In With The New (But Not Out With The Old?)
How well is the content on your website working for you? You’ve got a great site—top notch design. You have some of the best content out there—it ranks well on its own and has been linked to by many others. You have great SEO—your content was created with a spot-on key list and your content writers hit all the marks. Everything looks great. What more could you ask for?
The answer, as it turns out, is more content.
Many sites have their day in the sun. Whether it’s a topical blog run by an individual, a small business site with a specialized niche, or a large company’s site targeting a specific industry, just about any site can work it’s way high onto a search results page. It happens for the main reason touched on above: well-crafted original content (although a healthy dose of luck doesn’t hurt…never forget luck!). When a page makes its way into the rarefied air of top search results, it has a fair chance of staying there, at least for a while. The more unique the content—in terms of topic and keys—the more likely this will be. Unless and until some other site comes along with similar content and similar keys, the owner of such a page can expect it to continue to rank well.
That’s the problem, though, and the reason why sites need to continuously generate new content: others are continuously adding new content, which will challenge older pages.
Google doesn’t talk much about whether and how old pages fade from search results. When they do, they insist that old content is not penalized for being old. (Conversely, age does sometimes matter: it’s fairly well accepted that backlinks from older domains contribute more to search results than those from newer ones.)
Older sites, some insist (and Google doesn’t deny), rank higher than equivalent new sites. But this can be true without a site’s age being an explicit ranking factor: simply by having been around longer, a site will have a tendency to see more traffic, generate more backlinks, and generally be more well-known than a newer site. All things being equal, age, by default, has a tendency to improve search results.
But there are other factors that are indirectly age-related. One that’s often overlooked is how a site’s pages can be overtaken in the environment, through no fault of their own. We’ll explain.
Let’s say that a site’s pages are the greatest out there on a subject—today. They rank well, have a number of backlinks, and can be considered authoritative. That’s fantastic, and that site’s owner should be proud.
However, then what happens? Other sites will continue to generate content relevant to the topic. They might link to your page (good for you) or they might not (potentially bad for you). They might link to yet other sites while they post entirely original content…which other sites will now then find and link to, without linking to your page.
Can you begin to guess where this is leading?
If one site stands still (doesn’t continue to add content) while others keep moving (continue to generate content), that first site has a good chance of seeing a decline in search results placement over time. It might not be noticeable at first: most pages will see their rankings fluctuate after reaching a plateau, and modest declines can be hidden in normal fluctuations. New pages won’t gain authority overnight, either, so being in early will continue to give the first site an edge over those that follow.
However, as other sites build authority (backlinks) and continue to generate content (and create internal links), they can—and likely will, over time—come to rank higher than the site which has chosen to stand still.
Let’s use a simple metaphor to visualize what happens.
Suppose that you live in a very flat place—a beach, for instance—but there are many large stones around. You want to mark your spot on the beach so that it stands out, so you build a simple pile of stones: a bottom layer, with another stacked on top.
Suddenly your spot is visible from a greater distance, because those stones help it stand out. Anyone looking for your spot will find it quickly. Victory is yours!
However, while you rest on your laurels, your neighbors adopt your bright idea. Several of them build their own small piles of stones. Those potential visitors who know you and your spot and have learned where to look continue to find it without much difficulty. But others now face several piles to choose from. With no strong feelings, they might look to the closest pile, or the one with the shiniest stone on top, or choose one at random. That might bring them to you, but it might not.
You could correct this situation by enlarging your pile so that it rises a level higher, or two levels. But your competitors will also now see that each of them has a pile of equal height and they’ll begin building higher to surpass each other. What if, while this was going on, you did nothing? Your pile worked great once—why shouldn’t it keep working?
Very soon, your pile will be overshadowed. You have arguably done nothing wrong, although it’s more accurate to say that you have done nothing…while others continued to build higher. Someone looking for you might still find you, especially if they’re seeking you out, but over time the chance of that gets smaller.
In order to not be that guy with the smallest pile of rocks, you need to continuously generate new content which, whenever possible, is more relevant to your targeted search results than that of others.
That’s how this works and that’s why content generation will continue to be important. Less isn’t more. More is more.
Finding the right partner to help you create the right content at the right time—for the right price—is important to the success of your business online. Contact Waltham WordWorks today to discuss your need and decide if we’re that partner. We’ll do all we can to make sure that your pile of rocks stays as high as it needs to.
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