Name of the content you modified
- What exactly did you adjust
- First publication date and the new publication date (if you are going to republish the content)
- When you’ve made the adjustments
- Results of the content, so you can easily compare
- Other information that is interesting for you to mention
To work!
So, now you can get started! Do you still need help? Please feel free to contact us, we will be happy to help you. Are you curious how your website or webshop scores in the field of SEO? Then have an SEO check performed, you will receive extensive and insightful advice on how you can improve your website or webshop.
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