Letter #21: Mini masterclass in identifying pieces to refresh
2-min expert interview on which pieces you should start updating.
Hey hey!
Been thinking about evergreen content lately and wondering: is it really evergreen if it’s not refreshed timely?
Not really, won’t you agree?
Think of it: If a piece that’s been popular for your blog starts getting old, who would want to read it? And would Google want to continue ranking it? Nope. Nopity. Nope.
So in the spirit of maintaining your content’s evergreen status, I got WordPress.com’s Content Marketing Editor, Ben Sailor, to talk about how he identifies pieces in need of a dire refresh.
As is the drill, I asked Ben our regular 3 questions:
A mistake he has made when trying to identify pieces to refresh.
An actionable tip to get you one step closer to content refreshing the right way.
And, a secret tip to help you navigate, well, you know what (lol).
Dig in.
👉 Learn from Ben’s mistake: “Prioritizing pieces to update based solely on keyword volume, keyword difficulty, and/or current ranking position.”
“Yes, all three of these factors are important, and should be taken into consideration when evaluating opportunities to improve results by updating existing content,” Ben admits.
“But you should prioritize based on the pieces of content that have the most potential impact on your business. Start with the pieces that are most closely aligned with your customer’s top problems. Then, take those other factors into account.”
👉 Do this today: “Get a SEOTesting.com account to organize and track the results of your content refreshing efforts.”
Says Ben, “It’s not terribly expensive and the value that tool provides far exceeds the cost.”
👉 The secret tip to better refresh content: Refreshing content isn’t limited to growing traffic – it’s about increasing conversion too. So you need a bit of a mindset refresh here.
“We usually think about content refreshing in terms of increasing rankings and thus driving more traffic,” explains Ben. “But it’s equally (or maybe even more) important to think about improving content for conversions.”
“Highly visited but low converting content can sometimes represent a greater opportunity to build new business through content, even if poor rankings seem like a more obvious fix.”
Aaand that’s a wrap.
Until next Tuesday,
Masooma