Blog content can be a vital component of a successful marketing plan. But not every post is going to be a smash hit in terms of performance. Even when you’ve posted something you believe to be well-written, thoroughly researched, and deeply relevant to your audience, there’s a chance that your content will flop. This can be frustrating, especially for posts that are integral pieces of a larger marketing campaign meant to generate leads and drive sales for a new product or service. And, for those who are less well-versed in reading their analytics, it can be difficult to understand exactly where a post went wrong or how to fix it. Luckily, there are a few ways to spot underperforming blog content and improve it to achieve your desired results.
How to Identify Underperforming Content
In the larger conversation about blog analytics, underperforming content can be defined as posts that are not doing as well as they could be, either compared to other posts on your blog or posts about similar topics in your industry. There are a few common reasons why this may be happening and even more easy solutions to fix the problem. In this blog, we will explain how to detect and improve underperforming content. Some potential causes for underperforming blog content are:
Outdated Content
When developing your larger content marketing plan, plotting out your blog content in advance either quarterly, every six months, or even yearly can be a great idea. Taking a few hours to plan can keep you from spending valuable time racking your brain for a substantive subject matter every time you sit down to write a post.
However, you should never consider your plan as “set in stone.” The ability to be flexible with your content is crucial to making sure you are making time in your schedule to address more timely subjects that couldn’t have been predicted at the beginning of your planning period. You could also use content marketing software to make the process easier and more efficient for you.
Irrelevant Subject Matter
Flexibility is also important. It can help ensure you’re not missing out on opportunities to engage with your audience in ways relevant to the time period and even end up posting content that is completely irrelevant to your market’s current needs. Blog posts that are too specific or heavily seasonal may generate clicks for those seeking the content via search engines. Still, they will not be as attractive to visitors perusing your website to see what information your blog has to offer.
Lost Visibility
While the Google search engine results page (SERP) can be a good source of generated traffic for your blog, it’s estimated that less than 10% of pages generate any organic Google search traffic at all. For those generating traffic, it’s important to remember that Google SERPs do undergo regular changes. So, even for content that was previously performing well due to clicks from Google searches, you may be finding a sudden dip in organic traffic. This could be happening for several reasons:
- Thin Content. In the context of blog content, the word “thin” doesn’t necessarily refer to the length of the post but the length relative to the keyword optimization. This means that if your blog is shorter-form, you’ll need to add more competitive keywords to rank well on Google.
- Outdated Content. You may be thinking that you won’t experience issues with the Google SERP because you update your blog regularly. However, for certain subjects that change rapidly over time—current events, viral trends, technological updates—it’s easy to make content that becomes outdated very quickly. To avoid your content going obsolete, regular updates can help keep your content prioritized in searches.
- Indexation Issues. There are many ways that your content can be dropped from Google’s index. Anything from tag issues (no index tags, incorrect hreflang tags, canonical tags) to changes to page status or non-SEO friendly JavaScript changes can keep your page from showing up through an organic search. Be sure to stay in close contact with your page developers to ensure there have been no tagging or status mistakes.
How to Fix Your Underperforming Content
When you find your content has been underperforming, there are many ways to fix some issues and improve your blog’s overall performance. Strong headlines can go a long way towards grabbing a reader’s attention and giving them a reason to click on your posts. If you’re not currently doing A/B testing of your headlines, that can be an easy way to see what vocabulary and which types of headlines appeal most to your audience. Apply those learnings in addition to typical headline optimization techniques (catchy “power” words, varied sentence structure, adding numbers and statistics, etc.).
It’s also important to go back through your older content to find areas for re-optimization. If you’ve been in the game for a long time, chances are your blogging and SEO skills have improved over time. That doesn’t mean that it’s just your newest posts that can be optimized for top performance. Going back through your old posts and updating links with more current sources, including cross-links to your other content, and adding long-tail keywords to help rank on Google searches for less competitive, more specific phrases are all ways to breathe new life into old content.
