Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
How often should I update the content on my pages?
-
I have started dropping on my rankings - due to lack of time after having a baby. I'm still managing to blog but I'm wondering if I update the content on my pages will that help?
All my Meta tags and page descriptions were updated over a year ago - do I need to update these too?
We were ranking in the top spots for a good few years, but we're slowly falling
Please give me any advice to keep us from falling even further.
I have claimed all my listings, and try to add new links once a month. I share my blog to all social sites and work hard to get Google reviews, we have 53 which is higher than any of our competitors.
Any other ideas? Have I missed something that Google is looking for nowadays? Many thanks
-
Great advice here, I'm with casey on constant updating and that's a solid article from Herb.
But for me you're asking the wrong question. Sure updating content is great but you should really be testing it. So test meta descriptions, H1's and other elements using a tool (there's this great keyword tool I believe it's called MOZ lol - lots of chat about that lately - they've really made some great changes.)
But in the interests of openness I also use SEM Rush and GOOGLE that's the best keyword tool out there. Just get googling and see what sorts of articles are overtaking you and model them and make better versions.
Having a young kid (congrats) means you're tired and creativity is really hard when you're tired and stressed - even for very creative people. So model the articles of others and use the keyword suggestions and volumes as a guide.
But always be testing and tweaking. Add just a paragraph and revisit and change up some words and phrases and keep it fresh. Use the date in the Meta Description. CTR in the SERPS is really important and If I see 2018 up there i'm going to click on it.
Don't just add '2018' to everything though because google will catch you out. you actually need to add some contemporary stuff in there and it will revitalise and refresh the content.
Also remember that there have been lots of changes at google lately. So your drop in traffic might be external ranking factors bumping other sites up because google can understand them better and is better able to get good user feedback from Chrome.
Also be granular about it. Ask yourself of each article, "does this answer the question?" Is it up to date and is it correctly optimised using the keywords that are coming up in your research.
The best SEO tool in the world is the 100 billion neurons sitting on your shoulders. Use that tool first and foremost
-
Congrats on the little one Lauren! Time is always a factor!
To be honest with you, I’m regularly updating and tweaking old content to get better results. Whether it’s a simple title tag change or adding more content to the page as I‘ve realised website visitors will benefit from the extra info.
Is your traffic also dropping? If so it might be worth investigating the following:
-
New competitors in the SERPs
-
Are featured snippets now showing for your key terms? If so you may need to review your structured data (Moz recenrly did a great 3 part Whiteboard Friday series on these)
I‘d also highly recommend watching/reading the below resources:
- https://neilpatel.com/blog/#p-59557
- https://moz.com/blog/seo-rankings-drop-guide
I hope this somewhat helps. Goodluck Lauren
-
-
Hi Lauren;
First of all, congratulations on the birth of you child! You now have at least two babies that need love and feeding
To answer your question on how often to update your content, the answer is, it depends. This is a question that I get all the time, and happen to have done a blog post on last month. Here it is, and I hope it is helpful. I find that lots of time folks don't know what to post as much as how often.
https://invitethemhome.com/how-often-should-you-update-your-content/
If you have any questions or comments let me know and I will try to help.
Take care,
Herb
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it necessary to have unique H1's for pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog)?
A content issue that we're experiencing includes duplicate H1 issues within pages in a pagination series (i.e. blog). Does each separate page within the pagination need a unique H1 tag, or, since each page has unique content (different blog snippets on each page), is it safe to disregard this? Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | BopDesign0 -
On page vs Off page vs Technical SEO: Priority, easy to handle, easy to measure.
Hi community, I am just trying to figure out which can be priority in on page, off page and technical SEO. Which one you prefer to go first? Which one is easy to handle? Which one is easy to measure? Your opinions and suggestions please. Expecting more realistic answers rather than usual check list. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Product pages - should the meta description match our product description?
Hi, I am currently adding new products to my website and was wondering, should I use our product description (which is keyword optimised) in the meta description for SEO purposes? Or would this be picked up by Google as duplicate content? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | markjoyce1 -
Is it Okay to have "No Response" pages?
Hi all, I can see some "No Response" pages which gives a error message "Site cannot be reached" or keeps on loading but don't. I have got this list from Screaming from spider tool. Do we need to fix these or ignore? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
More pages or less pages for best SEO practices?
Hi all, I would like to know the community's opinion on this. A website with more pages or less pages will rank better? Websites with more pages have an advantage of more landing pages for targeted keywords. Less pages will have advantage of holding up page rank with limited pages which might impact in better ranking of pages. I know this is highly dependent. I mean to get answers for an ideal website. Thanks,
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Does using parent pages in WordPress help with SEO and/or indexing for SERPs?
I have a law office and we handle four different practice areas. I used to have multiple websites (one for each practice area) with keywords in the actual domain name, but based on the recommendation of SEO "experts" a few years ago, I consolidated all the webpages into one single webpage (based on the rumors at the time that Google was going to be focusing on authorship and branding in the future, rather than keywords in URLs or titles). Needless to say, Google authorship was dropped a year or two later and "branding" never took off. Overall, having one webpage is convenient and generally makes SEO easier, but there's been a huge drawback: When my page comes up in SERPs after searching for "attorney" or "lawyer" combined with a specific practice area, the practice area landing pages don't typically come up in the SERPs, only the front page comes up. It's as if Google recognizes that I have some decent content, and Google knows that I specialize in multiple practice areas, but it directs everyone to the front page only. Prospective clients don't like this and it causes my bounce rate to be high. They like to land on a page focusing on the practice area they searched for. Two questions: (1) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for SEO? The research I've done up to this point appears to indicate "no." It doesn't make much difference as long as the keywords are in the domain name and/or URL. But I'd be interested to hear contrary opinions. (2) Would using parent pages (e.g. http://lawfirm.com/divorce/anytown-usa-attorney-lawyer/ vs. http://lawfirm.com/anytown-usa-divorce-attorney-lawyer/) be better for indexing in Google SERPs? For example, would it make it more likely that someone searching for "anytown usa divorce attorney" would actually end up in the divorce section of the website rather than the front page?
Algorithm Updates | | micromano0 -
Ranking For Synonyms Without Creating Duplicate Content.
We have 2 keywords that are synonyms we really need to rank for as they are pretty much interchangeable terms. We will refer to the terms as Synonym A and Synonym B. Our site ranks very well for Synonym A but not for Synonym B. Both of these terms carry the same meaning, but the search results are very different. We actively optimize for Synonym A because it has the higher search volume of the 2 terms. We had hoped that Synonym B would get similar rankings due to the fact that the terms are so similar, but that did not pan out for us. We have lots of content that uses Synonym A predominantly and some that uses Synonym B. We know that good content around Synonym B would help, but we fear that it may be seen as duplicate if we create a piece that’s “Top 10 Synonym B” because we already have that piece for Synonym A. We also don’t want to make too many changes to our existing content in fear we may lose our great ranking for Synonym A. Has anyone run into this issue before, or does anyone have any ideas of things we can do to increase our position for Synonym B?
Algorithm Updates | | Fuel0 -
Ahrefs - What Causes a Drastic Loss in Referring Pages?
While I was doing research on UK Flower companies I noticed that one particular domain had great rankings (top 3), but has slid quite a bit down to page two. After investigating further I noticed that they had a drastic loss of referring pages, but an increase in total referring domains. See this screenshot from ahrefs. I took a look at their historical rankings (got them from the original SEO provider's portfolio) and compared it to the Wayback Machine. There did not seem to be any drastic changes in the site structure. My question is what would cause such a dramatic loss in total referring pages while showing a dramatic increase in referring domains? It appears that the SEO company was trying rebound from the loss of links though. Any thoughts on why this might happen? 56VD5jD
Algorithm Updates | | AaronHenry0