In the pursuit of new content and a constant supply of new products to your customers, the author and your traffic can often get lost. In addition, you should be careful not to neglect content that you have created before with high traffic. Why? If your already created content is affected by content decay, you have a big risk of losing everything, and it will be almost impossible to return everything to its place. This is how the organic traffic system works – a lot of content is good, but then there will be a loss of success of the old content. So, in this article, we will understand the concept of content decay, how and when it appears, whether it can be detected earlier, and how to prevent it.
What Is Content Decay?
Content decay involves a gradual decline in content effectiveness. This phenomenon can be analyzed in conversion terms, occupied positions, and lost traffic. Decay can be equated with spoilage, because content decay is a process that occurs gradually, sometimes imperceptibly, and its causes and course are usually similar. This can happen both on the Instagram page and on world-famous sites, and no one is immune from it.
Unfortunately, the content has its expiration date, and in order not to throw it away completely, we can refresh and update it. Some studies show that the average lifespan of a website is 2 years and 7 months, while the average lifespan of a piece of content is only 1 year and 9 months. It is the approximate time you should expect when updating your content. Just as a favorite mascara is out of production and still popular, the manufacturer would be better off updating that product and re-launching it again, the same goes for content. But we can’t release the same as it was in the beginning – you have to add something new, not completely remake it, but just refresh it.
The main problem of content decay is its invisibility. Only if you have connected additional sensors and trackers to monitor your traffic, can you prevent content decay and traffic loss. But first, to learn to recognize it, you need to understand and determine the causes of the appearance of content decay.
Content Decay: Causes
Up-to-date content
Updating and freshness of content play a complex role in SEO strategy because Google pays attention to websites whose subpages have been recently updated. The appearance of new content on the entire page at appropriate intervals is also one of the factors that attract the attention of Google algorithms. Suppose a person is interested in literary evenings and writes it in the search. In that case, one will immediately have access to information about literary evenings in the city, the time of the event, the ticket price, and all the latest information published in recent days. So, Google reads user intent and gives them only the best, and when a website takes a long time to load content on the main page, Google will push it far in the search and the algorithms will not promote it.
Competition
In many industries, usually businesses, more and more content is created targeting identical keywords, often due to a lack of imagination or the use of artificial intelligence for this important task. Therefore, the volume of requests for them does not increase proportionally and naturally, and as a result, there is a lot of competition for the same phrases. Google tries to reward current and new content, so if your content is even slightly out of date, the loss of traffic can be steady and permanent.
Google variability
Google is constantly improving and changing. Thank goodness Google regularly releases minor and major algorithm updates. The influence of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, 5G, electronic machines, and the release of new brands of phones – all this is connected with the change of Google. Google is focused on users because without them it actually cannot work, so it can only help those sites that will act according to the new algorithms. If they lead to remarkable changes in your content ranking and you don’t react quickly enough, this situation will crucially accelerate the decline in organic traffic.
Backlinks
Backlinks are also used when determining search results. Since Google’s algorithms are constantly changing, you must significantly improve your SEO strategies to provide users with the most useful and high-quality content. If a page has not received a new link for a while, Google may consider it not valuable enough. Backlinks are a key factor in SEO, and their non-update or lack thereof affects your authority and ranking position.
SERP changes
Page visits determine the SERP and your appearance in the search engine. Google’s search engine is getting better at understanding user intent. Depending on the keywords entered, in addition to the traditional elements, the search results may contain additional information such as Rich Snippets (for example, star rating, product prices, and publication date), Knowledge Graphs, Direct Answers, Site Links, images, tables, YouTube videos, etc. New SERP features can throw you far and prevent users from landing on your page, so this is also a problem of content decay.
4 Stages Of The Content Lifecycle
After publishing new content on the web page, you may ask yourself a new question – how to determine when to expect the content to decay? To begin with, you need to understand exactly how your content lives, what stages it is divided into, and how it changes. To do this, we divided the life of content into 4 stages, so that it would be easier for you to determine in which phase your content is now.
Stage 1: Early growth
Since Google promotes new content, you can see growth quickly after the first publication of your content. However, the first stage can be demanding – there is a big jump in views at the beginning, which then quickly decreases, only to finally improve and “breakthrough” to the next stage. We would like to emphasize that it is too early to rejoice here because the content still needs time to stabilize in the info space and pass all the tests from Google algorithms.
Stage 2: Steady growth
In the second stage, the volume of traffic stabilizes. New backlinks appear thanks to which the content remains relatively relevant. This stage can last up to several months, you rise in the SERP and your authority grows. At this stage, you can already rejoice, because it shows that your content has been accepted by Google and is in demand, which allows you to grow and develop. All it takes is constant optimization of your content and adding new content.
Stage 3: The peak
In the fourth stage, the site has reached its peak popularity and realized most of its traffic potential. This usually happens when you are no longer getting backlinks and ranking for any related keywords. In addition, your competitors may have published new content that will “nudge” your content and increase the competition among the algorithms. Content must reach its peak and is the norm of the life cycle of content that develops according to the rules. As in life, in the life of content, there can be not only positive moments but also downfalls. Falling helps to reach new peaks!
Stage 4: Content Decay
In the fourth stage, the Content Decay takes place. This means this website becomes less and less competitive in search results and loses its position compared to other content. This does not mean that it is bad in itself – as mentioned before, the competition can be stalwart and its content can be fresher, which means that your content will be inferior to it. The decay of your content is a natural and neutral phenomenon, but we know that flowers after dying can bloom again in a favorable season, and therefore your content. Only for this, you have to try and make an effort.
How Do We Identify Loss Of Movement?
Knowing the reasons for the content decay and its life cycle, we can ask ourselves the question – How Do We Identify Loss Of Movement? The first negative bell of content decay is a decline in traffic and conversions. This process continues slowly, but very clearly and destructively. To identify loss of movement, you should pay attention to:
- Click-through rate (CTR) decrease
- Stoppage of traffic
- Constant traffic drop
- Decrease in Keyword Ranking and Impressions
When one is warned about this, one is protected. By conducting regular traffic analysis and monitoring the content’s performance, you can protect yourself from content decay in time. Fortunately, many tools can be used to monitor the traffic and performance of specific websites, and we are happy to share them with you!
- Google Analytics: This tool addresses the root cause of content decay by providing an overview of website traffic and conversions. With Google Analytics, pay attention to the number of views, time on the page, and bounce rate to identify pages that are losing positions. Also, downward trends from quarter to quarter indicate the possibility of content decay, so you should be careful;
- Google Search Console: this is a free tool that – similarly to Google Analytics – gives access to a lot of useful data. For example, clicks, impressions, and average position help you rank yourself in the SERP. In addition, this tool provides the function of tracking keywords according to criteria and matching to your business;
- Ahrefs: It is an external SEO platform that allows you to control many aspects related to website performance, such as a view of all your projects and their SEO success, search for competitor backlinks and keyword ranking, site audit, ranking progress, and finding new opportunities for your content.
- SEMrush: Like Ahrefs, SEMrush provides you with over 55 different tools based on your industry and interests. These include Competitor Analysis, On-Page Search Optimization, Social Media Management, Content Optimization, PPC Keyword Research, Backlink Analytics, SEO Writing Assistant, etc.
- Senuto: Senuto’s all-in-one SEO and content marketing tool has various modules to prevent your content from falling apart, such as Visibility analysis, Keyword Explorer, SERP Analysis, Content Planner, and Rank Tracker.
How Big Is The Impact Of Content Decline On SEO Strategy?
By conducting SEO and marketing strategies, we will try to attract as much organic traffic as possible, which will come to us through the search engine. We may not be afraid and ignore the threat of content decay, but we should be aware that most sites get organic traffic precisely because of older publications. So, if old articles and posts lose their popularity – you lose organic traffic. Along with this, your SERP ranking drops, and fewer people go to your post, and therefore fewer clicks. This can happen for two reasons: either the content has lost its relevance, or there is someone with better content who has pushed you out of the sight of the Internet user.
When you lose organic traffic, you also lose the possibility of backlinks. Backlinks are essential for you to reinforce the importance of your words with authoritative sources. This usually increases your position in the eyes of other brands and users, so this point is one of the most necessary to maintain because it directly affects other success factors. If the SEO rating falls, everything can happen the other way around, because people will not see links to you, instead, competitors’ pages will become more accessible to them. Also, your brand awareness drops due to SERP results and low URL rankings.
How Do We Deal With Traffic Decay?
Even when the worst has happened – content decay – there is still a way out. There are no hopeless situations and you are certainly not the first to be affected by this series of failures. It is possible to restore your position in the rankings, gain organic traffic growth, to increase recognition, although sometimes it is not very easy. We have collected proven methods of How We Deal With Traffic Decay right now!
- Update content
Sometimes something as simple as adding new photos, updating your stats, and noting it in the title can improve the quality of your content, which Google will notice. However, sometimes more extensive changes, such as a major content update will be required. Such a scenario is also a good reason to re-promote your content on social networks and get new links.
Such practices as writing new articles on old topics, adding content, being in trend, and understanding user needs are welcome and have a good effect on improving your traffic. Just remember that small changes to your content, such as updating the date on an article, won’t improve your Google ranking.
- Connect content
The phenomenon of keyword cannibalization can also be associated with traffic loss. This happens when similar phrases appear on multiple pages of the same website. This makes it challenging for Google to determine which texts to advertise among the similar diversity. There is something like an internal competition for positions.
To overcome this, you can combine smaller articles into one big one. Adapting the content to match the meanings is essential in this matter.
- Get fresh links
In some situations, the content may be good, but the lack of external links significantly weakens its position. However, acquiring new links is not an easy task, and you need to carefully consider whether it will be beneficial in each case. In this situation, you should seek additional help. Which one exactly? See the next point.
- Expand your possibilities with PRNEWS.IO
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