Content Rewriting and Page ranking
-
Lets say that a prior writer did a horrible job with more then a few pages on your site and you wanted to rewrite the content for each landing page. A few of these landing pages are actually ranking pretty decently would it be ok to rewrite them as long as you kept the keywords and the density some what equal?
-
Make big improvements to a few unimportant pages. See what happens. I think that this is relatively safe.
-
The pages in question are between 500-800 words long with a keyword density of 1-3% in variations. I am nervous about losing ranking on 1 in particular but it def needs an over haul.
-
I frequently rewrite short pages that were published many years ago with totally new, substantive content, with more and better images. They usuelly move up the SERPs within a few weeks.
-
Ryan's advice is solid. I'd also keep a close eye on the page level metrics for these landing pages. If the copy is horrible, I'm guessing that most of your KPIs aren't great either. (My point being that high keyword traffics are great when they bring in qualified traffic that leads to conversions, but are no good to you if the traffic doesn't convert.) Best of luck!
Christy
-
This would make a great split test from a UX perspective but also be a good way to slowly introduce the new content.
Just from search, If the page changes dramatically it might bounce out of the rankings briefly, but if the content topic and contextual relevance is mostly the same it should reappear. You could try introducing parts or all of the new content as an update to the top fold of the page as well, monitor rankings, then remove the parts you don't like. Several ways to test it out... cheers!
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
-
What Service Page Strategy Should We Use to Target City-Specific Local Intent Service Keywords?
Hey guys! We are targeting a number of cities in the Nassau and Suffolk County areas for foundation repair, insulation, and mold remediation keywords, and we were debating on creating city-specific pages for each location and service, or creating one service page for each type of service that contains all of the services and solutions within that service category for each city. Example: City-Specific Pages for Each Service: One page for say foundation repair, one page for foundation crack repair, one page for foundation problems, etc. (for each target city) Service Category Pages for Each City: One page for foundation contractors that lists all services on one page in sections. Which one do you think is better for local SEO and rankings? Both seem to have their advantages and disadvantages to me. Just to throw a couple out there, the category pages may not rank as high as the city pages for each individual service if our competitors have a whole page designed for that service and we only have a part of a page covering the topic. At the same time, they would save labor hours, technical issues would be less, and they would be condensed, and we would have WAY less mess on the backend. I appreciate your expert opinion on this one. The site is www. zavzaseal.com in case you want to check us out.
Local SEO | | everysecond0 -
Rankings preferring English URL
We've recently had a redesign of our website and we have both a Dutch and an English version. However, in MOZ for both NL and BE-NL it seems to favor the English URLs. This never used to be the case and I'm wondering why it's happening and whether it could actually be hurting our SEO, as search engines would favor local languages for search queries.
Local SEO | | Billywig0 -
Is it okay to update Page Titles and Meta descriptions over a period of time?
Some of the page are not performing even after having good content, videos, images and faqs. I am planning to update the page titles and planning to use Long Tail keywords in it for example, Contact US - Brand name would be Contact US - Brand Keyword. Is it okay to do that for all the pages?
Local SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Should I use LocalBusiness schema on my home page or Contact Us page?
I know I should only use Organization schema on one page of my site, but I'm not sure if I should use it on the Home page or use LocalBusiness schema on the home page. I was thinking of adding LocalBusiness schema to home page, Organization schema to About Us page and Corporate Contact Schema to Contact us page. Thoughts? Is there a best practice? I can't seem to find much information on what's best to use where.
Local SEO | | RoxBrock1 -
Two websites or a sub domain or sub page?
Hi, Our company has three branches in Canada and opening a 4th in the United States soon. Our target market strategy will differ in the States and I would like to know your opinion if we should launch a second site under a slightly different brand or not. I don’t want to do anything that could negatively impact our site’s current organic ranks. I feel I have to give some history on our company so you understand the dilemma. It is a little complicated. So, in Canada, we rent large generators and all the equipment needed to distribute and transform that power. We don’t own the generators. We re-rent generators (broker) from our partners. What we own is all the distribution equipment that typically accompanies a generator rental. We make money on the generator also, but the real money is in the distribution portion. In terms of messaging, our current site is tuned to target the end-user, the same market that our re-rent partners target. As a result, our re-rent partners and our company will bid on the same project in many occurrences. Our strategy in the United States is to primarily target the re-rent market. That is a very small segment in comparison to the end-user. From a marketing perspective, all that is really needed to target that group is an outside sales team. There are maybe 40 re-rent partners we will target in our first U.S. GEO… Texas. In the States, we will not rent generators. We will not run ad campaigns that bid on any generator rental type terms. We will not offer the same level of turn-key solutions we offer in Canada. All of the equipment we manufacture will be very generic in appearance, think Acme. Branding will look completely different than what we have up in Canada. We want the re-rent companies we target in the States to feel comfortable we are there to support them not compete against them. Regarding website strategy, I see three options: 1. We create a sub domain or sub page of www.trinitypower.com that explains the services we offer in the States. This for me is the safest solution. 2. We launch a second domain www.trinitypowerrentals.com that has similar content in-terms of the type of equipment we rent, but speaks directly to re-rent partners. That may not be enough of a differentiator though and I fear two sites owned by the same company with similar content will have negative SEO implications, if not right away, a year down the road. 3. We launch a new website under a completely different company name. This still carries some risk as I understand it, even if we have different phone numbers, company registration info, etc…
Local SEO | | TrinityPower
Would love to know your thoughts. Thanks everyone. J0 -
What's the best approach to deleting a location page ?
We have several locations that moved to be under a parent location. Should I do a 404 redirect or a 301 redirect to parent page where they can find information about the location they are searching for.
Local SEO | | lina_digital0 -
Local Pages for National (Service) Companies
Hi there, I was wanting to know the value of local pages for a service company that operates nationally. They do not have a phone number or address, but they do maintain employees in each of the locations and are thus, keen to emphasize this fact with location pages. The location pages merely explain that they have staff in each of the locations and experience working there, alongside a variety of information that is relevant to the industry/market in that location. None of the location pages are currently ranking well at all - in fact, all of the ones I've looked at so far have had a page authority of 1. Most of the major towns, cities and counties for the entire UK have been covered which means the location pages constitute a significant proportion of all of the pages for the entire site. My questions are: Is a national service company likely to benefit from having location pages? And could it even be something they could be penalised for at some point down the line? Thanks very much, in advance, for your time. Kind Regards, Tom
Local SEO | | National-Homebuyers0 -
Removing Sub Domain & Improving Page Performance
Hello Moz folks, This question is about my main website: www.web3.ca
Local SEO | | Web3Marketing87
(run on joomla) I just noticed a very strange occurrence - when I add ANY subdomain to the home page, it still resolves to the home page. example: test3.web3.ca Can this be bad for SEO, and is there a way to eliminate this? Second Question: Do you think there are two many outgoing links on the home page of Web3? Could reducing the number of links improve the home page's performance & rank? Thanks
Anton0