Question: I have a wordpress website with 50 pages, many optimized for keyword phrases, and a blog. You say that freshness and new content is important for seo. If I post on the blog frequently, does that do anything for the other pages? Am I somehow supposed to get new content on each of the other pages I want to rank high on? How, as obviously I can’t have a separate blog for each page.
Answer:
The Google algorithm obviously weights different factors differently. For example, having the keyword in the TITLE tag is hugely important, as are inbound links that are keyword-relevant. Among the factors, but below those, is freshness: is the page “new,” is the site “updated,” are the inbound links “new” or “old?” Freshness matters. A few years back Google rolled this out as the Caffeine update.
In my classes on SEO, therefore, I strongly advise people to blog: create NEW, fresh blog content as well as NEW, fresh press releases, and ALWAYS seek a constant stream of NEW inbound links. So in terms of your question:
Create NEW blog content – for most businesses, a few posts a week is usually sufficient, obviously wrapped around target keywords.
Cross link FROM the new blog posts TO your anchor pages. The “freshness” of the blog posts will “bleed” over to the landing pages.
Fresh new content on the blog will “help” the freshness of the site “as a whole.” It’s not just SEO for individual pages; it’s SEO for the entire site – so your “fresh” blog content will signal to Google that the site, as a whole, is alive and kicking.
Cross-link FROM the home page to 1-3 blog posts to “freshen” the home page (your most important) as well as to pull the Google Spider to index your NEW content.
So, in sum, it’s not about freshening all pages… it’s about adding new pages constantly and cross-linking. That said, it is good every once in a while (quarterly? monthly?) to go and freshen the content on individual pages… such as your landing pages. It is ALWAYS good to freshen content.
Got a question? Click this link to or call . is founder and Senior SEO / Social Media Director of the . He teaches the SEO training classes for the group, and therefore provides most of the SEO tips for this blog. His goal with this blog is to provide an easy 'one-stop shop' for the busy marketer looking for tips, tricks, and secrets on how to get to the top of Google and Bing for free using proven SEO tactics. When not dreaming up SEO tips, Dr. McDonald lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, two dogs, a cat, four iguanas and twelve children (just kidding). Really you read down to the bio on this guy? Enjoy the blog.
Freshness Matters: Blog Posts and Site Freshness
Question: I have a wordpress website with 50 pages, many optimized for keyword phrases, and a blog. You say that freshness and new content is important for seo. If I post on the blog frequently, does that do anything for the other pages? Am I somehow supposed to get new content on each of the other pages I want to rank high on? How, as obviously I can’t have a separate blog for each page.
Answer:
The Google algorithm obviously weights different factors differently. For example, having the keyword in the TITLE tag is hugely important, as are inbound links that are keyword-relevant. Among the factors, but below those, is freshness: is the page “new,” is the site “updated,” are the inbound links “new” or “old?” Freshness matters. A few years back Google rolled this out as the Caffeine update.
In my classes on SEO, therefore, I strongly advise people to blog: create NEW, fresh blog content as well as NEW, fresh press
releases, and ALWAYS seek a constant stream of NEW inbound links. So in terms of your question:
So, in sum, it’s not about freshening all pages… it’s about adding new pages constantly and cross-linking. That said, it is good every once in a while (quarterly? monthly?) to go and freshen the content on individual pages… such as your landing pages. It is ALWAYS good to freshen content.
About Jason McDonald