to improve or remove content for SEO //

Does low-quality content affect your ” reputation for knowledge?

Could be.

Is it possible that the content is outdated or older?

Maybe.

Google has repeatedly emphasized that it should not delete older, helpful content. Google has repeatedly stressed after removed thousands of old pages.

It’s not a quick fix to boost all pages with SEO.

As long as the content is of high quality, it shouldn’t affect your SEO performance. The New York Times is a great place to start.

Learn how to evaluate the quality of content from a SEO perspective, and then decide whether to improve or remove it.

What is quality content, and what does it mean?

Avinash Kaushik’s See/Think/Do/Care Model states that quality content answers questions comprehensively, solves issues or otherwise satisfies your “largest target audience” (or group of qualified people).

Quality content also includes:

• Accurate (i.e. trustworthy)
• Easy to consume
• Education
• Entertaining
• Helpful
• Informative
• Inspiring
• Optimized
• Original
• Shareable
• Useful

All of these attributes are not present in every piece of content. Great content should include as many of these characteristics as possible.

Google also has provided some insights on what it considers to be quality content for . This includes creating content that is helpful, reliable and puts the people first. You can use it to ask yourself specific questions when assessing the quality your content.

• Is the content original reporting, research or analysis?
• Is the content a complete or thorough description of the subject?
• Is the content a source of insightful analysis or information that goes beyond the obvious?
• Does the content that draws from other sources provide additional value or originality, rather than simply copying and rewriting?
• Is the title or main heading of the page a helpful, descriptive summary of the contents?
• Is the title or main heading of a page not exaggerating?
• This is the kind of page that you would want to bookmark, recommend, or share with friends?
• Would you expect this content to be in a book, magazine, or encyclopedia?
• Is the content of this page comparable to that on other pages?
• Is the content grammatically or stylistically incorrect?
• Does the content appear well-produced, or is it sloppy and hastily created?
• Are the pages and sites not given as much care or attention because they are spread out across many sites or mass produced by a number of people?

You should also be familiar with E.E.A.T, and Google’s Guidelines for Search Quality Rater PDF.

Dig deep: Quality content

Identify your key content metrics

These attributes sound good in theory. How can you measure “quality content?”

Here are five ways to measure quality:

• PageviewsTraffic is a good indicator of success. The more people who read your content, the better.
• Organic Traffic:Rankings were never as important for me as organic traffic (people visiting my website). I don’t really care if my website ranks in the top position for a keyword that brings little or no traffic.
• Links: Check out internal links as well as links from external sites to your content. Quantity is not as important as quality (e.g. one link from an authoritative, high-quality site can be more valuable than 100 links coming from 100 mediocre/bad domains). Assess the value of your links.
• Conversions – What’s important to you? Sign up for a newsletter? Subscriptions? Sales? Revenue? Content should contribute to the business goals, SEO strategy and buyer’s journey.
• Engagement You may want to consider the engagement of a site that has a longer duration. Maybe it’s the scroll depth. You’re not looking at “traffic”, as that is meaningless.

Tailor your metrics to your unique situation.

Starting off: Examining content elements

What kind of content do you currently have? Find out by performing a audit.

This process helps you determine if your content should be updated or deleted.

Make a spreadsheet that contains information about your content to provide some direction. Here’s what I found most helpful (you might want to add more elements or include others):

• Title – Is it accurate? It could be optimized better? Is there a clear benefit to the reader?
• URL Does it have SEO-friendly? Is it necessary to make changes (e.g. does the URL include a year)
• Author Was it written by a subject-matter expert or authority? Is the writer still employed by/for your organization (or are you still in contact with them)? Can you contact the author?
• Date of publication:This information is important for content that can/should not be updated.
• Pageviews – (historical vs. Recent): I am looking for the content with the lowest performance or content that was popular but is no longer.
• Word Count:Lower words counts may indicate quality issues.
• Links – Has your content been linked to by other sites? How many internal links do you have to your content?
• Citation Flow and Trust Flow: Both Majestic metrics indicate the quality of links and their equity. Scores higher than 100 are considered better.

Quick points about word counts: Google says that word count does not matter for SEO, and I believe that there is no perfect word count for SEO. Word count can indicate problems, but it is not always the cause. You need to dig deeper into everything.

The next step is the most difficult: reviewing your content to determine what actions you should take. This will require expert judgment from those who know SEO and are familiar with the subject. Remember: Many variables can influence the success or failure of your content.

In terms of the key metrics I use, I evaluate whether or not to remove content by evaluating whether:

• Positive SEO: Your unicorns/rockstars are here to help you reach your goals.
• SEO neutrality: Some contents are just there – they don’t help or hurt. These types of content are essentially useless.
• Negative SEO: Thin and outdated content, or unhelpful material – all of which can have a negative impact on your performance.

Leave alone the content

We need to discuss a type of content before we can talk about improving or removing it.

It is rare to find a form of content which does not need any changes (for the moment) because:

• It is very helpful. All the information provided is current and accurate, or has historical value.
• Get good traffic and engagement consistently.
• Many quality links have been attracted.
• Rankings from Position 1-3.
• Generates conversions.

(For now.) (For now.)

Where will you be after you have earned Position 1 on the organic search results? Not up.

There are no major modifications required. You should perform routine maintenance. Concentrate your efforts on the content that’s not in this position.

Why you should improve your content

Google has in recent years advised against removing content and suggested that “thin” or “weak” content be made “thick”, i.e. better, while adding more content of high quality. According to Gary Illyes, Google’s “…don’t remove content that someone may find useful.

Mueller also said that “improving the system is probably what you should do in general”.

• “…if your content can be improved, that’s the best way to go. You’ll have something really valuable on your website and you’ll provide something useful for the internet in general.”

How to improve content

It’s easier to improve content by making a few changes quickly and updating the publication date.

You should evaluate every aspect of your content and compare it to the ranking provided by your competitors. This includes:

• Alignment of audience/search/user intention.
• Call to Action
• Clarity.
• Data.
• Depth.
• Facts.
• Formatting.
• Grammar and spelling
• Links/citations.
• Information missing
• Multimedia (videos, images, audio).
• Readability.
• Structure.
• Title.
• Writing style / tone of voice
• The URL for this page is:
• Usefulness.
• Value.

The latest update to the website is:

A typical update requires the least time. Typically, only 20-25% or so of the content will need to be updated.

If you are unable to write your content, then it is time to rewrite it.

• The traffic (or ranking) drops, particularly near a Google core upgrade.
• Attracting fewer/no links.
• Engagement is declining.
• It is in the top five to ten and achieving higher ranks by doing the necessary work is possible.
• Conversions are on the decline.

Rewrite

The content must be updated to the maximum extent possible, up to and including 100%.

If:

• The site is currently receiving little to no traffic.
• The site no longer generates any new links.
• Engagement is poor or non-existent.
• It’s not in the top 10.
• No longer indexable
• This is not driving conversions.

You may have content that is useful, relevant, or helpful, but the writing was poor. If you want to fix this, be sure to:

• Create content from scratch
• Update the information to ensure accuracy.
• 301 redirection old post to new on a new URL (optimized).

Google can pass on full PageRank via 301 redirects. You get the best value when your new page has a topic that is as close to 1:1 with the old page.

Consolidate and redirect

You may want to consolidate your content for the following reasons:

• There are multiple articles about the same topic.
• A page receives a small amount of traffic, while others receive even less or no traffic.
• The articles do not generate any new links, or any engagement.
• The article does not rank in the top 10.
  
  or…
  
  • The wrong page rankings
  • Two pages compete for the same SERP.

John Mueller, Google’s John Mueller, has approved the practice of combining content. He said about the topic.

• “Probably. “Probably.” I think it’s something we generally see… if we take two, three, or four weaker pages, and merge them together, whether within the same website or externally, we can then say that this page is stronger.
• “We can see… that more parts of your site refer to this single piece of content, so it is probably more relevant than the individual small pieces you had previously.”

How to:

• Create a piece of content that is both awesome and useful.
• Write the topic today, from a modern perspective. Repurpose or reuse any relevant content.
• Better than your competitors
• Redirect to the new URL (optimized).

Why you should remove your content

Low-quality content is bad to users. What’s bad for the user is also bad for SEO.

Google Panda launched after and we learned that content pruning can help improve rankings for better-quality content (emphasis mine).

“It’s also important that webmasters know that poor quality content on a part of a website can affect a site as a entire. If you feel that you have been affected by this change, you should review all of your content and try to improve the quality of your pages. Moving low-quality pages to another domain or removing them could improve your ranking for higher-quality content.”

The emphasis is on old and low-quality, not new . It is true that older content tends to have a lower quality. Links, images and information change.

Google’s system for helpful content is now a site-wide algorithm. This means that “if Google determines that your site produces a high volume of unhelpful, written primarily to rank in search results, then your entire site will be affected.”

Google informed us that ” removal of unhelpful content can help your ranking.”

Same advice but different algorithms Simply replace “low quality” with “unhelpful”.

Let’s simplify it. Ask yourself a question.

• Do I feel embarrassed by this page’s content?

You can answer this question in four different ways.

• Does your content appeal to your audience? Do not lose sight of the core audience when you are chasing revenue and growth. Keep your identity and audience in mind.
• Does your content help you achieve a specific goal? This is tied to your key metrics.
• Does your content meet the user’s intent (in terms of keywords)? Google’s SERPs can give you valuable insights about specific keywords, including what content is ranking on Google and what users want from your content.
• Does your content fail? Refer back to the way Google and this article define quality (plus, your own unbiased judgement). Does it meet quality standards that you have set? Consider your key metrics: traffic, engagements, links, conversions or shares.

What other things could negatively affect you? Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines tell us:

• E-E.A.T is insufficient.
• The quality of the main content is poor.
• The amount of content in the main is not satisfactory.
• The title is shocking or exaggerated (also known as clickbait).
• Advertisements or supporting content can distract from the main content.
• Unsatisfactory information about the website’s creator or its content.
• The website or creator of the content has a slightly negative reputation.

What types of content should be removed?

• 
  Thin content
  
  This is a term that’s often used in ambiguity. In the past, I have defined “thin content” as:
  • poorly written. Any text that is riddled by spelling and grammar issues. It may feel incomplete or unsatisfactory because it does not deliver on its promises or answer your questions.
  • Off-topic. You can choose any topic, but it is best to focus on those that are most relevant and adjacent topics.
  • 
    Syndicated.
    
  • 
    Stolen/plagiarized.
    
• Content that has no historical value. When you publish content about a person, event, idea or other thing which is no longer relevant – particularly if the article failed to gain traction over time. It’s a judgement call. You are the best person to know your audience.
• Pageviews were very low in the last year. Any page with zero views should be examined first. Then, you’ll have to make a judgement call on whether a particular page is worth keeping.

Bottom Line:Will anyone miss the content, if it is gone? If you answered no, then it’s probably time to remove the content. This flowchart might be useful:

How to remove content

If you can’t update the content in any of these ways, then it’s best to remove it. You can either block it from search engine results or delete it from your website.

Block

Blocking the URL may be the best option if you want the content to remain on your website, but not appear in search engine results. Add the noindex meta tag to your site.

Another alternative is to ask for a password in order to access the content.

Remove it

Remove it from your website

In a Webmaster Hangout, Mueller stated that it doesn’t really matter whether a page has a status of 410 or not.

“From our perspective, mid-term/long-term, a 403 is the same thing as a 411 for us. In both cases, these URLs are removed from our index.

We reduce crawling of these URLs a bit so we don’t waste too much time crawling something that we know doesn’t exist.

A 404 will usually fall out faster than a 411. Usually, it’s a few days.

If you are removing the content by accident, either one is fine. “If you have removed the content in question long ago, it is already not indexed. It doesn’t really matter if you choose a 404.

Continue to ‘build out your reputation as a knowledgeable person’

Good SEO involves improving, removing, and consolidating the content.

It is hard work and not easy. If done correctly, the results will be worth it.

The post Improving and removing content for search engine optimization: How to do this the right way first appeared on Search Engine Land.