Why Adding More Content to Your Website is Bad for SEO
Logically, you’d think that more content equals more chances of being seen, more traffic and more chances of revenue. Well yes, I’m not denying the maths there. There’s nothing stopping you from getting AI to churn out a load of content on particular topics related to your business, getting tonnes of impressions on Google and seeing your traffic numbers rise. Job done right? SEO is that easy!
Well, that’s what many so-called SEO agencies will have you believe. If it was that simple, why did you pay them to do it? What would you actually achieve? If your goal was just to get more impressions and traffic then that’s pretty much all you’ll get. But the right kind of traffic, people actually converting to sales or even ranking high for specific terms relating to your business? I doubt this approach will get you those things. Throwing everything at the wall and hoping it sticks doesn’t make for good business sense.
Content Management and Internal Linking Structure
First up, the main problem is that you’ve created yourself a nightmare when it comes to content management. Do you have time to maintain the hundreds or even thousands of blogs created? Stats, dates and your business all change over time and your blogs need to be updated accordingly to stay fresh and relevant. What about all those internal links you put in? When you update your website, no doubt pages change and you’ll need to go back and relink, otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of broken links. Broken links are very bad business for SEO as you’re telling search engines this website is broken, don’t bother ranking for it.
Diluting the Power of Keywords and Direct Competition
Secondly, if you have many pages about one particular topic you’re effectively competing with yourself. You might think “What’s the problem if I’m only competing with myself?”. The bad news is that in reality you’re confusing search engines. They‘re left unsure which one is the most relevant to the search and don’t know which to rank higher.
The same can be said about keywords. The likelihood of reusing main keywords is very high which is also bad news for SEO. What’s known as “keyword cannibalisation” is exactly how it sounds, your keywords are directly competing against each other, essentially eating away at their own power. Again, search engines don’t know which page to show for the search. In addition, using similar keywords across multiple pages around the same topic dilutes their power and makes it harder for you to get shown to the right people.
Instead, group similar pages together to create long-form content. Writing one solid piece around the particular topic covering different angles, adding in expertise and experience and internal links to relevant service/product pages is exactly how you win with SEO. This way you’ll show real authority on a subject which is much more likely to drive sales and rank higher.
A Solid SEO Strategy Makes Good Business Sense
Finally, let’s revisit an earlier comment. Throwing everything at the wall and hoping something sticks doesn’t make good business sense. As a business owner, would you adopt this approach with any other area of your business? I highly doubt you would, so having a solid SEO strategy is the approach that makes the most sense.
Get someone who understands the power of content to create the right path to turn your website visitors into customers. You can learn more about my simple three step strategy that uses a marketing-first approach to SEO and let’s work together to create content the right way to drive revenue.
