The Dirty Little Secret

about ALL website traffic - even yours!

Wondering why your new content isn't performing as well as your old content? Spoiler Alert! It's not you.

Q: Laurie, what can I do about my new posts? They have pathetic performance and I don't understand why. Most of my ad revenue and traffic come from the same handful of posts from several years ago. Is there something wrong? Is there a way to compose my posts to help them perform better or does my content just suck? LOL.

A: Yes and No.

Yes, there is a way to structure your posts to perform better...ish. I've evaluated the top ranked & top traffic % posts from my clients and their post structure is ALL OVER the place. There's not a clear format. However, I know you want one anyway so here's a sample blog post template checklist.

No, your content does not suck. It hurts my heart that you would think that. {huge hugs} The truth is that's how ALL website traffic is for everyone.

There's something you should know. {if you don't already} Holly Homer calls it the 'dirty little secret' of blogging. I thought everyone knew about it but apparently not.

So listen up.

Most website traffic is generated by only a few posts!

This is true for all my clients and influencers, websites, corporate sites, and all niches. This is what Holly calls the 'dirty little secret'. Because it makes people feel inferior and inadequate that only a handful of their posts are Rockstar's. When the reality is... that's how it is for EVERYONE!

Let me prove it to you with the graphic above. I audited NeilPatel.com and MarthaStewart.com and sorted their Traffic % z-a, high to low. As you can see in YELLOW the majority of their traffic volume {sessions} come from only a handful of posts.

Which is why I think it's hysterical that the majority of the people I know spend all their time on their top posts... because with less attention they can maintain these top post! Why not spread the love and make more posts drive traffic? {that's what the audit helps you to do}

Don't get me wrong, of course your Top Posts are important and should be amplified often. However, they don't need as much attention as some other URLs do. Why? 'Cuz they're already doing their job. {high fives}

This is proof only a few good posts can bring BIG traffic!

So what do we do if that's just how it is? The key is to generate traffic to your other priority posts... so your Top URLs pageviews go up even higher!!

Which brings me to another key point...

Why You Should Update Older Posts?

There are so many reasons you should update an old post as well as reuse old URLs for new content. To list them here would completely derail the purpose of this lecture. More importantly, there are tiny downsides to updating old content and a TON of perks!

Here are a few of my favorites reasons to update old content:

• saves time, studies show it takes 6+ hours to write new content
• work smarter not harder using URLs with validated street cred
• a good way to introduce your old content to your current audience
• clear benefits with Google as they prefer updated content {see case study}

Freshness matters...

• to your readers
• to search engines
• to maintain the quality of your entire site!

Remember, visitors to your blog today don’t know anything about your amazing post from 2015. Make your existing content work for you today so you can incorporate sharing content as part of your ongoing editorial calendar.

Update and re-publish your older content that is not generating traffic. Publish smarter, not harder.

Increase Social Proof and Backlinks to 1 URL

• confirmed ranking factor

Enough said, right?

Generate more Pings!

Twitter, external links {backlinks, trackbacks}, and blog comments "ping" and alert Google and search engines to revisit the site for an update.

• Is there any value to having specific URLs pinged after an update?
• Is there any connection between pinging and the frequency of re-visits from the search engines?
• Does this influence rankings?

YES! It's not conjecture, it's fact.

Pinging is an explicit call to Google and search engines to fetch new content. The more pings you generate...

• the deeper you can generate crawls of your site content
• the more re-visits you encourage
• more value that content is given algorithmically

The Bottom Line

If you truly want to generate high traffic, then updating old posts with a high potential to rank is just as important as creating new content. Each serves a different purpose to the same end goal... money in the bank.

Did I prove it to you?

If you're still not a fan of updating old content, yet. You will be soon when I prove it to you with a good old-fashioned case study.

Coming Soon!

Case Study: 📆 Published Dates

Goal:  To prove top organic traffic posts for blogs are older than 2 years old, but updated within the year.

• What % of top traffic posts for a blog is older than a year?
• Will a post older than 3 years generate high traffic if not updated?
• What % of posts were original and never updated?
• Do I need to add published & updated dates or neither on my site?
• Does it increase the chances of ranking 1-10 if I have dates in the comments?

I'm determined to PROVE IT to you with a case study... coming soon.

Want more secrets? I've got some doozies for you. There's 3 of them and all FREE!

• Get more Hidden Traffic Secrets! ← click here

Find the hidden traffic you're neglecting without being an expert or knowing any SEO.

~ Laurie