Content Decay the silent threat to website performance

This presentation by Rich George from Wavemaker at Brighton SEO tackles "Content decay: the silent threat to website performance." It defines content decay as the gradual erosion of a webpage's performance, relevance, and accuracy over time, impacting not only SEO but also leading to lost visitors, wasted resources, eroding brand trust, and potentially "corrupting" AI models.

The core solution proposed is a proactive "Keep, Kill, Merge, Refresh" framework. This involves a comprehensive diagnosis using data from website crawls, performance analytics, link data, and Google Index to identify decaying content. Content is then mapped by type, user intent, and topic to inform strategic actions.

Key takeaways for effective content management include:

Embrace a "publish and manage" mindset, recognizing content decay as a natural process.
Protect your brand's reputation, user trust, and the integrity of future AI models by addressing decay.
Regularly schedule content audits and apply the "Keep, Kill, Merge, Refresh" framework.
The future of search belongs to those who consistently provide the most helpful, relevant, and trustworthy content.

#brightonSEO, #SEO, #digitalmarketing, #contentstrategy

Transcript

3. Problem? Your Best-Performing Content is Silently Dying
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20. Sustained Organic Traffic Drops? High search interest page performs poorly? Little or no search interest at a keyword or topic level? Decreasing Time on Page / Engagement? Falling Keyword Rankings? External / internal links to pages?
29. Clean website, removed old content and site bloat A fully mapped and categorized URL list Foundations of your content strategy
31. ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
32. ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
36. #1
37. #2
38. #3
39. #4