Giving your older content an SEO audit
May 22, 2009 Search Engine Optimization, Writing Content
When most people sit down to do SEO on an established site, chances are pretty good that a lot of the content was created simply to add content. And while some might have been designed with SEO in mind, chances are good - especially on larger sites - that there is a lot of content that is just “there”. If you have a lot of content that was created before a good SEO strategy was implemented across the site, it is time to go and perform an SEO audit on that content. Here are some of the things you should be looking at.
Titles
When I look at older content sites, some of the titles are seriously atrocious. Often times they are either so keyword rich they reek of spam, or they are written with nary a keyword in site, or if you are lucky, one keyword right at the end. So have a look at each title and see if you can rewrite it to include keywords without being spammy, as well as creating strong titles and will get the clicks. And yes, I am especially talking to those people who still have content where all their articles have the same “Sitename.com Site Name” title tag 
Linking within the content
are there opportunities for you to link to other articles on your site from within each article? If you can, great. But be careful not to go overboard, if you have something linked on every sentence, it will look a little odd.
Linking externally
Going back through old content can present opportunities to link to outside authoritative sites within your market area. Don’t be afraid to link out when those links can provide value to your readers, as well as the possibility of a potential link back from those sites too.
Checking current links
It wouldn’t be the first time someone has discovered that great link you added to an article 3-4 years ago now leads to a porn spam portal. So be sure to give your current links a health check to make sure none of them are leading to “bad neighborhoods” or other sites you really do not want your readers to think you are endorsing!
Giving new keywords a boost
There are probably new keywords and keyword phrases you have discovered are valuable since you originally wrote some of your content. See if there are new keywords and phrases that can be worked into content about the topic, so you can give an extra boost to those keywords on your site. Especially if you aren’t a big writer, this can be a great way to get some of those new keywords without having to write entirely new content.
Related posts
If your older content is on a Wordpress blog, there are many different “related posts” plugins you can use. Otherwise, start with your most viewed articles and eventually work your way so that every article on your site has related posts or articles listen at the end. It will not only help with deep linking but it will also be great for user experience and increase page views on your site as well.
Fix typos
I am quite certain I have pages out there with typos, and every once in a while I will spend some time going through old articles and checking for spelling errors and typos. While once upon a time typos and misspellings could be considered a viable SEO strategy, nowadays - particularly with Google’s new “did you mean” correction in the search results - it won’t pay off as well now as it once did. And it doesn’t hurt to check grammar while you are at it too.
Outdated content
If you have content that is outdated, take the time to update it, especially if new information arises… you want people who are looking for that new information to be able to find it, especially if you aren’t planning to write a new article about it for your site. That way when people search for it, you will have it, whether they search through a search engine or your internal site search.
So next time you have a couple hours to spare, sit down and start looking at your older content and see how you can give them an SEO audit and fix what needs fixing. Just be sure to keep track of which pages you have done, so that next time you sit down, you won’t have to try and remember what you have done and what still is awaiting the SEO audit.
Creating new hot content for trending topics
Apr 10, 2009 Writing Content
Sometimes the best articles or blog entries can be something you have written off the top of your head about a hot topic - something that is trending in your niche and about to hit that tipping point that turns it into a hot topic that everyone is suddenly talking about. However, you need to find these trending topics, because before you know it, a ton of other blogs would have beaten you to the punch and you will be too late to make an impact. And then you need to pull off a great article that makes people want to link to you over anyone else who has written (or will be writing) about the same thing.
Monitor your market
Pay attention to what people are tweeting in your niche. Watch a handful of the busiest forums in your market area to see what people are suddenly talking about. Set up Google alerts & twitter searches on specific topics. Have a contact form so people can easily contact you when they notice something. But the big thing is to pay attention, especially when everyone seems to be asking questions and you know you can supply the answer.
Fact check before you write
Yes, you might think you know the answer off the top of your head, but if you want to make sure you become the relevant source of information for everyone talking about the topic, double check and do your fact checking. Especially if it is a blog, commenters can tear you apart if you present yourself as an authority on the trending topic but make a complete fool of yourself by giving up the wrong information. But even if you are not totally familiar with the topic, some research can often give you the answers everyone is looking for, you just need to pull it together in one place.
Get quotes
When people have a hot topic, they are often in such a hurry to write about it, they don’t think about getting quotes. But quotes can be even more crucial in a hot topic because getting a quote from an authority on the subject, even if you are still trying to establish yourself as an expert, can go a long way in bringing credibility on what you have written about. But yourself in one of those potential reader’s shoes… if you have a quote from an authority on the subject, you can bet you will get the links, even if someone else writing on the topic is better known. So make sure you know who you can contact quickly for quotes or even just a “does this sound right to you?” check.
Answer the questions
If everyone is asking a question about the hot topic, make sure you answer it and provide people with insights and information that no one else has. If you are the first person to answer or to take that angle of a story, you are not only answering the exact questions people have, but people will link to it because you are answering them. If you simply write a lengthy essay on the topic in general, it being a hot topic won’t be enough to make your site be the place to be. But if you are answering the questions that the people have, if you write it, they will come.
Don’t build castle walls
Link out to the many places where the topic is trending from your own article. Many people don’t do this because they want to keep the comments “on their own site”. But the problem with building a wall around your content can have the impact of not only keeping people in but also keeping people out. First, people want proof when you claim “everyone is talking about” your given topic, and sometimes people just want to get a well rounded view of what every one’s opinions are (not that yours won’t be fabulous, of course!) And don’t forget people will be much more generous in promoting you when you are promoting them too, whether it is a link to a forum or to a few tweets to highlighted. Not to mention the fact your links can also help a trending topic hit the tipping point to become the hot topic you want it to be.
Double check before you publish
Treat any blog post, but especially one that has the potential to get huge traffic, as the one entry that could define your career. So check for typos, make sure your grammar is right, the formatting looks good, the links all work, and that it is as polished as you can make it.
Get your social on
These are the types of articles that can go nuts with a little bit of social media prodding. So make sure if you have a blog that you are using something like Sociable so that your readers can quickly and easily submit them to all the relevant social sites. You want to make it as easy for them as possible… people might not think twice to hit the Digg link on your page, but many won’t go to the effort to actually go to Digg and submit it if they have to do it that way.
The most important thing to remember when doing this is that you have to be on top of the trends, not behind them. So as long as you have your eyes and ears open to follow what people are talking about, that is half your battle there… the second half is getting the article done 
Adding seasonal content to your site for increased traffic
Apr 19, 2007 Writing Content
Seasonal content is one area that too few websites take advantage of. This is for a few reasons, but primarily because when a website writer comes up with an idea for a great holiday-related article, it tends to be only a few weeks or days before the holiday and there just isn’t enough time for that article to get traction in the search engines before the season is over.
If you are one of those people who comes up with brilliant article ideas a few days before the actual holiday, you can start preparing to earn money off that content next holiday season. Because let’s face it, the majority of us won’t remember that great article idea next year, nor will be remember we were going to write it at all until it is too late to get it ranking or even written before the holiday has passed yet again.
The other reason is that webmasters tend to dismiss seasonal content because it is only searched for over such a short period of time each year, then lies dormant, without earning any revenue, for the other eleven months of the year. And the thinking is that it is better to have content that is searched for throughout the entire year, not just the 2-4 weeks that seasonal content tends to be searched for.
However, many webmasters find that seasonal content can drive a huge number of sales or clicks, even though that seasonal content tends to only be heavily used for a short period of time each year. There are sites that can make the majority of its yearly income simply through well ranked seasonal content driving visitors to the site in droves over the period of a few weeks. So there is the potentiall that you could more than double your income simply by adding some seasonal content.
So here is a plan of action you can use in order to timeline yourself better. Once you do this, you can easily add the new content to your site in the best way to get the related holiday traffic next time around before it comes upon you again and you realize that you missed the boat again.
Have you gone overboard with your keyword density?
Apr 3, 2007 Keywords, Search Engine Optimization, Writing Content
At Seodays, we talked about keyword density and how important keyword density is when optimizing your content. However, not everyone understands how keyword density works… and how going overboard with keyword density can sink your entire page to the bottom of the search engine results, if it even ranks at all.
Keyword density is a tricky one because the percentage you should have can vary depending on the market area. In a non-competitive area, you don’t need to worry much about it too other than to make sure those keywords are on the page, preferably in the first half of the content rather than the second half. But if you are in a competitive area, you need to hit certain percentages of keyword density, and placing them at specific places within your content, without crossing that invisible line where your content becomes so keyword heavy that it becomes spammy.
