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Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on. Business email address Get Search Engine Land in your inbox. See terms. Why you should improve content In more recent years, Google has advised against removing content and suggested making “thin” content “thick” (i.e., better) while also adding more high-quality content. “…don’t remove content someone might find useful,” according to Google’s Gary Illyes. Likewise, Google’s John Mueller said “improving it is probably the best thing to do in general” “…if you can improve your content that’s probably the best approach possible because then you have something really useful on your website you’re providing something useful for the web in general.

How to improve content Improving content is more than making a few minor changes and updating your publication date. You need to assess every detail of your content – and DB to Data it against the content ranking from your competitors. That includes: Alignment with audience/search/user intent. Call to action. Clarity. Data. Depth. Facts. Formatting.  Links/citations. Missing information. Multimedia (videos, images, audio). Readability. Structure. Title. Tone of voice / writing style. URL Usefulness. Value. Update An update typically requires the least amount of time investment. At most, about 20-25% of the content needs to be changed. Your content needs to be rewritten if the following apply: Traffic (or rankings) declines, especially near a Google core update. Attracting fewer/no links. Engagement is decreasing.



It ranks in the top 5-10 and going higher is realistic by putting in the needed work. Conversions are declining. Rewrite This is the more extreme form of content update – where up to 100% of the content needs to be written. Your content needs to be rewritten if: It is getting little or no traffic. It no longer attracts new links. Engagement is bad or non-existent. It doesn’t rank in top 10. It’s no longer indexed. It’s not driving any conversions. Sometimes, you have content about a useful, relevant or helpful topic, but it was just written poorly. To address that, make sure to: Reimagine the content – start from scratch. Modernize and optimize – all the information should be accurate, relevant and up-to-date. 301 redirect the old page to the new (optimized) URL to maintain any link equity. Google can forward full PageRank through 301 redirects.