Should I Rewrite the Articles on My Website?
You are contacted by a potential client who has built his or her site around providing niche articles for a specific trade.
Your client has noticed that after Google rolled out its farm targeted algorithm that the website has dropped in rank.
Your client's concern is whether the article content, all written originally by the client, needs to be revamped.
How should you answer him/her? First, look at some of the articles.
In a recent client's case, a quick review of two of the articles suggested that the answer was yes, but not for the reason he probably expected.
His articles weren't a grammatical mess.
He covered his topics well.
What was the reason I gave him for rewriting his articles? Failure to target the articles for the types of searches people do.
Typical Search Types People are looking for how to do and why to do and even when to do.
Who, what, where, when, why and how.
These are the driving search questions.
This means that article titles need to use the 5 Ws and H.
Not only will the 5W&H formula harvest search results, they automatically create different angles from which to approach a subject.
They help to general article ideas.
For example, one of the articles was on acoustical ceilings.
The title wasn't optimized for any of the search types.
That was the first issue that needed to be addressed.
A quick read through the article revealed that it naturally broke out into three subjects.
It was for this reason I agreed that a rewrite was worth it.
Benefits of Targeted Rewrites When it comes to delivering value, how long people stay at the sites they go to after a search result is an important factor for weighing how effective the link to that site was.
It is a proven fact that Google does record bounce rate.
When a visitor doesn't stay on a page long enough, it is recorded.
Otherwise, Google couldn't provide analytics results.
Single topic articles deliver value and are no more likely to cause someone to click away than a longer article.
In fact, the performance is probably better.
When a visitor doesn't see the content that brought him or her to the page within seconds, the search goes on somewhere else.
Google will often handle this type of rewrite (new titles, targeted articles) as new content because breaking out an article usually requires some tweaking of the content.
Rarely can you just split an article into parts.
While portions may be intact from the prior article, many changes are added to make the article work.
This will give you the same benefits as adding new articles to your site, as long as you remove the old article.
Process for Changing Articles on a Website If it were my website, I would go through the website systematically and re-target each article before I moved on to adding new articles, especially if I had any budget constraints.
This would make the project easier to manage.
It would help to establish a systematic process for changing the landing page for each topic and creating the links to the new articles.
Systematic helps to keep a website clean while changes are occurring.
Get the entire site in line with your goals first.
Then start adding new content in new subject areas.
Eliminate any potential that you will have to rework site structure with even more content on the site than it currently has.
It will save time and money.
Rewriting isn't always worth it.
Unless your articles have a serious issue with poor grammar or clearly don't attract search naturally through search friendly titles, you should consider whether the expense of rewriting an article is really worth it.
Any rewriting should be informed by the specific metrics revealed through your site analytics.
Simply rewriting because you hope it will improve results could produce consequences you aren't expecting.
You could drive your search engine rankings down instead of up because you shifted the balance of keywords.
If it isn't apparent that it is broken, don't fix it.
If your articles are generally good, just add new content to your site.
Expand on general topics using titles that are search friendly.
Then be sure your article delivers on what the title promises.
If your article title is "Why to Caulk", then make sure the article provides reasons for why you should caulk.
If Google is measuring the experience of its users by how long they stay on the page, then delivering what a title promises is a good way to keep your visitor on the page.
I hope this information will help you work through the process of evaluating whether you need to rewrite your articles or whether you just need to add new content to your site.
Your client has noticed that after Google rolled out its farm targeted algorithm that the website has dropped in rank.
Your client's concern is whether the article content, all written originally by the client, needs to be revamped.
How should you answer him/her? First, look at some of the articles.
In a recent client's case, a quick review of two of the articles suggested that the answer was yes, but not for the reason he probably expected.
His articles weren't a grammatical mess.
He covered his topics well.
What was the reason I gave him for rewriting his articles? Failure to target the articles for the types of searches people do.
Typical Search Types People are looking for how to do and why to do and even when to do.
Who, what, where, when, why and how.
These are the driving search questions.
This means that article titles need to use the 5 Ws and H.
Not only will the 5W&H formula harvest search results, they automatically create different angles from which to approach a subject.
They help to general article ideas.
For example, one of the articles was on acoustical ceilings.
The title wasn't optimized for any of the search types.
That was the first issue that needed to be addressed.
A quick read through the article revealed that it naturally broke out into three subjects.
- Why Paint an Acoustical Ceiling?
- Preparing to Paint an Acoustical Ceiling
- Tips for Painting an Acoustical Ceiling
It was for this reason I agreed that a rewrite was worth it.
Benefits of Targeted Rewrites When it comes to delivering value, how long people stay at the sites they go to after a search result is an important factor for weighing how effective the link to that site was.
It is a proven fact that Google does record bounce rate.
When a visitor doesn't stay on a page long enough, it is recorded.
Otherwise, Google couldn't provide analytics results.
Single topic articles deliver value and are no more likely to cause someone to click away than a longer article.
In fact, the performance is probably better.
When a visitor doesn't see the content that brought him or her to the page within seconds, the search goes on somewhere else.
Google will often handle this type of rewrite (new titles, targeted articles) as new content because breaking out an article usually requires some tweaking of the content.
Rarely can you just split an article into parts.
While portions may be intact from the prior article, many changes are added to make the article work.
This will give you the same benefits as adding new articles to your site, as long as you remove the old article.
Process for Changing Articles on a Website If it were my website, I would go through the website systematically and re-target each article before I moved on to adding new articles, especially if I had any budget constraints.
This would make the project easier to manage.
It would help to establish a systematic process for changing the landing page for each topic and creating the links to the new articles.
Systematic helps to keep a website clean while changes are occurring.
Get the entire site in line with your goals first.
Then start adding new content in new subject areas.
Eliminate any potential that you will have to rework site structure with even more content on the site than it currently has.
It will save time and money.
Rewriting isn't always worth it.
Unless your articles have a serious issue with poor grammar or clearly don't attract search naturally through search friendly titles, you should consider whether the expense of rewriting an article is really worth it.
Any rewriting should be informed by the specific metrics revealed through your site analytics.
Simply rewriting because you hope it will improve results could produce consequences you aren't expecting.
You could drive your search engine rankings down instead of up because you shifted the balance of keywords.
If it isn't apparent that it is broken, don't fix it.
If your articles are generally good, just add new content to your site.
Expand on general topics using titles that are search friendly.
Then be sure your article delivers on what the title promises.
If your article title is "Why to Caulk", then make sure the article provides reasons for why you should caulk.
If Google is measuring the experience of its users by how long they stay on the page, then delivering what a title promises is a good way to keep your visitor on the page.
I hope this information will help you work through the process of evaluating whether you need to rewrite your articles or whether you just need to add new content to your site.