Are You a Hardcore SEO? - Trying Out New Ideas
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Martinez's first and second tips on his list aren't a matching pair in the same way as the other tips I've covered so far. But looked at from the right angle, they do teach some of the same lessons.
- Redesign your Web site once or twice a year.
- Add 5 pages of content to your site every week.
Redesigning a web site takes a lot of time and effort. In some ways, it's even harder than doing it the first time. You have a lot of content that you probably want to preserve, regular visitors who expect certain things, and vested interests in keeping the site the way it is. Why would you want to go through such an arduous exercise even once a year, let alone twice?
The answer is that you're not holding still as an SEO, so neither should your web sites. A redesign will let you improve the optimization for the pages which you knew you could do better, but never set aside the time to work on. Also, with any web site, it may look perfect once it's finished, but once it goes live, it will become apparent that certain things are "broken" -- perhaps certain aspects of the navigation are a little awkward, or certain links don't work the way they were intended. A redesign lets you fix all that. If you do it right, this will improve the experience of your site visitors.
Improving the experience of your site visitors, of course, is also a great reason to add five pages of fresh content to your site every week. We already take that to heart here at SEO Chat, of course; then again, that's pretty easy to do with a content-focused web site! But happier visitors are just one of the benefits you'll get from adding that content, according to Martinez. He lists four reasons to engage in this practice:
- It gives you opportunities to expand your search visibility.
- It gives you opportunities for more free links that actually help.
- It gives you opportunities to try out new ideas.
- It increases the value of your web site.
Is it any wonder, then, that the saying "content is king" has been around since well before Google was a gleam in Page and Brin's eyes? When done properly, adding content to your web site regularly grows your knowledge and experience as an SEO, in addition to growing the site itself. Who wouldn't want to take advantage of that?
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