5 Big Benefits of Updating Your Website Content from User Experience to Search Optimization
Content creation is a treadmill 👟. No doubt about it.
Yet what do you do when every page is not SERP position 1 on Google? Do you give up and call content marketing and SEO a sham, scam, rigged, and fake news?
No, you probably need just a little umph in updating your website content.
Yes, the short-sighted, short-cut stalking, secret-seeking, snake oil-buying people want the instant hack, the instant results, lasting success and a world-beating legacy.
Life does not work that way nor does Google.
Do you know that Michelangelo took about four years to paint the 343 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome?
Interestingly, he was not sure he was the right man, as he was primarily a sculptor. “Every gesture I make is blind and aimless,” he lamented in a poem, in 1509. “I am not in the right place – I am not a painter.”
TL; DR
- Google “Best practice” requires updating your website content, because:
- “Old ‘n outdated” info – is stale, stinks🦨 and loses relevancy – because it’s ole and out of date.
- Ranking and SERP position will drop so you will get:
- Ghosted by Google, traffic will dry up, people will pogo stick (bounce), sales will plummet, and business opportunities will dry up.
- It’s not all red wine and chocolate as updating the old costs time, effort, money, technical know-how and probably short-term traffic loss.
Don’t worry, I am Urban Renström, there is always science and research involved in everything I say, teach, and demonstrate.
1st: How do you know Your Website Content Is Out of Date?
So, let us limit this 👇 discussion to the “out of date” content question.
We’ll ignore the “why is my page not ranking on page 1”. Both points are important, not exclusive, and the answer to both questions might be the same.
How do you know if your website pages are old, out of date and past their sell-by date and need website optimization?
You will experience most or all of the following.
- Drop in position in the search engine rankings.
- Decrease in website traffic.
- Increase in bounce rate.
- Negative user feedback or no feedback
- Competitors updating their websites.
Look inside your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts to answer points 1, 2, and 3. Or a WordPress SEO plugin should give insight (I use and recommend Rank Math, I switched from Yeast (ops Yoast)).
Care for those five points in plain English?
Google loves websites with new, fresh, and up-to-date content.
When any page on your website is out of date then that page ranking will drop, e.g., from position 1, 2 to position 15, 16. A drop in the SERP position correlates directly with a drop in website traffic. Less traffic means fewer visitors, fewer conversions, fewer sales and ultimately less revenue.
A lower position in the SERPs is correlated with a higher visitor bounce rate. And page bounce rates are a page ranking factor.
“Out of date” content is the vicious downward spiral🌪! And worse a drop in rankings of 2-3 pages can lower the ranking of other pages! For warned is for armed!
2nd: The Downsides to not Updating your Website Content:
- Updating takes time & effort (read opportunity cost!).
- Can be costly.
- Requires technical know-how.
- Can affect traffic.
- This may lead to the loss of important data.
Updating your website content can be a lengthy and demanding process.
Depending on the scope of the updates, costs can add up.
Also, updating may require a certain level of technical knowledge or skills. With WordPress, all is easier, other systems are not so easy. The problems are broken links, errors in the website’s code, and/or compatibility problems.
Improper updates can lead to temporary drops in website traffic. This is when the search engines get around to re-index the updated content.
If the updates are done wrong, you can lose valuable content.
Ok, what is the benefits of updating your website pages?
3rd: The 5 Big Benefits of Updating Your Website Content
The upsides are the opposite of what you are experiencing today.
When you update your content, you should see the:
#1 Page Ranking improves, which leads to
#2 More and better website traffic, which increases the
#3 The “average time on page” from Google Analytics, a lower bounce rate, which leads to a
#4 Improved user experience (UX) leading to
#5 Higher page ranking
#6 Positive Brand Image.
#7 more conversions.
That is if the other parts of your website are in rude health, then you’ll get more sales, revenue, and profits🥂.
So, what’s the process⚙ at work here?
Google Rewards New and Fresh Content Updated Regularly.
Google’s Freshness, or “fresher results” update from June 2010 rewards page that has the freshest updates.
Take for example the Sept. 2017 iPhone 8 supermax pro. In 2017 it was the bleeding edge of technology…today not so much. But, what if the iPhone 8 product page on the Apple website outranked the 2022’s iPhone 14?
That would not be the best for Apple, you, and me.
Hence the “fresher results” update.
It gets better:
QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) is how Google decides what web pages satisfy the search intent.
Google functions that a question should be answered by the newest (and still best) answer.
This “fresher results” algorithm update boosted the ranking of pages with time-related questions, e.g.
- Recent events – natural disasters, economic events, news happenings.
- Regular recurring events – e.g., the Oscars, 6-Nations Rugby, MasterChef TV show, etc.
- Frequent updates – iPhone 14, Samsung Hyper-OLED TV, Fashion
BUT: What is the Worst that can Happen if You ignore the advice?
In short:
Google will ghost👻 your website and will get erased from existence…
Did I hear you ask, “What is the worst that can happen?” if you are not updating your website content? LOL!
You will lose:
1. Search engine visibility: Fresh and relevant content is crucial for search engine optimization (SEO) and can affect your website’s search engine ranking. Neglecting to update your website content regularly can hurt your visibility and lower your search engine ranking.
2. User engagement: If your website content is outdated and not relevant, visitors may lose interest and not return. Regular updates help keep visitors engaged and coming back.
3. Brand reputation: An outdated or neglected website can reflect poorly on your brand and damage your reputation. Updating your website regularly helps keep a positive image and reinforces your brand’s credibility.
4. User experience: Technology and user behaviour change rapidly, and outdated websites can quickly become frustrating for visitors. Regular updates ensure that your website supplies a modern and seamless user experience.
5. Business opportunities: A stale or neglected website can turn potential customers away and limit your business opportunities. Regular updates can help you stay ahead of the competition and attract new customers.
Content Marketing for Non-Techies: Your Priority Reading List
In earlier📆 articles we learned that Website Content is Important to answer the questions 🤔 people ask. Your answers drive traffic 🚥to your website. This How to Write Website Content post and this How to Write Content for a Website approached writing ✍️ from different angles and reasons. We learned the importance of creating 🧱a Variety of Web Content, in different modalities, because some people read 🔠, some watch 📺 videos, and some listen to podcasts👂🏻. This back-to-basics post walked through the best Web Content Management System ⚙️to use to publish a website. This post showed us that refreshing and updating the words, meaning, charts, graphs etc. keeps pages and rankings in search engines. This begs the base question of where and how to find content to publish on your website.
Credit Michelangelo image, Bow and Arrow picture Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash
