How to Make Your Old Website Content Rank Again

December 2, 2019 Lauren Beeching

Log into your Google or Adobe analytics and check what percentage of your organic search traffic is driven by your top 10 pages.

Chances are… A very large portion.

For large websites, an average of top 10 pages will drive around 30% of search traffic. That may not sound like much, but large websites can have over 6,000 posts. Which would mean that 0.1% of pages on a large website can make up 30% of search traffic.

Typically, with much smaller sites, the percentages are a lot higher in which the top 10 pages make up the majority of the search traffic.

So, what does that tell you?

Focus on your top 10 pages and forget the rest of your site? Or, even worse, prioritise on producing new content?

Quality over quantity

For myself, I always believed in the philosophy of “more is better.” So I was writing dozens of articles each week on hot topics. Embarrassingly, at one point, I was publishing two articles a day on one of my old websites.

Yes, over time, my traffic grew organically, but not by much or worthy of the time spent writing.

I was spending all of this damn time researching and writing to realise that the majority of the content I was publishing never even ranked on Google.

So, what changes did I make?

I took a good look at my website and my lack of hobbies and decided to focus on my old, outdated content to boost my traffic.

By doing this, I increased my search traffic by 121% which reduced my reliance on my top 10 pages.

Ok great, but how did I do this?

Look for pages that were once loved

With Google Search Console (Set this up immediately if you do not have it), you have amazing access to data and for a much longer period of time. You can go back up to 16 months.

So first of all, I want you to compare this month’s results during the same time as last year.

You can do this by clicking on “date” and then “compare.” Next, select your older date period first (should be roughly from a year ago) and then select today’s date period.

Now you have your results up. What you’ll want to look for is articles that used to get a ton of traffic and have much less now.

This will show you old content that Google used to love, but no longer does. Now, let’s find content that Google never loved to begin with.

Log back into Search Console and look for pages that have a high impression count but never got any real clicks. The easiest way to find these pages is to set your date range to the last 28 days and look at each page’s metrics from an impression, click, and CTR perspective.

Sort the CTR column in ascending order (lowest percentage at the top, the highest percentage at the bottom). Typically, the pages at the top of that list have the most potential. It means that Google is ranking you but you just aren’t getting too many clicks.

It usually isn’t just related to your title tag and meta description. It typically has to do with the content on the page.

Now it’s time to create a list of pages that have the greatest potential.

It’s time to prioritise

Typically, the pages that have the most potential are the ones that used to rank but no longer rank. Google used to rank and like them, which means if you give those pages a little tender loving care, you can easily get them loved by Google again. Who says true love is dead.

The second group of pages that have potential, but not as much as the first, are the ones with a high impression count but an extremely low CTR.

These pages are harder to fix because they never really performed that well.

How to update your old content

Now that you have a list of pages to fix so you can boost your search engine rankings, I want you to log in to Google Search Console, find that article, click on it, and then click on “queries.”

For the keywords that don’t rank in the top 5 or have a high impression volume, I want you to go to your ranking article and see if the article is relevant for that term. If not, adjust the article to at least include that term and cover that topic including appropriate keywords.

In addition to including the right keywords, you’ll want to update the post. Make sure all of the information is relevant, the pictures are up to date, and if you could include any multimedia (like embedding relevant YouTube videos) you’ll be able to increase the time on site of your visitors hint hint..

Finally, when updating your content, make sure your article is more thorough than all of the other sites that rank for the terms you are trying to rank for.

User metrics

User behaviour is one of the biggest factors with Google’s algorithm. Once you update your old content, you’ll want to optimise for user signals as that’ll help boost rankings. A great example of user metrics is optimising your title tags and meta description.

For example, if everyone searched a keyword on Google and clicked on the second result instead of the first, it tells Google that the second result is more relevant and that it should be ranking in the first spot instead of the second.

And Google eventually would make that change.

If you can use persuasive copy and convince people to click on your search listing instead of the competition, eventually your rankings will climb.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of title tag and meta description tests and I’ve also found that these keywords help increase clicks:

What is
Best
Amazing
[lists]
How to
Free
You
Tips
Why
Tricks
Great

You can also use tools like Clickflow to A/B test your meta tags.

Don’t forget to promote (again)

Now that your content is up to date and you’ve optimised your meta tags for clicks, it’s time for you to promote your content. I know what you are thinking… why would you promote old content, right?

Well, technically it isn’t old anymore.

First of all, you should update the published date or last updated date within your website. That way search engines know your content is changed, more relevant, and up to date.

Secondly, you need to promote the article. It’s new now, so why wouldn’t you share it with the world?

The simplest thing you can do is share it on the social web. I typically share my content on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn… but you can pick whatever social profiles you have.

Although Google doesn’t really look at social signals, Bing does. Plus, some people who visit your page from the social web may decide to link to your article, which does help rankings.

And if you want to go above and beyond, check out Meet Edgar. It’s what I use to continually schedule my old content to be promoted on the social web. That way I don’t have to manually do it or set reminders.

In addition to social shares, you should consider sending out a text-based email blast to your audience promoting your content.

It’s a great way to get a quick boost of traffic and breathe life into your old content.

Here’s an example of a text-based email blast that I send so you can copy my format.

Subject: How to Generate 10K visitors from a Brand New Blog in Under 6 Months

If I tell you to do 100 things to grow your traffic, I know you won’t do it.

Heck, even I wouldn’t. It’s just too much work.

In the spirit of simplicity, just do this and you’ll get to 10,000 visitors.

I’ll even make a deal with you. If you follow it and don’t hit 10,000 visitors and you can show me you followed it, I will help you for free.

That’s how confident I am that it works.

Kind Regards,

Co-Founder

Honest London

And don’t forget to build links

The last step you want to leverage is link building. You can use Backlinks to see who is linking to competing articles:

All you have to do is put in a competing URL and select “URL” from the drop-down menu and you’ll see every site that links to that page.

From there, you’ll want to reach out to each site and ask them to link to you.

The easiest way to do this is to leverage the skyscraper technique and the steps in this article.

Conclusion

I believe, once you hit the 150 mark in the number of pages on your site, you should consider focusing the majority of your time to updating old content instead of creating new content.

If you have over 1,000 pages, you should definitely spend 80-plus percent of your time updating old content instead of writing new content… What more can you have to say?

The key to ranking your old, outdated content is to first focus on the content that used to rank but doesn’t anymore.

Once you fix those pages, you should see results within a month or two. From there, you can then focus on pages that have a high impression count but a low click count.

So, are you going to focus your time on ranking your old content or creating new content? If you would like to learn more or be interested in Honest London’s services, please do get in touch.

Written by Temi

Log into your Google or Adobe analytics and check what percentage of your organic search traffic is driven by your top 10 pages.

Chances are… A very large portion.

For large websites, an average of top 10 pages will drive around 30% of search traffic. That may not sound like much, but large websites can have over 6,000 posts. Which would mean that 0.1% of pages on a large website can make up 30% of search traffic.

Typically, with much smaller sites, the percentages are a lot higher in which the top 10 pages make up the majority of the search traffic.

So, what does that tell you?

Focus on your top 10 pages and forget the rest of your site? Or, even worse, prioritise on producing new content?

Quality over quantity

For myself, I always believed in the philosophy of “more is better.” So I was writing dozens of articles each week on hot topics. Embarrassingly, at one point, I was publishing two articles a day on one of my old websites.

Yes, over time, my traffic grew organically, but not by much or worthy of the time spent writing.

I was spending all of this damn time researching and writing to realise that the majority of the content I was publishing never even ranked on Google.

So, what changes did I make?

I took a good look at my website and my lack of hobbies and decided to focus on my old, outdated content to boost my traffic.

By doing this, I increased my search traffic by 121% which reduced my reliance on my top 10 pages.

Ok great, but how did I do this?

Look for pages that were once loved

With Google Search Console (Set this up immediately if you do not have it), you have amazing access to data and for a much longer period of time. You can go back up to 16 months.

So first of all, I want you to compare this month’s results during the same time as last year.

You can do this by clicking on “date” and then “compare.” Next, select your older date period first (should be roughly from a year ago) and then select today’s date period.

Now you have your results up. What you’ll want to look for is articles that used to get a ton of traffic and have much less now.

This will show you old content that Google used to love, but no longer does. Now, let’s find content that Google never loved to begin with.

Log back into Search Console and look for pages that have a high impression count but never got any real clicks. The easiest way to find these pages is to set your date range to the last 28 days and look at each page’s metrics from an impression, click, and CTR perspective.

Sort the CTR column in ascending order (lowest percentage at the top, the highest percentage at the bottom). Typically, the pages at the top of that list have the most potential. It means that Google is ranking you but you just aren’t getting too many clicks.

It usually isn’t just related to your title tag and meta description. It typically has to do with the content on the page.

Now it’s time to create a list of pages that have the greatest potential.

It’s time to prioritise

Typically, the pages that have the most potential are the ones that used to rank but no longer rank. Google used to rank and like them, which means if you give those pages a little tender loving care, you can easily get them loved by Google again. Who says true love is dead.

The second group of pages that have potential, but not as much as the first, are the ones with a high impression count but an extremely low CTR.

These pages are harder to fix because they never really performed that well.

How to update your old content

Now that you have a list of pages to fix so you can boost your search engine rankings, I want you to log in to Google Search Console, find that article, click on it, and then click on “queries.”

For the keywords that don’t rank in the top 5 or have a high impression volume, I want you to go to your ranking article and see if the article is relevant for that term. If not, adjust the article to at least include that term and cover that topic including appropriate keywords.

Finally, when updating your content, make sure your article is more thorough than all of the other sites that rank for the terms you are trying to rank for.

User metrics

User behaviour is one of the biggest factors with Google’s algorithm. Once you update your old content, you’ll want to optimise for user signals as that’ll help boost rankings. A great example of user metrics is optimising your title tags and meta description.

For example, if everyone searched a keyword on Google and clicked on the second result instead of the first, it tells Google that the second result is more relevant and that it should be ranking in the first spot instead of the second.

And Google eventually would make that change.

If you can use persuasive copy and convince people to click on your search listing instead of the competition, eventually your rankings will climb.

Over the years, I’ve done a lot of title tag and meta description tests and I’ve also found that these keywords help increase clicks:

What is

Best

Amazing

[lists]

How to

Free

You

Tips

Why

Tricks

Great

You can also use tools like Clickflow to A/B test your meta tags.

Don’t forget to promote (again)

Now that your content is up to date and you’ve optimised your meta tags for clicks, it’s time for you to promote your content. I know what you are thinking… why would you promote old content, right?

Well, technically it isn’t old anymore.

First of all, you should update the published date or last updated date within your website. That way search engines know your content is changed, more relevant, and up to date.

Secondly, you need to promote the article. It’s new now, so why wouldn’t you share it with the world?

The simplest thing you can do is share it on the social web. I typically share my content on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn… but you can pick whatever social profiles you have.

Although Google doesn’t really look at social signals, Bing does. Plus, some people who visit your page from the social web may decide to link to your article, which does help rankings.

And if you want to go above and beyond, check out Meet Edgar. It’s what I use to continually schedule my old content to be promoted on the social web. That way I don’t have to manually do it or set reminders.

In addition to social shares, you should consider sending out a text-based email blast to your audience promoting your content.

It’s a great way to get a quick boost of traffic and breathe life into your old content.

Here’s an example of a text-based email blast that I send so you can copy my format.

Subject: How to Generate 10K visitors from a Brand New Blog in Under 6 Months

If I tell you to do 100 things to grow your traffic, I know you won’t do it.

Heck, even I wouldn’t. It’s just too much work.

In the spirit of simplicity, just do this and you’ll get to 10,000 visitors.

I’ll even make a deal with you. If you follow it and don’t hit 10,000 visitors and you can show me you followed it, I will help you for free.

That’s how confident I am that it works.

Kind Regards,

Co-Founder

Honest London

And don’t forget to build links

The last step you want to leverage is link building. You can use Backlinks to see who is linking to competing articles:

All you have to do is put in a competing URL and select “URL” from the drop-down menu and you’ll see every site that links to that page.

From there, you’ll want to reach out to each site and ask them to link to you.

The easiest way to do this is to leverage the skyscraper technique and the steps in this article.

Conclusion

I believe, once you hit the 150 mark in the number of pages on your site, you should consider focusing the majority of your time to updating old content instead of creating new content.

If you have over 1,000 pages, you should definitely spend 80-plus percent of your time updating old content instead of writing new content… What more can you have to say?

The key to ranking your old, outdated content is to first focus on the content that used to rank but doesn’t anymore.

Once you fix those pages, you should see results within a month or two. From there, you can then focus on pages that have a high impression count but a low click count.