There are two types of low-value content you need to identify: content that’s low-value from day one and content that becomes low-value over time. Keep in mind that all content loses value as it ages because relevance and accuracy diminish – and this is why it’s so important to update old content (more on this later).
It’s also worth remembering that! even the best content strategies! produce the occasional piece of low-value content that fails to perform.
Low-value content is an issue every SEO and content marketer has to deal with and the first step is identifying the pages that need revising.
Here are the key data points to look out for:
- Low Page Views: This Google rcs data Analytics metric shows traffic levels for individual pages.
- Low Unique Page Views: Another Google Analytics metric that helps you compare total visits vs unique users.
- High bounce rates: The percentage of users who leave your website without visiting more than one page.
- Low conversion rates: Keep an eye on this for any page that should or could convert (ideally! you should have at least one CTA on every page).
- Thin content: Any informational page with fewer than 300 words could be considered thin (don’t worry about functional pages like login pages and contact pages).
- Duplicate content: Pages closely or 100% matching other pages on your website or other locations (check for content scrapers).
- Broken links: Pages with broken links can get pushed down results pages and hurt the user experience for visitors.
- Old content: Any content that’s 2+ years old or up to 12 months old for evergreen/high-performance content that requires regular updates.
- Competing content: Pages competing for the same keywords – especially highly specific or long tail keywords – with similar content that could be merged.
You can track most of these warning signs between
Google Analytics and Search Console writing a business plan for success but some of them require a little more analysis. For example! we run automated content audits that flag up pages with old content! competing content and other potential quality issues (including all of the above and more)! which provides us with a list of pages that require our attention.
When it comes to things like broken links! those are black and white issues that need fixing.
However! most of the warning signs require further investigation to determine the best course of action. For example! pages receiving little or no traffic are a strong indicator that the page needs serious attention or removing altogether but we have to look into the issue to decide which option is best to take.
Likewise! high bounce rates are a strong
indicator that something is wrong but austria business directory the issue isn’t necessarily related to content quality. It could be slow loading times or an overly complex form that’s preventing users from converting and forcing them to quit the session.
It’s a similar story with old content that needs analysing and updating to maintain or improve quality. And! in many cases! competing content requires the most attention to decide whether you should differentiate them or merge them into one high-quality page.
