Content decay is a harsh reality that every digital marketer dreads. We pour our heart into the content and bring one of the masterpieces to the webpage. The piece hit visitors with the boom; things start going upward, bringing lots of traffic to your site. Then, suddenly, everything starts to fade. You might feel that
- Traffic is dwindling or
- Conversions dry up.
The chaotic change is named content decay, and it happens for a reason! Here in this blog, SEOSyrup will guide you on what content decay is, what the signs of its decay are, and how to deal with a dreadful situation. So, let’s get started.
What Is Content Decay?
Content decay usually refers to a gradual decline of traffic and conversion on any piece of content on the site over time. Content decay is a huge problem, and it impacts almost every piece of content on the website. The silver lining is that it is not a death warrant for # content.
Whenever we publish content on a site, the search engine crawlers crawl it and index it accordingly. Afterward, the content gradually ranks higher on keywords and brings conversions. But after a while, the content’s charm starts to fade, and we might lose traffic and conversions as well.
Content decay is natural, but if left unchecked, the decayed content can affect your business profile, sales, and business.
Let’s look at some reasons for content decay and methods to fix it.
Reasons For Content Decay:
Here are some reasons discussed below
Fading Significance
With time, the content ages, and some of the data on blogs may become outdated and less relevant. In simple words, it is a time when your content loses its freshness. It results in keywords resulting in lower rankings and gets less organic traffic.
Topical Relevance:
Sometimes, the content decay is due to a lack of topical depth (topical relevance). It can be due to low-quality content, outdated content, or changes in search engine algorithms.
Sometimes, the word count needs to be shorter or more specific according to search engine algorithms or provide more valuable information. Read more about topical authority in our blog. So you can create useful content that ranks sustainably higher on SERPs.
Competition Within The Site:
Sometimes, we are writing too many blogs or articles on the same or similar topics. It results in internal competition within the domain. Therefore, one blog might outrank the other, and we cannot benefit from it.
The overload might also cause a loss of traffic in SERPs as your site pages are directly competing with each other.
Stiff Competition With Competitors:
We are not the only ones writing on the topic and targeting keywords. Fresh content is updated every day, sometimes using the same keywords and topics you are ranking. Naturally, their content might have more relevance and depth to outrank your content.
The external competition is natural; therefore, never overlook it. A small drop in SERP can lead to a prominent decline in traffic.
Search Intent Changes:
User intent changes over time, and Google’s priority is to check the intent behind a query before ranking any content against it. If they find the piece satisfies the intent, the blog will rank,
But when the intent changes against any of the targeted queries, the blog slowly ranks down. It happens that more of our page does not address the change/shift.
Change In Search Engine Algorithm:
Google and all other search engine algorithms keep evolving to provide the best user experience. Many updates do not affect website content performance, but few can. Several times, Google has issued crucial core updates or released a major shift that can shake up the rankings on SERPs.
For instance, a major core update released in 2021 shook up the rankings on SERPs. The update was about websites with good LCP – Largest Contentful Paint increased ranking on SERPs while the URLs with poor ratings declined far behind.
How To Fix Content Decay:
Here are a few ways to fix the content decay issue and bring it back to its higher position on SERPs.
Refresh Your Content:
Content gets outdated, and it is natural. So, to stay in the market, you have to walk around the market. Therefore, it is important to update and refresh the content. To refresh the content, you can:
Expand the content and add what is missing information. For instance, let’s suppose we have written a blog on upcoming technology and its impact. After the changes are implemented, you can update them by mentioning the required details.
We can add as much content as it is required. It can be a couple of paragraphs or 1500 words additional.
The second and crucial part of refreshing content is to update the old data. It can be facts, links, or any images. If the content is offering outdated content, you can face severe consequences like penalties.
Likewise, update the broken links, optimize images and Alt text, and remove any data that is not necessary or absolute.
Deal With User-Experience Matters:
Update to make your page more user-friendly. For instance, changing image format, adding or removing links, and working on page loading speed. Likewise, work on content structure, such as adding a table of contents, infographics, or relevant FAQs.
Internal Linking:
Focus on improvising internal linking to rank your blog. It gives a better user experience and helps your non-index or low-ranking blogs to move up. Internal linking is also an effective way to generate page traffic.
Work on Rebranding:
With time, the charm of a blog fades, but you can help get its magic back to you by re-promoting the blog. For this purpose, social media platforms and relevant sites should be used. Work on backlinking to get more referral traffic and keep your content alive.
Prune Content
Yes, prune content to avoid any arms on your site. Content pruning is the act of removing low-performing content from the page. You can do it in several ways, such as merging similar content and bringing fresh data.
The ways to cleanse the content info is by
- Removing irrelevant keywords and paragraphs.
- Adding new data while deleting the old and outdated content from the page.
- Discard the blog if it is beyond changing or if you have already published content on the same or similar topic with fresh updates. Use the redirects to drive traffic on fresh pages. By merging content, you can also eliminate the chances of internal competition.
Conclusion:
Content decay is a natural process and harsh reality of online content. The content decay is subject to many factors, such as Google algorithm updates, changes in user intent, internal and external competition, lack of topical authority, etc. However, it is important to fix decayed content and minimise any damage to your site.
To fix content decay, make sure you keep the content updated and fresh. Add or remove keywords when necessary and focus on rebranding. By fixing content decay, you can sustainably rank higher on SERPs, generate more organic traffic, and get more chances of generating revenue.
