Does this situation sound familiar to you? You click on an article, recognize content, figures or dates that are completely "out of date" and leave the page immediately? The majority of searchers on Google & Co will probably nod in agreement. This is because the high number of articles that search engines can find also means that viewers evaluate content more and more strictly and pay attention to how up-to-date it is.
New posts are not necessarily required to meet this customer demand. The key to success is to extract the potential from existing content. All it takes is a structured inventory, analysis and optimization of your content to increase the visibility of your website and reposition it with clear expert status.
The following article explains how you can achieve this and what you should pay attention to.
It often happens with existing content that, once published, it is out of sight and out of mind. An SEO analysis was carried out, a great text was written based on it and it was optimally entered. Now it's online. But after a while, it no longer generates as many leads, no longer gets any clicks and slips further and further down on Google. What has happened? To put it colloquially, the article is "out of date".
And this is exactly where content analysis comes into play. Ideally, it should have already begun before this point. The basis for a content analysis is an extensive collection of data on each individual article. The following KPIs can bea good start:
By monitoring this data, you can quickly identify the weak points in your content that are responsible for deteriorating performance. After all, it is not just a matter ofupdating the information, but also of up-to-date and high-quality search engine optimization and target group orientation. A successful content analysis goes hand in hand with renewed SEO research. Once you understand this link, it quickly becomes clear that there is much more to content analysis than simply adjusting the publication date.
When analyzing content, it is helpful to decide on a time period right from the start. Do you check your content monthly, quarterly or annually? This will ensure that the rich pool of content you want to analyze is a little more manageable and doesn't overwhelm you. In the next step, you can sort this selected content into timeless, completely outdated or only partially outdated content. This makes it easier to prioritize according to efficiency .
Because even if there is a desire to optimize every piece of content, this does not always make sense.
Concentrate on articles that deal with popular topics and can be updated quickly. When selecting your content, it should also be a primary consideration whether itis still inline with the company's goals and current corporate identity . Have you perhaps started to use gender? Have you recently started using a uniform design for your blog posts?
Once all this has been clarified, the structured analysis can begin.
The first step is to evaluate and analyze the data mentioned above. You should also take a critical look atyour target group definition. Have there been any changes in your target group? New trends or interests? Do you perhaps want to address an additional target group with your content? This approach gives you the opportunity to adapt or realign your content.
But internal changes should also be taken into account. Is there a new product range? Any changes in the workforce? New, more up-to-date data on the topics? The data analysis in combination with the above considerations will reveal which blog entries only need a brief touch-up and which require a deeper analysis.
In marketing, it is always beneficial to occasionally look left and right. Knowing what your competitors are doing differently allows you to compare and reflect on your own work.
Take a look at which topics or features are performing well or poorly with the competition. Also take a look at the structure of the texts and see whether certain approaches are promising. It's not about copying, but the opportunity to find food for thought for fresh and creative ideas.
It can happen that your post is suddenly in a worse position than before. Search Engine Optimization plays an important role in improving your ranking. Check here whether the keywords used still work and are sufficiently integrated into the text.Keyword stuffing, i.e. the arbitrary insertion of keywords, is not supported by the algorithm and should be avoided. The higher the quality of your content, the higher the algorithm will rank you. You can achieve this by incorporating many internal and external links into your post.
If nobody clicks on your article anymore, you should take a look at the meta title and meta description. Both are "eye-catchers" for readers in the mass of articles and should stand out.
Therefore, compare your title with the meta title of a well-functioning ad and compare thetone, style and use of emoticons.
The target group may be better captured by a different approach. Otherwise, follow the basic guidelines for the title. Create a desire to readthe article and show in the description what added value and information the reader will receive from the article.
In this case, it is particularly important that the article also delivers what the meta description has promised. Because when the reader comes to your page, it is important to keep them on the page and generate the longest possible reading time. The headlines, the structure and the integration of CTAs must accompany the reader through the text and constantly arouse new interest.
Shouldnew subheadings be included? Does the article take current developments on the topic into account? Does the article possibly gain from other examples? Such questions can be a starting point for reducing the bounce rate through a thorough content analysis.
Content is not just blog posts, it can also be social media posts . The question is whether the 5-step analysis routine can also be applied to this content. It should be noted that marketing on social media channels is much more fast-moving and is evaluated according to different criteria. In general, however, there are various ways to get the potential out of old posts or contributions on social media. On the one hand, a "flashback" can be created, which refers back to previous posts. On the other hand, interesting comments can be used as a hook to revive these posts.
You can also improvethe performance of social media posts using criteria such as time of publication, hashtags, eye-catchers and emojis. Also check whether the current content format fits the corresponding channel and whether your content distribution is optimal.
Just as with blog posts, analysis and constant monitoring of changes is the starting point for successful optimization .
Gustav Heinemann once said: "If you don't want to change anything, you will lose what you want to keep". He was probably notalluding to aneffective marketing strategy, but these words summarize the essence of this article. There may be a lot of potential in your content, but this will only come to light if the content is adapted to the present . And this is definitely less effort than creating a completely new article. We therefore conclude that a content analysis is smart work. If you have any further questions on the topic or regarding the best tools, please contact us. We are happy to help.