SEO Guides, Tips & More!

Fresh content is the key to a robust SEO program. Without it even the most well designed and visually engaging sites will not be able to produce much in the way of new leads. However, one area where marketers struggle is in generating high value content and preventing existing site content from getting stale. Recent studies have demonstrated that the average shelf life of website content is typically one week, and a month if you’re fortunate. Many marketers struggle with how to keep what they have relevant and engaging. To help clients, prospects and others keep their site as FRESH as possible, I have provided tips to tackling the task below.

• Optimize It

When content is SEO optimized it has a much greater chance of being found vs. content that is not optimized. The reason for this is because optimizing content automatically prolongs its initial web shelf life. Even when search engines continue to rank content for phrases that are searched semi-frequently, you’ll still see a steady stream of new traffic being delivered to it. Look at it this way, if you were stranded in the middle of the ocean and had a choice between a standard life preserver vs. a life preserver with GPS tracking, which would you choose?

• Link It

New content that is published often such as in blog posts or news articles gets buried quickly by fresher content, and what ends up happening is that after a good amount of time, say months or even a year, the posts are barely findable. But just because posts are not findable doesn’t mean the content does not still offer value to your online audience, so how do you keep it fresh? Create new posts with fresh content that links to the older content. In doing so, you’re not only keeping your audience engaged, you’re also redirecting them to additional relevant material that they may find valuable and otherwise might not have found.

• Refresh It

Often website content that has gotten outdated just needs a simple refresh. There’s always room for improvement, right? The way to do this is to comb through your website in search of existing content and articles that are still relevant to your audience material-wise, but perhaps have elements such as statistics, tips or steps that have changed over time. Such articles are the perfect candidates for an update. Tweaking the content and breathing fresh life into the copy will extend its life considerably, and Google will see the changes you make as fresh content. An important rule to remember is to never sacrifice quality for quantity.

• Replace It

Sometimes refreshing an article just isn’t possible or worth the time. For example, when a glass vase is shattered into hundreds of pieces, you don’t spend the time gluing the pieces back together. Instead, the vase is replaced with a new one. The same principle applies to content and articles on your website. Often, it’s just better to start over and write from scratch. A good way to brainstorm is to see what your competition is up to as well as topics your accounting association is talking about. Of course this assumes both partners and staff is not available to give you the nitty gritty.

Conclusion

Many accounting marketers struggle with creating fresh and high-quality content. Massive amounts of articles and blog posts don’t need to be published daily to maintain online visibility. Use the above steps to engage your audience and remember a fresh website and updated content equals a better search engine rank, more traffic, repeat visitors, and many other benefits. If you don’t have time to update your content yourself, contact us today. We can help. The results will be well worth it.