Over time, content can decay. This can cause it to lose its relevance and impact organic traffic.
This can be caused by external competition or internal competition that occurs on your own website.
External competition happens when another brand or website creates more in-depth content on a topic. Internal competition is when your content competes against itself for clicks.
Analyze Your Traffic Trends
Content decay is a common SEO problem that can cause real-world impacts like decreased website traffic, inquiries, deals, and revenue for business websites. The good news is that you can find and identify decaying content with simple tools like Google Analytics. To detect content decay, look for organic search performance and rankings that have been steadily declining over a certain period of time. This can be a telltale sign that the content is no longer relevant or useful to search engines, or that it needs to be updated or improved.
Often, this is due to newer and better content that has been published on the same topic, or because the search intent has changed over time. If this is the case, you can try to update your content to match the current search intent and audience needs, or rewrite it for a different keyword (if that’s possible).
Another reason for decaying content is simply because the topic has become obsolete. This can be especially true in fast-moving industries like tech, science, and news, where advances and changes happen quickly. This can make older content seem less up-to-date, and many users will prefer to click on a more recent piece of research over an outdated one.
Finally, sometimes, a page or article will decline because it’s being outranked by other pages that have been optimized for a different keyword. This can be a result of poor link building, but it can also be the result of a competitor that has nailed the SEO for a specific query or topic. In this case, you’ll need to work at a broader level of the website to improve your overall authority for that keyword.
Analyze Your Engagement Metrics
When you’re trying to increase organic traffic, the content on your site needs to engage users right away. If a post isn’t engaging, it can cause a drop in search engine rankings and a decline in organic traffic. In order to avoid this, you should monitor the engagement metrics of your posts and articles. This will let you know if there is an issue with the content that is causing it to not rank as well.
Another important metric to look at is user retention. If you see a high rate of user churn, it could be a sign that your content isn’t providing enough value or that it is becoming outdated. Similarly, if your customer satisfaction score or net promoter score is low, it may be a sign that your content isn’t engaging.
Aside from these organic performance metrics, you can also use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to track the position of your content in search engine results pages (SERPs). If a page is losing its rankings, it can be a sign that the content needs to be updated.
When you do notice that a post isn’t performing as well as it used to, you can try updating the article or blog post to make sure it covers all of the relevant information in-depth. In addition, you can also merge several existing pieces of content on the same topic into one comprehensive, authoritative resource that will help you to rank better in Google. This will prove to search engines that you are an in-depth authority on the topic and can help you reclaim your previous SERP positions. Then you can focus on driving more traffic and conversions through your content.
Analyze Your Keyword Performance
Keyword performance is a critical SEO metric that can help you identify decaying content and improve your search rankings and traffic. This metric is usually measured by tracking changes in the ranking position for specific keywords over time. The goal is to look for any significant dips or spikes in a keyword’s performance that may signal that it’s no longer relevant or useful to your audience.
For example, if you have a page that’s been performing well for a certain keyword and suddenly starts to see a steady decline in its search engine ranking, that could be a sign that the post needs to be updated or revised to reflect new research or trends in your industry. Another indicator of keyword decay is when a post’s click-through rate (CTR) begins to decline. This can happen for a number of reasons, including a change in search engine algorithm updates or competing content that’s getting more clicks than yours.
Using a digital marketing dashboard to track these metrics over time can make it easier to identify decaying content. The dashboard will show you the rank and search engine traffic performance of your most important keywords over a set period of time, making it easy to spot any significant drops or spikes that need to be investigated further.
Another way to identify decaying content is by reviewing your keyword performance in Google Search Console. Use the ‘Compare’ feature to view a graph of the search performance of your website for your chosen date range. Then, compare that graph to a previous one from a similar date range to find any declining trends. This is a great tool to use when analyzing your SEO performance and can help you identify problems quickly.
Analyze Your Page Speed
When it comes to SEO, page speed is one of the most important ranking factors. Search engines prioritize websites with fast loading pages, and they reward sites that deliver the best user experience. A slow-loading site can cause users to abandon your website, which can negatively impact your SERP rankings.
Page speed can also be affected by changes to Google’s algorithms. For example, in 2021, Google released its Core Web Vitals update, which impacted the performance of many URLs. URLs with a poor Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) score fell down the SERPs, while those with a good LCP scored higher. As a result, the best practice is to constantly test and improve your website’s speed.
It’s often difficult to spot signs of content decay unless you have the right tools in place. One of the most effective ways to identify decaying content is to track organic search performance for each piece of content on your website. Using software like Rank Revival will allow you to see how each post or article has performed over time.
A drop in traffic over a long period of time is a good indicator of content decay. This could be because the topic has lost relevancy or that the article isn’t engaging enough for your audience.
Another reason for content decay is that your competitors may be outperforming you on the subject. This is particularly common in fast-moving industries like news, technology, and science, where new advancements happen all the time and can make older information obsolete. As a result, your competitors will publish better content, pushing yours down the search results. This can be a major problem, as a decline in search performance will likely mean a significant drop in organic traffic.
Analyze Your Backlinks
If your content is attracting backlinks, it’s more likely to perform well in SERPs. However, if your content’s backlink profile is declining over time, it could signal that Google sees the page as no longer relevant or useful for searchers. This can result in the page falling out of the rankings altogether, or it may drop from a higher position to a lower one. To check for this, you can use a backlink analysis tool like SEO SpyGlass, which is part of the all-in-one SEO PowerSuite suite. Some backlink tools can also be found within other all-in-one content optimization suites, such as Clearscope’s Content Inventory.
You can also check for content decay by analyzing your organic traffic data in either Google Analytics or the Search Console performance reports. Look for articles or blog posts that are losing impressions over time. A drop in impressions is a good indicator that Google may be seeing the content as less valuable for user queries, which can lead to declining click-through rates.
Another cause of content decay is internal competition between pages, posts, or articles on your site. For example, if you have several posts that cover the same topic and rank for the same keywords, they may start to compete with each other for SERP space. This can lead to decreased organic traffic for all of the competing URLs.
Finally, a decline in SERP performance can sometimes be caused by algorithm changes. For example, if Google releases a major core update that affects user experience, it can have an impact on the visibility of certain pieces of content. As such, it’s important to monitor your organic search data on a regular basis and compare two date ranges to find any issues.