Over the last several months, I’ve been discussing the importance of fresh content and how it affects user experience. I’ve also talked about how Google loves fresh content because it increases the search experience for people, leading to better engagement. However, I want to discuss something else that is based on fresh content and why it’s even more important these days to increase momentum in this area. I like to keep up with the changing trends online and try to find out what distinguishes the best bloggers or content from the mediocre ones.
Today, I’ll be writing on fresh content but I’ll make this right to the point so you guys understand the fundamentals. Let’s get started.
Google has often prided itself on being the best search engine and the foundation was built on a specific mission. To be able to organize the web’s content in a way where it’s important and relevant to the user search experience. As time went on, people started to find clever ways to manipulate the algorithm and this started to hurt the user experience. As visitors started to find irrelevant information, they slowly started to lose faith in the entire system. However, after a series of updates, Google was able to put a lid on this problem by paying close attention to:
- Link farms and bulk link building
- Focusing more on relevant links
- Focusing more on links from authority websites
- Deep-linking became a more important factor
- Curated content sites were penalized
However, out of all this, there was still a major problem and it laid in the fact that older content websites were still able to outrank as long as all other criteria were met. With the world changing so fast, older irrelevant content would no longer provide substance so Google needed to find a way to overcome this factor. They introduced the Freshness algorithm.
This algorithm is pretty straightforward because it rewarded:
- Websites that posted more frequently
- Websites that revised content
- Websites that link from websites that met the freshness criteria
The Importance
The premise is very simple…
If you don’t continue to update your blog and content, then you won’t be able to achieve success online. There is also buzz that Google will be trying to implement something known as an accuracy update, which will cross-reference your content with other well-known proven sources. From some people, this doesn’t matter, but if you are relying on your website to generate leads and income, then you’ll have to hop aboard.
Start by going over all your old content, especially the ones you are looking to rank and then start reviving it so it’s up to date. Next, you have to work on your posting schedule, especially when you haven’t been updating your blog as frequently as you should. I’m not saying you have to post daily, but that you should keep a solid and consistent schedule. A good rule of thumb is to post either once a week or every 10 days because this will give you time to put high quality content together.
Next,
Work on getting your content in front of the right people because with fresh content, you need the right type of links to dominate the rankings. I would suggest putting together some ultimate guides and mentioning the big names in the business. After you publish, send them the link asking for feedback and some will definitely share on their social profiles. They might even link back if they think it will provide value to their readers, but keep one thing in mind.
If the authority within the niche has 10,000+ followers who are all relevant, this is a huge potential to build some relevant links, too.