One of the best websites in the world today in the field of SEO is Hitrend websites where you can read the best and latest SEO articles on website design that every webmaster needs. Google has been tight-lipped about its ranking factors since the beginning, but we can guess which factors make the top of the list. And, if I were to guess, content would be the No. 1 ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
That is because search engine results wouldn’t exist without content to rank. Of course, Google provides all sorts of other indicators that content is of the utmost importance.
But not just any content — quality content. Google wants to ensure that its users get the best results.
Knowing that content is a major ranking factor, it’s important to periodically review your content and ensure that it’s as good as possible so that you can compete in the search results. In this article, I’ll share nine strategies on how to upgrade your content.
Do a content audit
Perform keyword research
Do some competitor research
Implement E-E-A-T
Make sure your content is evergreen
Do some on-page and technical optimization
Address duplicate content
Try SEO siloing
Look at a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy
1. Do a Content Audit
If you already have a lot of content on your website, begin with a content audit. This will give you a starting point and clear direction on which webpages to upgrade.
First start with a trusted SEO tool to get a big-picture view of all your web pages (you can use our SEOToolSet to do this but there are others).
Once you have a master list of URLs, you’ll divide the webpages into three buckets:
The first bucket includes webpages that get the most rankings and traffic, such as those ranked up to position 10 in the search results.
The second bucket is webpages that have the potential to get better rankings and traffic, for example, those starting at position 11.
The third bucket is webpages that perform poorly and aren’t in either of those categories.
Then, focus on strengthening the content in the first two categories.
2. Perform Keyword Research
Once you understand the webpages that you are going to optimize, look at the desired keywords for each page.
Find out what keywords have been assigned and compare that to what search queries bring in traffic.
Again, you can use our SEOToolSet to find out what keywords are bringing in traffic. You can also tap into Google Search Console to find out which search queries are generating impressions and clicks to your website in Google’s search results.
Examine the keywords — do they still resonate with the content of the webpage and your audience intent? Does the page need to be optimized with different keywords now?
3. Do Some Competitor Research
With a keyword list for the webpages and content you are updating, it’s time to dive into some competitive research.
Without understanding who your competition is in the search results for each keyword (aka those ranking on page one) you will not have a clear picture of how to optimize your content.
You can analyze your competition in a couple of different ways: 1) The manual “old fashioned” way, where you plug in a keyword into the search results and start digging or 2) The automated way using tools to discover which webpages rank for your keyword.
The tools will give you much more data quicker on the top-ranked pages and their websites. For example, if you used our SEOToolSet, you could find out things like:
The on-page ranking factors
The off-page ranking factors
How often they use your targeted keyword and where
Readability metrics of the webpages
Recommendations on how to optimize your webpages based on the competition
The health of your competitor’s website
Check out these free versions of tools in our SEOToolSet to get you started:
Multi-Page Informational tool
Check Server Page tool
Competitor research helps you be the least imperfect compared to your competition. And, once you understand how the competition is optimizing, you can do as good or better.
4. Implement E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness. Google invented this concept and it’s outlined in its Search Quality Rater Guidelines.
That document was first used internally to train search quality raters. These people evaluate the quality of the search results, so Google can use that data as a feedback loop for its algorithm.
Eventually, the internal document was leaked, and in 2015, Google made the full version available to the public. It has been revised several times since then, and anyone can view it.
The Search Quality Rater Guideline is a sort of manual for website publishers to understand how Google human quality raters view quality content. So it’s worth understanding it and how it can apply to your website.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it applies to the algorithm; it doesn’t. It can, however, be used as a loose guideline for building higher-quality webpages.
Building on the steps you’ve taken thus far, use the concepts in the Search Quality Rater Guidelines to examine your top webpages (and your website as a whole) to ensure they demonstrate E-E-A-T.
5. Make Sure Your Content Is Evergreen
It’s not uncommon for old webpages to rank well and bring in a lot of traffic. But most webpages need updating over time. It does not create a good user experience when someone lands on an outdated webpage.
This is where “evergreening” comes in. Evergreening ensures that content stands the test of time.
Practically, that means reviewing and editing the content to ensure it contains the most up-to-date information. Maybe the advice is outdated, or the stats and research to support your points can be updated.
This is an important step in upgrading the webpages you are working on. And, in reality, it should be performed on a schedule throughout the year.
6. Do Some On-Page and Technical Optimization
In this step, you will take the intel you’ve gathered from your competitor research and start applying it to your webpages.
What on-page optimization factors are helping your competition? What technical factors are helping them?
Make sure you’re doing it, too. You can additionally one-up your competitors by using an SEO checklist to see what else might be missing when it comes to optimizing your content and web pages.
7. Address Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can work against your SEO goals.
When you have two pages that are too similar, Google will choose the one it believes is relevant for a search and filter the other one out — and it may not be the page you want.
So, you want to make sure that the webpages you are upgrading are not duplicated on your website. “Duplication” could be as simple as having the same meta information.
But you might have duplicate content on your site for many other reasons. And here are some of the ways duplicate content is generated:
Two site versions
Separate mobile site
Trailing slashes on URLs
CMS problems
Boilerplate content
Parameterized pages
Product descriptions
Content syndication
It goes without saying to avoid other types of duplicate content, too — like the spammy kind. This is when the content on your webpage is too similar to the content on another person’s website.
8. Try SEO Siloing
Where your content is placed on your website can impact your webpage’s rankings. SEO siloing is an SEO technique that structures your website’s content by grouping related webpages together.
How you organize a webpage on your website (whether it’s how you link to it or what directory you put it in) can impact:
How search engines crawl and understand that webpage
The relevancy of that webpage for a search
You might still wonder how organizing a webpage can improve rankings. Here’s one explanation: One way that search engines determine the most relevant webpages for a search is by sifting through and analyzing the webpages in their index and finding the best fit.
Taking it a step further, search engines like Google may analyze the overall website structure of the web pages it is considering. This helps the search engine determine if a website has enough supporting content for the search term used.
Here, the search engine assesses whether the website is an authority on the topic and, therefore, the best fit for the query.
So, when you are upgrading your content, the big picture of how that content fits into an organized website cannot be overlooked.
5 Times When SEO Siloing Can Make or Break Your Search Engine Rankings
9. Look at a Whole-SERP SEO Strategy.
And last but not least, another “big picture” strategy when upgrading your content is not so much about fixing old pages as it is about creating more targeted new content. This is the “whole-SERP” strategy.
A whole-SERP SEO strategy analyzes the features that appear most in your target keywords’ search results and then creates new content based on your findings. Features can be anything from videos to images to featured snippets and much, much more.
The goal is to create and optimize the content that Google believes is most relevant for a search. For some searches, that might be videos in addition to blue links.
