5 Ways a Content Audit Can Drive New Traffic, Boost Rankings and Save You Time

Hi, everyone. Thanks so much for joining us today. We may have had a little technical glitch at the very beginning of it, but I wanted to jump in and talk about today's topic, which is 5 Ways a Content Audit Can Drive New Traffic, Boost Rankings, and Save You Time. So this is a really important topic for a lot of companies right now, because what's happening is they are feeling like this when they are creating content. So they are the hamster in the wheel perpetually creating content, because they know that they are supposed to do that in order to engage the readers. It's good for Google. There are benefits all around. And for those of us who started doing this back in the day, so have been in the industry for many years, It didn't used to be as much like this. Certainly, we wanted to produce content. Certainly, we knew that the freshness of content was important. But it wasn't a case of creating so much content as it is today, especially with Google's new focus on how authoritative the content is, and how it's differentiated from other competing types of content. Now, the challenge is, though, is that for folks who have been blogging for a while, they have a remarkable number of content assets on their site that aren't being leveraged. And like I have here on the slide, your old content is a huge asset, and leveraging it is crucial. There was a recent study done at the tail end of last year, which was the Content Marketing Institute conducted a survey asking content marketers what they will be working on this year. So 69% of marketers said their goal was to create more engaging content, because of course, that's the big push now. But at the same time, 86% said they wanted to find new ways to repurpose their existing content onto new platforms without having to recreate or reformat. So this is where this big push is, is hey, we have all this great content that we've produced over the years. And instead of just letting that sort of die on the vine, yes, it might get search positions, and yes, traffic might go to it every once in a while, but it's not really promoted because you have new content to promote. Instead, take that, leverage it, do all sorts of things to it to make it shiny and new. So that first step, what you want to do now is a flow content audit. Now this is, to give you that initial warning, this is the grueling part of the process. of what you need to do, because a content audit requires going through all of your blog posts, or all of the pages on your site, and evaluating them, grading them, seeing what you can improve, getting a feel for what you can repurpose, and maybe some old posts that aren't the best that you can do a lot with. So the 4 steps that I suggest when folks are going through a content audit The first one, F, is to focus on the key areas. Certainly, a content audit can flow along with a general SEO audit. They can often go hand in hand. But if you are just focusing on the content audit itself, then those key areas would be like the content quality. Sometimes people might have written posts back in the day that weren't the best and could be improved upon in order to to fully expand the point, to drive new traffic, to be able to showcase a new opinion or new information in the industry. Things like poor titles or other types of optimization errors, those are things that you can find in that audit and figure out how to fix them. Finding posts with outdated information. Every site has main things that they can work on. And so, the content audit will help pull those out. While you are going through the content, you also want to look for new opportunities. Are there things that you can do with some of your old content to make that shiny and new again? And we will talk about some of that. Of course, optimizing the old content, this is very, very good for companies that might have started blogging back in the day, but they weren't really thinking about their entire search engine optimization campaign and their inbound marketing campaign. And of course, the final one is to work those new content to-dos into your editorial calendar. It's certainly wonderful to find when you need to do things, but the next step then is actually working on them and making sure that that's getting done in baby steps. We have 2 logos down here. One is SEMrush, and the other is Screaming Frog. Both of those are really excellent, good site audit, content audit tools that you can use that will go through and actually spider your site, come back with the pages, have everything in a pretty Excel document, or you can also look for other reports that will help bring all that information together. And it gives you sort of a head start on the process. So it's a nice quick way to kind of get a general overview of what's going on, and then you can go through and start looking more deeply in certain areas. So the first thing that I would talk about doing Can you optimize old posts? And as I mentioned before, if your company has been blogging for a while, the optimization might not have been top of mind. And certainly, companies can have a tremendous amount of success going through and reoptimizing posts that might not have been optimized, or really tightening up that process. So things to look at is, how is your title? Do they look— Do they have key phrases in them? Are they written for clickability off the search engine results page? Does the content include key phrases, and is there a compelling meta description? So we are just getting down and dirty into just the very basic optimization techniques. Reoptimizing these old posts can help them position better in the search engines and drive new traffic. And often it doesn't take that long unless you are starting from scratch. With your SEO campaign. So as an example, I worked with one client who was considered a thought leader in his field, had a lot of conferences and books and things that he had done that really established him as a leader. But his site wasn't optimized. And the way the content was written, it wasn't something to where Google was seeing him as an authority for his main key phrases. And simply by optimizing those pages without changing the usability or the readability, just making sure that that basic optimization was handled, he was able to go from nowhere in the search results to starting to see some really incredible positions across a wide variety of key phrases, which is exactly what you want to do. The second thing that you can look for is updating a post with new information or statistics. If your company has been blogging for a while, chances are that you've got a lot of how-to-like posts on your site. And you'd want to look for those older posts that might have slightly outdated information. So for example, in my world, as you can imagine, in the SEO content development world, there have been a lot of changes over the years. And certainly older posts can be leveraged to be able to Turn those into very authoritative resources that are applicable today versus being applicable a few years ago. Posts like these can become evergreen content that you revise every year. So if you have something to where you are talking about best practices for 2014, if things have shifted enough, then you can revise that post and talk about what has changed since then. There is also looking at posts and trying to figure out if there is a way that you can work in a personal opinion, describe why your opinion changed. Certainly there are companies that write in a more personal tone and feel. They might talk about an issue where since they have written about that issue, something has shifted either in the industry, either their thinking. And they can talk about why that shift happened and have it be a really great personal, but yet informative posts for their readers. So this technique will actually refresh old posts and drive new traffic. Certainly, it takes a little bit of tweaking to revise the post, but it is often easier than writing a brand-new post. And additionally, update posts like these can become cornerstone content, which I will be talking about right now. So the third thing to look at is, can you create cornerstone content with your old posts? So what you want to look at is to find related posts you can group together on your site, and promote these sections. And this is a great way to increase subscriber rates if you are looking for people to sign up for a newsletter and drive traffic. So this is an example of a little banner ad that appears on the Social Triggers site. And Social Triggers is a website that focuses on persuasive psychology and ways that you can increase sales. So when you click into those from that ad, what you will see is a landing page which is sort of like a long-form landing page which has a really great headline. At the very top there he is talking about the affiliate program, but in a very low-key way. And then the rest of the post is a really great intro lead-in, and down at the bottom are the most popular posts that talk about how to build an email list. So what you have here on this landing page is actually a very complete resource that people can hit about how to build a landing page with all sorts of updated information. This type of page can be promoted out there in the world, because people love resource pages, especially when they are this well fleshed out. They will share links to those resource pages. They will link directly into those resource pages. If they are written correctly, then Google will also love those resource pages. So this is a win-win across the board. And basically what you are doing is looking at your old content, making sure that it is updated, putting it into a separate page, and putting a nice wrapper around it to really explain what you are doing, and why you have this as a featured topic. And there you go. You have this really impressive cornerstone content page that you can use to drive newsletter subscribers and drive new traffic to your site. This is something that I see a lot of companies not leveraging this opportunity about adding transcripts to videos and podcasts. And the reason is, is because they've done their podcast, they've done their video, their tutorial walk-through, They posted it online, and they've done their job. They think that's great. However, there's these people out there that really don't like to listen to podcasts or sit through a video or tutorial. And if they come across a page that is just that, a podcast or a video, unless it's very, very short, they may not sit through it. They may back out and look for another resource. So adding a transcript is a way to help those people get value from that presentation, because otherwise they might not listen to that webcast, or they might not listen to that podcast. And all you need to do in this case is just get a transcription service, transcribe it, and post that transcript down below of the podcast, or down below of the webinar. And you may want to consider editing the transcript for better readability. Some companies will just slap the content on as is. And that's fine, except when people are talking, normally there is a little bit of stream of consciousness. There may be some ums here and there. And by editing it down, it makes it more clear to the reader about how they can get to that information. They can pick out those gems a little bit more efficiently. And it doesn't really interfere with with the transcript. You are not rewriting the transcript, you are just making it a little bit easier to read. So this is great for both readers and Google. A 10-minute podcast could translate into a 2,000+ word post depending on how fast people are talking. And here is an example of something that Freakonomics is doing. So they have their podcast, but they also have the full transcript to that podcast. So people are able to get that best of both worlds. Read it, and for the folks who want to listen, they have that option as well. And then finally, can you pull snippets for Twitter and LinkedIn updates? And this is, out of all the tips I provided, probably the one piece of low-hanging fruit that I see companies completely ignoring that would make their lives so much easier. There are all these old blog posts sitting on your site that probably have at least one tweetable gem. that could be used as is, or slightly edited for social media. So a sentence that is really brilliant, like we have Mike here down at the bottom who had the quote of, what I believe is holding back most digital marketers is fear. I love that. So what you can do on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook if that is an appropriate avenue for your company, is you can include that quote and include a link back to your site, and to that specific blog post where that quote came from. So that way, you are driving new traffic to that old blog post. And you are making people interested by having these really yummy quotes, and pull quotes, and declarative statements to make them think, huh, I want to learn more about why Mike thinks that what is holding most digital marketers back is fear. I'm going to read this article. So if you have a post that hasn't seen the light of day for a while, check on those little tweetable bits and those LinkedIn updates to see how you can play with that. So in summary, we talked about a few areas today of how you can repurpose old posts and how to look at your site. But know that there are many others. And I've written about them also on the Biznology blog, so you can check those out as well. But just know that your old content is a huge asset, and definitely you will want to leverage it. And content audit can help you find those opportunities and uncover the major content challenges. Fair warning, they do take a long time. This is something you can do internally, certainly. Some companies choose to outsource this because it does take a long time, and they are looking to have another set of eyes looking at their content just to have that second opinion. You'll want to focus on key areas, prioritize what needs to be done, and definitely make sure that work is scheduled. It's really great to find out what's not right, but certainly you want to schedule out how to fix it. And finally, challenge yourself to brainstorm new ways you can transform your old content. As I mentioned, I talked about a few of them, but certainly there are many, many more ways that you can transform your own content and make it shiny or new again. So I definitely encourage you guys to do that. And here's how to contact me.

So thank you, Heather. And apologies to you and to our audience. I am Mike Moran, and I swear I am your moderator, even though you've seen no evidence of that so far. Unfortunately, the handset on my phone failed at exactly the right moment, which is kind of the webinar equivalent of a wardrobe malfunction. So what we're going to do now is, for those of you who didn't hear my fantastic introduction of Heather, which I think is all of you, I just want to let you know, now that you've heard all the insights from Heather, you won't be surprised to find out that Heather is one of our Biznology bloggers. She's the president of SuccessWorks. She's a 17-year search marketing veteran and considered one of the top SEO content development experts in the world. She trains individuals and companies in the latest content development and consults directly with clients. So I'm hopeful that some of you have realized what a wealth of information Heather is and will use her in engagements where you've got these kinds of problems to solve. So what I'd like to do is to start to get to questions, but before we do that, I'd like to note that I'm offering a brand new video course on content marketing through my website. The internet has reduced distribution costs to nearly zero, so content marketing is within the reach of most budget-challenged companies. All you need to do is to understand how to identify your audience, learn their content needs, and meet them, which is actually what this course on content marketing will do for you. Learn how to reach your audience with quality content that won't break the bank. Break the bank by going to bit.ly/cmcourse1 for more info. So we're about to start firing questions at Heather, and it's not too late for you to put your own in, but we need to thank our sponsors once again. BarnRaisers, a full-service digital and social media solutions company that builds brands using proven relationship principles and ROI. GaggleAmp, Empowers companies to amplify their social media content by leveraging employees, partners, and resellers. Try GagaAmp for free today. Geris Digital, a full-service digital strategy firm that reaches deeper into the conversation than any other agency anywhere. Meng, Marketing Executives Networking Group, New Jersey Chapter. We aren't just about networking to land a great job. We're about staying current to grow in our careers. And of course, SuccessWorks. SuccessWorks SEO content consulting and training services help companies drive qualified traffic, boost search positions, and increase conversion rates. Now, on to your questions. Just let me start reading the questions. Let's see. Have you started? I don't hear anything. Is there any audio? Oh, wait a minute. I think all those questions are for me. Let me get to one for Heather. So here's one that says, How do you know if your posts have clickable titles?

That's an excellent question. And certainly, that could be a whole other webinar right there. But one thing to look at with a clickable title is when you are looking at the search results page and you are seeing your competing titles, the folks that have competing information out there, Is look to see how compelling yours are. So the way I always talk about writing a title is the title should be like a headline. I mean, certainly there are ways to write it for SEO best practices, including the key phrase. But your first opportunity for conversion is actually that search results page. You want someone to click on your listing versus the other 9 listings on the page. So think of ways that you can get people to click. Click on that headline as opposed to others. That includes benefit statements. I hate using BuzzFeed as an example of a clickable headline, but certainly in some ways we've all been suckered into clicking something from them. Their technique is not applicable across companies of how to write a headline, but you can see in terms of writing something that grabs the audience, that intrigues the reader, and makes them want to learn more, They definitely have that down. And compare this to a title structure which you still see today, where you might have a keyword, pipe, keyword, pipe, keyword, pipe. So seeing a title that says Pilates mat classes, pipe, Portland, Oregon, pipe, Pilates reformer classes as your title is much less compelling than Mat classes in Pilates, Oregon, first class free. So there's an example of something that might be more clickable as opposed to a title that just focuses on the key phrases without thinking about the conversion.

Thanks, Heather. So I've got 2 related questions, so I'll give them to you both together. When you update old posts, do you update it as the old post, or are you copying it to a new post with a new title? And a related question is, Does Google automatically scroll old posts that have been updated, or do you need to promote them on different sites to get Google to go back?

To answer the first question, and those are both really good, if it's a major update to an old post where you find that you're rewriting a lot of it, for example, we talked about posts that might become cornerstone content that every year you're doing an update on that post. Is what some people do is instead of copying and pasting that into a new post, they actually take that old post that already has a certain amount of link love, and they will change the date. So they will update the date, and that date will then show up when it publishes again in WordPress as a new post. So that way you sort of have the best of both worlds. You have a post that has already been established, And then it releases again, so it's something that you can promote. And if you have an RSS feed for your blog, it will go out to those readers.

Okay, so I want to make sure we're following here. So what you do is in WordPress you change the date, right? Because WordPress has a scheduled date. And you change the date in WordPress, and you could even change the title, but you wouldn't change the URL, right? You would leave the same URL that the original post was Exactly.

You leave the URL intact.

Terrific, terrific. Yes, and so then does it make sense for you to put these posts on other sites? Do you have to do that or do you think just making those changes on your own site is going to work just as well or even better?

I'd certainly make the changes on your own site and then— but it is appropriate that once you've updated that post that you can use some sort of social media campaign to let other folks know, hey, we've updated this post. Your readers might be interested in it because you talked about this post last year when we updated it. We've updated it again. And perhaps you'd be willing to link back, or would you be willing to have me write another guest post that talks about it more? So there's a lot of other promotional things that could go into it as well.

Terrific, terrific. Here's another question. We're on a budget. Are there inexpensive ways to develop transcripts? Are those services cheap?

They can be fairly inexpensive certainly. But the buyer beware of that is that it is great that they can be inexpensive, but you want to have an editor go through and make sure that the transcripts are accurate, they are using the correct form of your, words don't get dropped. It is really easy for things like that to happen, especially if the transcript is about something a little bit more technical where somebody listening on the other end might not be as comfortable with the phrases phrases or some of the words that you would use in that industry. So definitely have an editor check it out before you slap it on your site.

Terrific. Here's another question. It feels like everything has already been said. Where do you get your ideas?

That's a really good question. I actually do something that was recommended by a gentleman named James Altucher. Another man named Chris Winfield also talks about this as well, which is coming up with 10 ideas a day. I wrote about it on my blog at seocopywriting.com, where what I will do every day is come up with 10 ideas for a blog post. The key is that they don't necessarily have to be great ideas. They don't even have to be good ideas. You're just getting yourself in the habit of coming up with blog post ideas. And it might be after you check the trades, or you get inspired by reading another post, and that you can figure out a way to write your own. So out of those 10 blog posts that you write a day, if you just even do it during the work week, you end up to have 50 post ideas. And out of those 50 post ideas, you are going to have a certain percentage, even if it is only 5% or 10%, that are any good that you can work with. And that's great, because then you are always coming up with ideas for the editorial calendar, and you are never put in that position of, I have a blog post due tomorrow. I have absolutely no idea what to write about, because I feel like I've already done it. Because certainly, I feel your pain. I've been talking about SEO writing for 17+ years. There are days that I wonder if I've already said everything that could be said. And then I go back to just starting to brainstorm blog posts and I realize how much more room I do have to move with it.

That's terrific, Heather. And unfortunately, that's all the time we have today. Thank you, Heather, for being such a trooper with our technical problems. And thanks especially to our audience for hanging in there and waiting for Heather to finally speak when she realized that I was on mute basically. And if— so my handset will be back for the next time, I promise. But if any of you had questions we didn't have time to answer, you can email your questions to eileen@mikemoran.com, and she'll be sure to get them to Heather for the answer. Later this week, we'll send you all a link to the recording of this webinar to listen to again and to share with others. We'll also invite you to mark your calendars for our next Biznology webinar, Segmenting Your Content Marketing with me and my handset, scheduled for 11:00 AM US Eastern Time on March 17th. We hope to see everybody here back then. Bye, everybody.

Thank you.