Article marketing

[anandp]

I'm about to start offering various articles for web masters out there but wondered if anyone with IM experience had a view on how often a new site would need fresh content.

A vague question I know (could relate it to 'how long is a piece of string') but having been there 2 years ago, I know daily updated content was more fantasy than reality, but just one per week may have been too little.

What is the consensus?

 

[JamesM]

There's no one-size-fits-all answer... it varies from niche to niche.

Look at what other sites in your niche are doing.

For example if you want to rank on page one for "blue widgets", see how often sites on page one update their sites. If most of them are updating monthly, you could update weekly for a few months to see if moves you through the SERPs faster.

That's not a fool-proof method though, it does vary from niche to niche, but the quality of content is more important than the amount of content, in any niche.

 

[SpencyCWS]

The general consensus in seo circles is that the Google sandbox algorithm functions to prevent new sites from blasting their way to the top of Google and in effect overtaking quality websites that have been around for years.

New sites still get the "loving period" when they are new.

It takes a while for Google and the others to really work out what things are all about with a new site, which is why you often see some false ranking in the first few months.

As James said, it varies from niche to niche and if you focus on quality and not quantity you will be on the right lines.

 

[More Control]

Well I was always advised to make changes all the time. Making incremental changes throughout the websites lifetime.

As the site grows older, you can focus less on re-writing content and more on link building. However, its good to go back to the site and edit the content to keep it fresh in the rankings.

 

[soniasy18]

It is not necessarily you have updated content on your homepage, as long as you have a fresh content page to be submitted in the article directory + pinging search engines and maintain the seo and link building of your website. I think it is considered at least 2 or 3 new content every week as long as you will not get behind your link building.

 

[bbrij87]

You would come to know by dates of Google crawlers. You can see when you crawlers visited your site through logs and then you can update your site after every visit.

 

[JamesMartin]

As JamesM said, it varies. However, I think for most sites updating every few days to a week will be enough. You can always increase this if you start to fall behind. Be sure that you are updating with unique content though - not anything taken from another site.

There are some sites/pages that have not changed for years and are ranking at #1 for some keywords. Ranking highly isn't just about on-page SEO, you need to focus on off-page too (such as building links - which article marketing is a brilliant source for!)

 

[newsvend]

As above, ensure you update with unique content, though the odd quotation never hurts.
With regard to article sites, make sure you enjoy the SEO benefit by posting up on your website first. If original content is required by any of the article sites, use a derivation of the original on your site.

 

[gemd89]

I like my writer to do 10 articles per week - I have seen a drop in the rankings for the last 4 weeks while i have fallen behind though - Was trying to concentrate on redesign but now thats finishing monday will have to catch back u on articles and link building

Gemma