In November 2011, Google announced that they updating the algorithm to provide more up-to-date information for searches based on freshness needs
Recent (or fresh) content would populate more of the search results for various search queries because users are always looking for the most current information. For instance, when someone searches for Olympics right now, chances are they are looking for information about the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, mot the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The freshness update was designed to give searchers the newest and most relevant content.
From an SEO standpoint, this freshness update was a big wake-up call to many companies that were having a hard time seeing the value of a strong and consistent content marketing campaign. Websites that are routinely publishing new and relevant content are giving the search spiders a reason to come back and revisit the site, improving their overall online brand exposure and enhancing their organic SEO.
For many sites, rewriting static pages every month to provide the search engines with fresh content doesn't make a lot of sense, but there are plenty of others ways you can publish new content to your site in order to keep the search spiders interested. Here are a few ideas:
Company Blog
Obviously a company blog is the easiest way to constantly publish new content on your site (just make sure your blog is on the same domain, i.e. mywebsite.com/blog), giving both the search engine spiders and your target audience a reason to visit your site and stay engaged with your brand.
Even if you can only manage one post a week its a good system to have in place. Blog posts can rank on their own in the search engines and help you target more long tail keywords, driving more qualified traffic to your site.
A company blog can also help position your brand as an industry thought leader.
- Talking About What We're Talking About: Here's Why We Tell You To Blog
- How to Get the Best of Your Company Blog In 9 Steps
- WordPress & SEO" How to Make More of Your Blog for Better ROI
Press Releases
Online PR is a great link building strategy, but why not publish a slightly edited version of each press release to the News section of your website? Instead of driving traffic to the PR distributors website you'll be sending them to yours!
Also, having a News section on your site is a great way to let current and potential customers know what is going on with your company. Not just for press releases, you can also announce upcoming webinars or trade shows you'll be attending, job opportunities at your company, promotions and sales and more! Even one announcement each month is a good way to make your website fresh.
White Papers
If you have a lot of white papers, why not create a resource center on your website and create unique landing pages for each one?
If you want to keep your white papers as locked content, you can also use them as a way to qualify lead. The landing pages can have a snippet of content describing the white paper and why your audience would be interested in it. In order to download the white paper a visitor would have to fill out a short lead form. Creating those landing pages allows you to get some SEO value from your locked content (which is hidden from the search engines and therefore cant be indexed) and give the search spiders new URLS to crawl.
- Write White Papers Like an Expert With These 10 Simple Steps
- The Easy Way to Plan a Perfect White Paper
Videos
Videos and other forms of multi-media content are a great way to keep your website fresh.
Just like you can create landing pages for white paper downloads, each video can have its own URL. Since search spiders cant watch videos, you can write a short snippet explaining the video or even post a transcript so the search engines now what the video is about and can index it accordingly.
- SEO 101: How to Optimize On-Site Videos
- How to Create Simple, Effective Videos for your Company
- One Simple Step to Increase Online Video Exposure by 5760%
Client Testimonials
You want to keep your website updated with recent client testimonials, especially if you date them. Visitors to your site might be a little wary of doing business with your company if they only see testimonials and reviews from three years ago. Have you had no happy customers since then? Even these little snippets of content give the search spiders a reason to revisit and read your website.
Conclusion
Many marketers and website owners struggle with creating content, but it doesn't have to be that hard! You don't need to publish hundreds of pieces of content each day to create a successful content marketing campaign for your needs, you just need to be consistent with it. Create an editorial calendar for yourself and stick to it. Once you get in the swing of things it'll be much easy to create more unique content for your site.
About the Author: Nick Stamoulis
