Over the years, Google has improved its algorithms and metrics to provide the best user experience to searchers. One of the main changes that have taken most websites in Singapore by surprise is a penalty as a result of low value or low-quality content.
For a website to retain high rankings on search engines’ listing, you have to ensure that the content you upload is pertinent and eye-catching too. Most significantly, it has to be optimized as well, since optimization augments the possibility of higher ranks.
However, have you ever wondered what would happen if you over-optimized this content? In as much as search engine optimization (SEO) is a practice that has become widespread in Singapore due to the reimbursements it offers, over-optimization would mean harm to your website. It affects your site’s search rankings hence reducing the number of visitors into your website.
Therefore, if the issues of over-optimization are affecting you, this article will be beneficial as it presents some steps that will guide you into de-optimizing your content. By doing that, you will curb this critical challenge, and your web will flourish in terms of rankings. Remember, high search rankings have a direct effect on the rate of traffic into your website meaning it has a positive influence on your site.
You need to make sure that no article posted on your Singapore website is over-optimised. Today, we look at tips on how to fix an over-optimised article.
Identify the Over-Optimised Article
Do you want to de-optimize your article that has failed to reflect better results in terms of Google search rankings? Then, first of all, you need to look for that over-optimized content; it is the first step towards de-optimizing your article. So, once you identify it, you will make some appropriate modifications. During the identification process, you need to take into account some aspects that signify over-optimization.
Carry out an extensive website audit to identify all the over optimised articles that have been hindering you from achieving your goals and objectives. Some of the factors that you should base your audit on are:
- Irrelevant keywords – some keywords are not related to the content material, and such may not attract more traffic.
- Over-optimized website footer – footers decrease page’s recognition abilities by search engines such as Google.
- Multiple headings in one article using a similar heading tag like H1.
- Links are directing users into uninteresting and unwanted pages.
- Internal linking using Keyword-rich anchor. For higher rankings, a link should not include a keyword.
- High backlink velocity
- Non-Branded URLs
- Use of keyword rich anchor text for internal links
- Excessive use of keyword in the content and footer
For that reason, you need to conduct an assessment exercise for your website in the aim of finding those articles that have low rankings. You can establish the performance of an article by determining how much traffic it has attracted for your page, how many included links have been clicked or followed, among many other relevant factors.
After conducting the survey, you now might have found the over-optimized content. If so, it is hence time to get deeper into the material and strategize on how to eliminate the ranking drop causative.
Analyse the Content
Evaluation is hence the next thing you need to do after identification, including the establishment of the existing SEO blunders in the article. Content analysis can be one of the toughest tasks as it needs to be carefully done to avoid missing out some information. Mostly, the process takes an extended period since doing things in a hurry may counteract elimination of the mistakes completely.
During this process, it is when you get to identify specific areas where modifications are required. Take note of these areas for later reference; be it the keywords or the entire content while maybe you can write them down. In most cases, what needs adjustments are the keywords, and therefore, you have to look for information on the most suitable keywords for your content to replace the older ones. Some keywords may require to be replaced not because they are not relevant, but they may be outdated by currently advanced technological developments. Such keywords need to be replaced with more updated words to improve on the web’s efficiency and visibility.
Analysis process may be tedious, and hence there are tools designed to help you achieve results in a short period. Such tools include SEO Workers Analysis tool, which is an extension for integration into browsers to assist in assessment works. Therefore, find one such tool and make your things easier.
The process of analysing the content that is identified as low quality can be tedious and time-consuming depending on the tools that you use. It may seem like looking for a needle in a haystack if you do not have the right tools.
Some of the best tools that you can use for this purpose include:
- Site Analyser
- MySiteAuditor
- Screaming Frog
- DYNO Mapper
Ideally, what these tools do is identify words that are excessively used in the article, keyword stuffing, and low content performance. We recommend that you list down all the target keywords to know if they are overly used in the articles.
De-Optimise the Content
Now, you have already identified the over-optimised articles and have a report from any of the recommended content analysing tools.
The next step you need to take after assessing the over-optimized article is de-optimizing the content in it. De-optimization aims at improving the quality and relevance of your content thereby increasing sites efficiency and performance. De-optimization may involve these actions as outlined below.
Re-optimizing the present content
Google has some set conditions that determine whether a website qualifies to be rated among the top in the search rankings. Therefore, once you have identified mistakes in your content, you need to make the necessary adjustments according to these Google’s Quality Guidelines. You can compare to other top ranked pages and find out secrets to what more probably needs to be adjusted for better results.
Replace the entire content
Sometimes, you may find that the whole article contains irrelevant or obsolete information. That would mean that you need to replace the entire content or else redirect the address to a currently updated article. Redirecting links will ultimately provide users with the best user experience and therefore build trust among them. That eventually increases your web traffic and better still, your site’s search rankings.
The most effective method would be to redirect the links to the new article. Users do not have to interact with the same old page over and over again, therefore, consider redirecting if you want the most excellent outcomes.
Check Links Using Fetch as Google
Fetch as Google is a tool provided by Google for fetching links aimed at determining their dependability. Through this method, Google is in a position to present content as it appears on the website correctly. Your site will have higher ratings as well as appear among the top sites in search engine results pages.
Keep Track of The Site’s Progress
At this point now, everything is set up, and you have uploaded the article content on the internet. What you now need to do is follow the progress of the site to determine whether it is improving or not. Use keywords in the article to search using different search engines such as Google, and monitor the search visibility of the site.
If you notice that there are little or no improvements, it means you need to reevaluate the article and probably reoptimize. Well, if you find out that the keywords are doing well, in that case, you need to relax and keep on observing as the activity seems useful.
- Content that is outdated or for some reason should not be online should be redirected to the high-value content already published on your website. Redirecting will help cushion you from bad user experience and keep your website visitors engaged longer on your site.
- Check out the list of Google’s Quality Guidelines and use that information to improve your articles.
Take Advantage of Fetch as Google
Fetch as Google is a tool found in Search Console that allows you to test how Google renders a URL on your site. You can use it to check if all the pages or content posted on your site is accessible to Googlebot.
It is recommended to submit a sitemap if you have a large number of URLs of freshly posted or de-optimised content on your website.
Monitor Your Keywords on Search Engines
Track the performance of your keywords on not only Google but also other search engines to monitor search visibility. There is plenty of rank checking tools online that you can purchase for this purpose.
If you don’t notice any significantly improvement, chances are that the content need to be de-optimised further or there are other articles that were not listed in website audit report that need to be improved.
Conclusion
Google’s Quality Guidelines plan is based on the current upgraded algorithms by Google. These improvements have been put in place with the aim of providing the user with the most wonderful experience when they access the internet. It means that they are keen on all the websites and have better-devised metrics for determining the quality of the content presented to users. Therefore, there could be no shortcut to getting your page on top of the listing rather than de-optimizing those over-optimized articles in your website.
Nowadays, the chances of cheating the system are almost zero. Google new algorithms such as Penguin and Panda are specifically tailored to detect over-optimised content and trigger a penalty. Act now to protect your site’s current high ranking, visibility, and credibility online.
