How Google Values Fresh Content: An Actual Case Study

Many website administrators and bloggers use search engine optimized blog posts or use searchable tags in the new videos they upload with the hope that their websites remain relevant and get crawled in Google searches. For many content creators and online businesses, this seems to be the best strategy. But is this true? Are keyword optimized-blog articles and tags the only determining factor to ensure freshness in Google searches? The answer is no. In terms of website optimization for Google searches, the freshness of your content is still the biggest factor to influence your website’s searchability.

The regularity of blog posts published determines the freshness of a website. Google does not only crawl blogs, but they also crawl business and news websites. So, when people search for things online, Google factors in the freshness of the content to find the most relevant website for them. For instance, when people look for discount coupons, the freshness of the website is important because a website with the freshest discount coupons will most likely offer the best and the newest promos. For the best, biggest, and newest discount coupons, we are currently reviewing couponlawn.com with very promising initial findings.

To best illustrate the importance of freshness of blog or website content, we are using a certified fresh website, we will call here as the X Website, as a subject for this case study. We are hoping that we explain better the concepts behind how Google algorithm favors the regularity of publishing content, the quality of the post, and relevance of topics posted through the use of X Website as a point of reference for everyone. After all, what better way to demonstrate the concepts of a topic than to use a case study of a successful website?

No matter what kind of website you maintain, be it a blog, an online store, a forum, or anything in between, learning the ropes on how to keep your website fresh to drive Google searches from a website that actually succeeded in doing this is a very good way to pick up best practices that you can replicate. Hopefully, you will learn a lot from this brief case study of the X Website.

HOW PUBLISHING NEW CONTENT REGULARLY AND CONSISTENTLY HELP WITH KEEP A WEBSITE’s FRESHNESS?

Website X was primarily created to help amateur and professional marijuana growers with different tips in cultivating cannabis plants. This website posts new content to its website seven times a week. So on average, the website is posting at least one blog content every day. Historically, the website has not failed to post more than 20 posts in a month. The website is also posting articles that have around 600 to 1,000 words each.
So in terms of regularity and consistency, we can really see that X Website has pretty much nailed it. But how does this translate in terms of searchability?

A random search using the keyword BEST SATIVA STRAINS OF CANNABIS will find an article published X Website as the fourth search result. The article, entitled, Best Sativa Strains 2020: 10 Purest and Strongest Sativa Plants, was published 2 months ago.

Another random search on Google using the keyword BEST ONLINE SEED BANKS FOR MARIJUANA shows an article published by the X Website. The article published by the website one month ago, entitled, 8 Best Online Seed Banks That Ship to USA in 2020 (Reputable & Fast Shipping), has made was 8th in the Google search results.

Finally, checking out this website on Alexa shows that almost 60% of views of the X Website came from Google searches. This means that six in every ten visitors to X Website found the website through a random Google search. This highlights the importance of ensuring the freshness of your website to ensure that it is fresh and searchable.

The regularity and consistency by which blog posts and other content are published is a sign that the website offers information that is timely and relevant to the searchers. It also signals the robustness of the website in terms of ensuring the quality of the content. Google does not only crawl blogs solely based on keywords. Its algorithm has been updated to keep up with the dynamic nature of the world wide web. Now as people are more reliant on Google to find information, news, or even to purchase things, websites need to take care that it offers relevant content that the searchers will be able to use. This is why Google is putting a premium on the freshness of a website.

As a content creator, it is best to learn from the successful strategy of X Website. Make sure to regularly post content like blog articles, press releases and videos. This keeps your website updated and fresh. You do not have to post everyday. What is important is you do this on a regular and consistent basis.

ARE THERE ANY OTHER WAYS TO KEEP THE FRESHNESS OF A WEBSITE?

Of course, not everyone can publish a post every day. Many amateur bloggers and content creators can still guarantee the freshness of their websites other than by posting one post a day.

Once again using X Website as our case, we can find that this website is also doing other things that maintain the freshness of its website and ensures searchability on Google searches. The following are simple tips that X Website has also been using to keep its website fresh.

1. UPDATE THE OTHER FEATURES OF YOUR WEBSITE – What do we mean by “other features?” In a website or a blog, the articles are the only things that can be updated. If you check out the X Website, you can find links and pages around the webpage that can be clicked to navigate the website. Below the website, you can also find an expandable list of previous posts of the website. So by “other features,” we meant links, pages, sidebars, and widgets used on the website.

A common mistake that many content developers are to focus on creating new content while forgetting the rest of the website. Remember, your website is a growing and breathing beast. In order to keep it fresh and alive, you need to look for broken links. You also need to check if the widgets are properly working. Plugins installed must be updated if necessary. By updating all other features, you do not only ensure that the content is updated, but you also maintain the freshness and health of your whole website.

2. MAINTAIN THE FRESHNESS OF YOUR OLD ARTICLES AND POSTS – Once you post content, this content contributes to the searchability of your whole website. However, as time goes, the information on these posts get old as well. You can keep them fresh by updating their information. In most cases, you do not have to rewrite the article. All you need to do is include an addendum at the bottom of the article insert updates. Make going back and updating old a regular practice.

Schedule dates where you will go back to your oldest articles. For instance, in the month of June, you can schedule the updating of all posts published in the month since you started your website. So if you started your website in 2014, you would update all articles published in the month of August from 2014 to last year. Other things that you also need to look out for broken links included in blog posts or web pages. You also need to check for the accuracy and timeliness of data. Make sure to also assess the quality of the posts in terms of grammar, clarity, organization, and style.

3. ADD RELEVANT PAGES TO YOUR WEBSITE – Adding relevant pages to your website is an important practice to ensure the freshness of the website. Some experts believe that increasing the website’s pages by 20% to 30% each year would be great to maintain the robustness of the website. However, the same experts warn to only add pages that are relevant to the website. If you will add pages that are not relevant, this may in fact ruin your site’s searchability on Google.

The website X has pages like Beginners’ Guide, Strains, and Grow Equipment. These pages are relevant to what the website is all about. They add value to the website, and such pages’ presence is not only justifiable but also important. They contain information that is highly searchable on Google. If you are planning to add new pages to your website, do not be afraid to experiment. Be creative. What is important is that the page contains information that is relevant to the whole site.

4. INCREASE SOCIAL MEDIA VISIBILITY OF YOUR WEBSITE – Drive traffic and increase searchability by maintaining a healthy social media presence. It is very, very rare to find professional websites with no social media presence. The website X has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. These social media accounts are also featured on top of the website’s dashboard. The majority of your potential viewers would primarily have at least two accounts on any of these social media platforms.

Therefore, maintaining an updated social media presence will surely drive the views and freshness of your website. Another thing that you should be doing is to drive the conversation about your website on social media. Engage in comments to posts in your social media by answering queries. Preferably, the answers should have links to your website.

5. GENERATE BRAND LOYALTY – Another important reason why you need to engage with comments on social media is that this increases brand loyalty. By engaging with your subscribers and followers, you create a persona to your brand, which increases your relevance and your reputation as a go-to source for information.

Other than engaging with followers on social media, it is also a good practice to reply to comments posted on your website. Answering comments encourage positive feedbacks from your site visitors and increases the chance of repeat visits.

6. ATTRACT LINKS FROM REPUTABLE WEBSITES – Many content creators use Search engine optimizations to take advantage of backlinking to drive the freshness of their website. This is a great practice. However, in choosing the right website for backlinking, it is important to look for those that are authoritative and possibly have the same niche as your website.

There are many SEO backlinking software that links to websites using random websites that contain different topics. Earning fresh links from websites that are searchable and authoritative is by far a more powerful way to boost your site’s freshness.

Content creators and digital marketing professionals are working in a very competitive industry. It is of utmost importance to maintain a website’s freshness to drive clicks and viewers to your website. Hopefully, this case study has given you some important information on how to keep your website relevant and fresh. Learning from a website like X shows how lessons are put into practice.

Now that you have learned all of these things, hopefully, you can put these into practice these strategies and replicate the successful results of Website X.

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