SUCCESS STORY
Preventing Content Decay Through Blog Post Revitalization
A TravelBoom Marketing Case Study on The StateView Hotel
Did you know that there are *millions of blog posts published every day?
It’s no secret that Google prioritizes fresh, relevant content (and recency). Decaying content is content that has been (or still is) declining in traffic over time, which can be directly tied to a decreased ranking in the SERPs. You can monitor this by keeping a close eye on natural search traffic to specific blogs or other content efforts on your website.
If you’re seeing a steady decline in traffic, you’re likely suffering from content decay.
TravelBoom Marketing sought to increase organic search rankings and traffic by improving existing website content on The StateView Hotel blog.
The results? An unprecedented increase in major KPIs.
Situation and Background
The StateView Hotel, an Autograph Collection Hotel by Marriott, was suffering from content decay including decreased rankings and less traffic from natural search, overall.
Article: https://www.stateviewhotel.com/news/things-to-do-in-downtown-raleigh/
The Things to do in Downtown Raleigh post targets a broad, non-brand keyword, and highlights a variety of activities in Raleigh, NC. The intention of the post is to amplify non-brand rankings and generate non-brand natural search traffic, achieving brand awareness, bookings and revenue.
Key Factors:
- The post was originally published on: September 13, 2019.
- The post was updated on May 28, 2021.
- The Target Keyword was “things to do in downtown raleigh”
Prior to the update (30 days before, Apr 28th – May 28th, 2021):
The article’s average ranking was 19.4 (bottom of page two or top of page three), with 25 impressions and 1 click for its target keyword.
Methodology
After completing additional keyword research, the SEO team at TravelBoom Marketing updated and refreshed the article.
Items that were updated included:
- Up-to-date content for 2021
- Increased internal linking to related content
- Improved usage of media assets including additional relevant photography
- Added external links for businesses included in post
- Updated article formatting for an improved user experience and readability
- Updated published date
Better content is outweighing more content.
– Rand Fishkin
Results and Analysis
In the initial 30 days after being updated, the article’s average position increased by 5.85 spots to position 13.55 (page two) with 77 impressions (+208%) and 2 (+100%) clicks for its target keyword.
After six months, the article’s average position increased by 13.55 spots to position 5.9 (page 1) with 587 impressions (+2248%) and 22 clicks (+2200%) for its target keyword.
As a landing page, the blog saw a 418% increase in sessions post-update with 136 sessions from January through June of 2021 and 705 sessions from July through December of 2021.
BONUS: As a landing page, the blog saw an 800% increase in reservation requests (1 reservation request from January through June of 2021 to 8 reservation requests from July through December of 2021) post-update.
2248%
Increase in
Impressions
2200%
Increase in
Clicks
418%
Increase in
Sessions
800%
Increase in
Reservation Requests
Summary
With an overly-saturated online space filled with information (and competition), it’s imperative to ensure your content is relevant, useful, and most importantly – being found! TravelBoom Marketing can help prevent content decay through periodic content refreshment.
You can determine how your content is performing by analyzing your hotel website data. Once you’ve pinpointed areas of weakness, look for opportunities to improve. This includes a competitive analysis – Creating 10X content is key.
Make use of content already on your website that can be updated and refreshed. Start by ensuring that your page is properly structured for search. We’ve noted the top on-page optimizations in our ultimate SEO checklist for hotels. When modifying these key elements, include relevant keywords that have moderate search volume (and low competition).
Our number one takeaway? Remember that there isn’t always a need to reinvent the wheel and create new content for the sake of producing content. Learn more about creating kick-ass hotel website content and how TravelBoom Marketing can help you.