How to Detect and Improve Poor Contents
If you are new to the digital marketing industry, "SEO Content" should be a term you are already used to by now, and that is because "SEO Content" is a key aspect of marketing that every digital expert should understand in 2021.
Regularly creating contents is an important factor of getting ranked on Google. However, getting ranked is not all about creating contents, it is about creating performing contents that have the potential of boosting your site's visibility and engagement. Not all contents are relevant because not all contents are searched for, as a matter of fact, findings from a recent survey by Ahrefs revealed that over 90% of contents get no organic traffic from Google and that is really on the high side. This however, only further reinforces the importance of creating high performing contents so as to get organic traffic.
Are You Ready to Get Loved by Google?
So, while creating contents is important, crafting contents that work is even more important because it generates new traffic and boosts visibility as well as engagements. In today's post we will be reviewing an interesting aspect of SEO optimization, which is how to detect, and most importantly how to improve low quality contents on your website. But first, let's briefly review why content is indispensable in SEO in 2021.
Why Content Is Indispensable in SEO in 2021
SEO is an acronym for 'Search Engine Optimization' and it is a guaranteed marketing tool that is used to increase and improve the flow of organic traffic to a website or a blog. SEO is a very vital tool in digital marketing and it is used for several reasons, but it is mostly used to improve marketing strategies. Search engine optimization is an indispensable marketing strategy in 2021 because:
• Over 65% of search engine users only click on contents on the first or second page on the search engine result page (SERPS).
• Investing in high performing SEO contents can make your marketing strategies more productive than that of your competition (s).
As mentioned earlier content is a crucial aspect of SEO in 2021 and it is not just about creating contents that counts, rather it is about creating engaging and highly relevant contents that the internet users actually search for. What determines how relevant a content is, most times thrives on how often people search for it. For example, if your blog is all about the automotive stuff, then you're expected to ensure that each of your blog posts to contain active keywords or frequently asked questions by search engine users in that niche. While SEO does not work like magic, as you cannot see its effects overnight, but by consistently publishing high performing contents with frequently searched and active keywords, there are more chances that your site can eventually get ranked.
Since constantly creating and publishing high performing contents is a crucial aspect of SEO in 2021, it is therefore imperative that we discuss how poor contents can damage your overall website SEO. So, what are the underperforming contents and how can they affect your website ranking?
What Is an Underperforming Content?
To avoid ambiguity and multiple interpretation of the term ‘under performing content’, let's quickly define it. Poor contents are contents on a website (whether, commercial, transactional, technological, or educational) pages that are performing below their potentials. Simply put, under performing contents are passive contents that do not generate any engagement and a good level of organic traffic. Regular combination of poor contents can damage your website ranking.
Now that we have defined what under performing contents are, it is also important that we discuss how to identify what causes under performing contents.
What causes Underperforming Contents?
There are several reasons why the contents on your website are not performing as well as you expect, but in most cases, your contents do not get ranked or drive traffic because they primarily do not answer questions search engine users frequently ask or they do not strategically contain any active keywords or contain too few of those. But beyond these, there are several more reasons why the contents on your website are not performing well. Here are some other reasons why contents or pages on your website or blog are not working too well:
• Duplicate or plagiarized contents:
Your contents have low chances of getting ranked if they are not original. In writing SEO friendly contents, one of the first thing you need to ensure is that, your contents are unique and original and not plagiarized. Publishing duplicate or plagiarized contents on your website will gradually damage your rankings as duplicate and non-unique and non-original contents do not always get ranked by Google. So, to improve duplicate contents or pages on your website, you can rewrite them from a whole new perspective and still retain the actual meaning of the contents.
• Keyword Stuffing:
While using keywords is important in getting ranked by Google and other search engine platforms, overusing keywords however, is a bad SEO practice. If you over use keywords, in the contents or pages on your website, search engines will tag such content or page as low performing, as it is a signal for search engines like Google that you are attempting to manipulate their algorithms.
• Outdated contents:
This is a very sensitive topic and this is why it is important; outdated contents are not frequently searched for, hence they drive little or no traffic. Therefore, publishing blog posts with mostly outdated contents is most likely to perform below it's potential. Regardless the niche for your website or blog, it is important to keep your contents always fresh, unique and most importantly updated. Aside the fact that search engines rank website with fresh and recent or updated contents.
So, if your contents are not doing well it might be because they do not address very recent trends across the world. So, since most search engine users are one way or another interested in the very recent trends in their niche, it is therefore important that as a blogger you update your knowledge in your industry/topic so that you can give your audience the most recent/fresh information on your website.
Other causes of poor contents can also be:
• Absence of backlinks
• Accepting low quality guest post
• Cloaking
• Having too many ads (some users can't stand Ads!)
• Having slow page loading time
Knowing the cause of under performing contents is important because it will make you more aware of how to avoid them and most importantly how to maintain or follow SEO practices that are ethical and yet highly effective. Therefore, practices like, posting or publishing duplicate or plagiarized and outdated contents, keywords stuffing among several others are cause of poor contents or pages on your website.
Now let's talk about how to improve under performing contents or pages on your website.
Why Wait?
How to Improve Under performing Contents, in four practical steps.
There are several ways poor contents can be improved or re-optimized to drive more traffic. But in this blog post, we will review simple and yet practical ways to re-optimize poor contents on your website to generate more organic traffic.
So, here are some practical and yet effective ways to re-optimize under performing contents or pages on your website and generate more traffic.
• Step 1: Re-optimize under performing contents with long-tail keywords.
To re-optimize low quality contents on your website first, you need to ensure that contents and pages on your website are optimized for long-tail keywords. This is important because contents and pages on your website with long tail keywords stand more chances to perform better in various search engines.
So here is how it works, long tail keywords can re-optimize under performing contents because they are highly specific and it is often less competitive therefore search engines ranking them become easier.
So, ensure each content you publish answers questions search engine users are frequently asking. Also build your contents to address particular keywords. So, if you want to improve under performing contents with long tail keywords, don't manipulate the search engine ranking algorithm with tricky long tail keywords. Instead, you can pay more attention and invest more in delivering immerse value in your content.
• Step 2: Improve your page loading speed
This is a very important tip in getting ranked on any search engine because, as much as users need information about one thing in a particular niche, they need it as fast as they can get it. So, if you have poor page load speed, sure thing Google will recognize it and this will most likely affect your ranking.
Apart from not getting ranked by search engines, slow page loading speed can also Influence how your website visitors will engage with the contents and pages on your website. If you have one of the most detailed and incredible blog post about a subject, very few people will read it if the page is taking more than 4 seconds to load. If you have a fast page loading speed, people visiting your website will most likely check more contents on your website.
So, ensure you optimize the page speed for every content you publish, so that you will get ranked and get more engagement from people who visit your website.
• Step 3: Ensure you fix any broken links
Having broken links in your contents all pages on your website can damage your website ranking on search engines faster than you think. To detect broken links on your website you can use tools like 'Dead Link Checker' to identify pages and websites with broken links. This goes a long way in getting your contents optimized.
• Step 4: Include Active Keywords
In optimizing under performing contents and pages on your website, keywords play a vital and indispensable role in the whole process. So, to optimize low quality contents you need to include words users in your niche are constantly searching for. You need to first understand the intent and some basic demographic of your audience. You can also use free and paid tools to suggest high and active keywords search engine users frequently search for in your niche.
Another thing you need to understand about keywords is that they are always changing, this is because what users search for tends to change as lifestyle trends are dynamic and ever changing. So, you also need to pay close attention to how your audience interact with keywords, and include active keywords in your contents so that you can gain more visibility and engagement.
There are several other ways that are also effective in optimizing the under performing contents and pages on your website. Some of these include; diversifying links, making contents less boring and more interesting and fun to read, writing very attractive meta descriptions, making the right content changes among several others. If you consistently practice these tips, your website will stand a better chance of getting ranked.
Final Thoughts
One common problem most bloggers encounter often revolves around under performing contents and improving them. These contents can in many ways affect your website performance and that can make you have a not so fulfilling blogging experience. What makes this problem more common among most bloggers is that they even do not know which of their contents or pages are under performing.
A recent research revealed that, over 80% of contents get no organic traffic from Google. This however, implies that an overwhelming number of blog contents are not relevant simply because they are not searched for by most search engine users. And it is still possible for a content to contain not to get optimized even if it has keywords for many reasons, some of which were discussed in this post.
So, regardless the niche of your website the tips shared in this article will go a long way to ensure you get ranked.
Ensuring high performing contents on your website is an important game changer in getting ranked on may search engine platforms. So, to re-optimize poor contents and pages on your website(s), you can carefully go through and practice the simple tips share in this blog post.