Online content is ephemeral by its very nature—and not just Snapchat stories! Whether you’re talking about blog posts, press releases, or tweets, so much of the content that companies develop has a remarkably short shelf life.
This is just the nature of the beast, but it can be discouraging. For companies that invest a lot of time and money into their website content, for instance, knowing that the lifespan of said content is brief can make the whole process seem frivolous.
There are ways you can inject more life and longevity into your website content, though, and ensure that it provides you with SEO and branding clout long after that first week, that first month, or that first year. Here are five tips from the Grammar Chic team.
Focus on Evergreen Content
A blog post detailing your brand new product has an inherently short-lived relevance, because of course that product won’t be brand new forever! Such content is necessary, but you should counterbalance it with evergreen content—Web pages written on timeless topics with enduring relevance. Something like an FAQ page or a how-to guide can provide you with a content angle that will still be fresh and relevant in a few years’ time. One recommendation: Schedule time once a year or so to review this content and make any tweaks or additions that are needed.
Optimize Your Content
Your content will offer you more bang over a longer span of time if it continues to get discovered by search engine users. Be sure that you optimize content for long-tail keyword phrases, and that you pay attention to critical on-page elements such as the title tag and meta description. Investing in some SEO basics is a great way to future-proof your content.
Link to Your Content
Internal linking is a great way to keep your content alive; even a blog post or a Web page you wrote three years ago may prove a relevant appendix to a more current page. Linking to it, when appropriate, can send readers to different parts of your site, including older content that might otherwise be neglected. Of course, it also increases the SEO value of those older pages.
Repurpose Older Content
Even if you feel like a particular page or an older blog post is losing its SEO value, or simply not generating much traffic, the concepts on that page can still be worthwhile. That’s when you take that content and repackage it as a brand new page, as an email newsletter, or as a series of social media posts.
Refresh Your Content Regularly
One more thing: Your website shouldn’t remain static for years at a time. Grammar Chic’s team recommends routine content refreshes; whether a full re-write or a subtler re-shaping, content updates can keep your entire site feeling fresh and new. Work this into your annual marketing rhythm. And for help polishing your content to perfection, reach out to our team at 803-831-7444, or www.grammarchic.net.
Amanda E. Clark founded Grammar Chic in 2008. She is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University and holds degrees in Journalism, Political Science, and English. She launched Grammar Chic after freelancing for several years while simultaneously leading marketing and advertising initiatives for several Fortune 500 companies.