Importance of Fresh and Updated Website Content, Part 2

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the basics of repurposing or updating old blog content on your website. This area, along with creating fresh and relevant content, has become even more vital to SEO pros and online marketers in recent periods of time, as Google and other search engines have appeared to shift content priorities further toward newer, updated content – even when older content is from a more authoritative source.

At SEO Werkz, content creation is one of several areas we cover as part of our comprehensive SEO and online marketing services, areas that range from general SEO strategy to PPC, web design, social media marketing and others. While part one of our series primarily focused on repurposing and refreshing old content into newer posts, part two today will narrow in on the creation of “fresh” content – why it’s so important and some of the direct impacts it has on SEO and marketing efforts.

Fresh Content Importance

You might be wondering: If updated content has such a positive impact, as we went over in part one, why worry about creating large amounts of fresh content to begin with? Well, because the benefits are very different – and actually complement prudent repurposing efforts in several ways.

When it comes to site visitors, fresh content is a big part of what keeps them coming back to your site. Think about your preferred news source as an example; if you went to it and saw weeks- or months-old content, it wouldn’t be your preferred source a whole lot longer, would it? Not every site will need to be updated as often as a news outlet, of course, but this theme applies to a variety of consumer-facing websites – fresh content will keep both old and new visitors’ eyes on your pages, including many of those who may not have been on your site otherwise.

Direct Impact on SEO

Fresh, quality content impacts SEO efforts in multiple ways:

• Keyword optimization: While SEO pros in generations past might have been able to simply stuff important keywords into sites without any relevant or engaging content, Google and other search engines eliminated keyword stuffing and related practices years ago. For this reason, strong, fresh content is often your single best tool for keyword optimization.
• User activity: New content allows you to build a returning audience and build traffic, which in turn increases authority for your site.
• Crawlers: Search engine crawlers, or bots that search sites, are can spot fresh pages and see when pages have been updated. These kinds of content will improve rankings on organic search results. The more you publish, the more often you’ll be re-indexed, leading to greater improvements.
• Link-building: Finally, adding new pages also creates a new link for your website. This will increase your ability to interlink between pages and build backlinks, which refer to another website hyperlinking to yours – backlinks are a big deal for establishing credibility and authority in your industry.

For more on updating content and creating fresh content for websites, or to learn about any of our SEO, web design or other services, speak to the staff at SEO Werkz today.