Mm… nothing like the smell of fresh content in the morning, right? Crisp and fulfilling, it perks up the mind and sets your day on the right course, attracting the noses of your customers, too.
What? Your website hasn’t been updated lately?
Oh dear — I thought we went over this one already. Your website’s got to keep up to date and growing or else you’ll quickly fall into obsolescence.
This issue was picked up in an article by Search Engine Journal today that talks about Google’s Patent on Stale Vs. Fresh Content Determination.
The key points?
- When a post was created and when it was updated matters, but there’s a lot else that matters, too.
- Not only is getting links important, but it’s important that links continue growing over time
- User behavior is an important metric, too — how often people click on a page in the SERPs, and how long they stay on the page when they get there.
So we already know that it’s GOOD when people find your site for content that’s relevant to them and stick around on your site, and either contact you and become a customer or link to you so others can find you… But Google’s approach to “Freshness” makes it even more critical that you do that to even get to the top in the first place!
The bright side of all this complexity is that there’s a positive feedback loop: someone finds your site, likes it, links to it, and your freshness goes up. More people go to it, like it, link to it, and you do even better. Rinse, repeat, and the cycle continues, and your user-conversion optimized site starts cranking in organic search and buzzes around the Twittersphere.
Just don’t fall in the trap of “setting it and forgetting it” by putting out ho-hum content that is all about how scalable, best-of-breed your leading-edge products are… If so, you can expect to continue to fight for relevance, conversions, and expensive pay per click spots.
Here’s to keeping it fresh!
