Content refreshes are commonly named the greatest SEO hack by many SEOs.
I’ve been doing a bunch of them lately, so I want to share why they’re so good, and some common tactics for refreshing SEO content.
Jump Ahead
Why content refreshes are incredible
The difference in click-through rate for ranking #1 and #2 on Google is insane.
Position 1 CTR: 39.8%
Position 2 CTR: 18.7%
This means pages ranking #1 get more than double the traffic as #2.
Going even lower:
Position 3 CTR: 10.2%
Position 4 CTR: 7.4%
You would MUCH rather have a few excellent SEO pages ranking #1 than many mediocre ones not ranking #1.
Content refreshes make you a lot more likely to have these excellent pages. Here’s why, in order of importance:
- You’re able to evaluate your content with fresh eyes.
- “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” – Leonardo da Vinci
- The first draft is usually the worst draft.
- Common issues you may notice:
- Awkward keyword targeting.
- Takes too long to get to the meat of the page.
- The images aren’t related to the content.
- The writing is boring.
- The page is UGLY.
- The page is slow.
- The keyword isn’t in the key places (for example, the page title).
- The intent was misjudged.
- Sources weren’t cited.
- You didn’t interlink to the content; the page is orphaned.
- You accidentally noindexed the page.
- No OG image.
- The page title doesn’t stand out from competitor page titles.
- The URL slug is a random string.
- The list goes on…
- You can use data on the existing content to make improvements.
- You may have learned new SEO techniques you can incorporate.
Aside from this, it’s MUCH easier to refresh an existing piece of content than it is to create a new one. And because the rewards of ranking #1 above #2-4+ are so great (over double the traffic), it’s worth it.
Common ways to do content refreshes
The #1 way to do a content refresh is to review the above-the-fold content of your page (what people see before they start scrolling), then look at what is right below.
Aside from the page title, this is the first thing SEO visitors will see and it is your one opportunity to hook readers.
This area is the Pareto of a content refresh – it’s the 20% that gets 80% of the results.
Ask yourself:
- Is it clear that this page is for your target audience?
- Do you give visitors what they want fast enough or is it so slow that they may bounce?
- One of my favorite Reddit posts of all time – this person added Too Long; Didn’t Reads to the top of their pages, which boosted conversions by 33%.
- I made this recent podcast about how images above-the-fold could actually hurt your SEO if used improperly.
- Are you clear in your writing?
- Are you too wordy?
- Are there obvious reasons visitors may not trust this content?
Next, look at your keywords:
- Are you using the target keyword in the page title, meta description, URL slug, H1, and beginning of the first sentence?
- Is Google Search Console showing other keywords you should work into the content? Go to Performance > Search results > Pages > Click a page > Queries shows all the keywords the page is ranking for. This data is showing you the language for your topic that people actually use. By simply using some of these keywords on your page, you may be able to rank very high for them – while also improving your page for readers.
- Is your keyword targeting forced or awkward? Are you using keywords that are unnatural fragments (which you shouldn’t do).
Look at the rest of your content – is anything out of date? It might be very little work to make your page completely up-to-date – and this is something that is very important.
Try to get even more data. Microsoft Clarity gives you heatmaps, scroll maps, and click maps for free. With it, I saw that visitors to my SEO course, Compact Keywords, were spending A LOT of time looking at testimonials. So you know what I did? I increased the font size of the testimonials and moved some of them up to the top of the page – right after the above-the-fold – and conversions increased.
Are there any new SEO tactics you can work in? Lately I’ve become obsessed with interactive comprehension quizzes that also recommend my products or similar articles at the end.
For example, this quiz:
Here’s how to make these quizzes:
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7367003984282157056/
Once you have refreshed the content, make sure to submit the URL to Google Search Console, so Google will crawl it. And if you made many changes, update the date published to now.
Again, the difference between ranking #1 and anything below it is huge. So you’d rather have a few excellent pages, than many mediocre ones.
Next time you’re considering creating a new SEO page, ask yourself, “Is there anything I can refresh?”
Become more efficient with SEO
Content refreshes are great because they’re efficient. You get better results by improving what’s already there instead of starting from scratch.
But if you want the most efficient SEO, the best way is pages built for people ready to buy now vs. later.
Instead of making content for cold or lukewarm people – go directly to where people are looking to spend money on what you offer.
This is exactly what my course, Compact Keywords, teaches.
You may be spending years learning SEO and focusing on the things that don’t get results. Compact Keywords is about what actually drives revenue.
Compact Keywords is getting raving testimonials, it’s detailed enough for anybody to implement, and it just works.
Get Compact Keywords here: https://edwardsturm.com/compact-keywords/
