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By Prudence Shank

 

One of the best ways to boost traffic to your staffing website is to publish more (and more useful) content. However, part of your content strategy should include a content refresh. Most companies rarely think about refreshing what they already have, but it can be an effective way to gain more traction in search engines.

 

Why Refresh Old Content?

You know the value of working smarter rather than working harder. A content refresh is faster than planning, developing and optimizing new content. It is also a great way to:

  • Improve click-through rate (CTR): You could be losing clicks because your headlines or meta descriptions are outdated or don’t quite align with search queries.
  • More efficiently create long-form content: Dig into your data to find out which pages and blog posts once generated a lot of traffic but have slowed. You can merge content to create long-form content or expound on existing content to make it more robust. Long-form content can help you improve your bounce rate because you become a definitive source for answering questions.
  • It helps you meet Google’s demands: Google likes to serve up content that is relevant, authoritative, and fresh. Updating old content helps you check off these boxes.

 

How to Assess and Choose the Best Content to Refresh

You never want to approach a content refresh willy-nilly. Lean on your website data to know where to focus your efforts. You want to spend time on the pages and posts that have the potential for generating qualified traffic.

 

Use your analytics to locate your oldest pages. Then, identify pages that have experienced a dip in traffic. Don’t limit yourself to only pages that performed well in organic search. Include social media shares and clicks, as well.  Choose content to refresh by picking out those that have outdated content that should be updated or content that is still relevant today.

 

How to Get More from Existing Pages

Remember, the key is to work smarter, not harder. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel when refreshing your content. You can:

  • Update title tags and metadata: If your title tags and meta descriptions don’t include keywords, update them so that they do. The inclusion of keywords in tags is not a ranking factor; however, it helps users judge whether your content is relevant. Click-through rate IS a ranking factor, so using keywords is wise to help boost clicks.
  • Update outdated portions of pages: Staffing and recruiting are in a constant state of evolution. Update old content that may offer outdated advice or content that doesn’t align with current industry best practices. You may also want to update blog posts that contain outdated screenshots, stats or data, as well.
  • Add video: Adding a video to a post can instantly boost its effectiveness.
  • Improve readability: If you use the Yoast SEO plugin for your WordPress website, it will generate a readability score for each page and post. If you identify pages that have poor readability, go through and make them more concise and direct.
  • Make copy user-focused: Odds are high that some of your older pages were written with search engines in mind rather than users. Pages that have keywords stuffed in them or don’t have a singular purpose and focus should be updated.
  • Make short posts more robust: Blog posts don’t need to be lengthy, but if you find some that are less than 350 words, expound on the concepts in the post to make them more useful and robust.

 

Remember, a content refresh should be conducted in tandem with new content creation and ongoing SEO improvements to your website. If you want to improve your website’s visibility and organic traffic, contact Haley Marketing Group to help develop an SEO strategy today.

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