How to Optimize Old Content to Rank on Google

It ranks, but it's maybe not number one or even number three, maybe it's on the second page. Maybe it's down at number nine. And so what I'm doing is finding those posts and I'm optimizing them, myself doing the actual work, not hiring somebody, but doing the work. And I want to share everything that I'm thinking about and everything that I'm doing to get that done. So let's get into it. You know, I mentioned it was pool season, but it's, you know, I'm also thinking about this.

With my other sites. And I'm also thinking about this in a way that like I can deliver to other people and without, you know, giving away my secrets. It's not really secrets, honestly. It's, it's, it's all on the surface. And I want to show you, or just tell you kind of all the things that I'm doing. Maybe make this a little quickie, little quick episode, who knows? I, you know me, I say I'm going to be quick.

And then you know, hour 45 minutes later to an hour, I'm still talking to myself in my basement. Into a microphone. To nothing. But that's why I want you to email me mad@moneylab.co I've had people who have DMD me about episodes that I've done, which is great. Just hearing from you. Like, Hey, I listened to this episode. I liked what you said or, Hey, I listened to an episode. You're a frigging tool.

Either way, at least I know you're listening and that's, it's like, okay, I'm not just putting this out into the ether and. Nothing's nothing's coming back. So matt@moneylab.co email me, I answer all my own emails. Yeah. Jeremy. So. Here's what I'm doing. I'm going through old posts and I'm going, Ooh, this post is not so good. And or this post is maybe not. It's not that it's not good. It's like, oh, this post could be better.

And, you know, you just look at it, you can just tell, especially if you'd been doing it, as long as I have you look at a poster like this could be, this could be great. Right? And so. You know, you. If I were to go through every single post, it's not like it. That could do that in a month. It's not just like one big optimization, like experiment. It's something that's ongoing. And. There is a way that I've been prioritizing.

Posts to, to work on and not just like, feel super overwhelmed because you cannot eat an elephant. In one sitting. You can eat it one bite at a time. Right. So. The way that we've been doing it is. Looking at H refs. So H refs is the tool that I use for SEO, and I'm actually gonna pull it up for my own sake here. Just so I can, as I'm speaking this out loud, I'm also knowing what I'm looking at. So, what we do in H rafts is we have our website.

It is, it is entered and we track all of our keywords for all of our posts. So if we want to rank. You know, for example, if I look at even money lab, I have a post. That's all about podcast marketing. And if I want to rank for that. I add that keyword into the rank tracker in H refs. And what it does is it automatically finds the post on my website. That's the, that the keywords for, and it will just every week update and say, Hey, you're number five. Hey, you're number 37 or.

You know, this is your position and this is how much traffic you should be getting relatively. Right. So. The reason for doing this is every single time I go into a post and optimize it. I want to know if it actually did anything. If it actually went in, instead of having to go manually check Google or however else, there's this tool that's like, Hey, remember this thing you updated on this date? Well here, you know, it used to be number. Two or used to be number 10 and now it's number two.

Okay. So, this is why we use Atrius for that now. What I'll do is I'll pull up the keyword. Tracker. And I'll look at all our keywords and I'll sort it, and I just clicked it, but nothing happened. So I'll sort it by. Position basically. Okay. It's like, Hey, what's the position? Oh, you know, you know, you can either sort of by position, I can say, all right, what's at the low. You know, you can see all your number ones, but then you looked, it's like, oh, I have ones that are number 17, right?

Or here's one, that's a number 18. And it doesn't get a ton of traffic, right? It's not a big keyword. So I'm like, yeah. Maybe not the best one to go after, because yes, it may rank pretty low, but if we are ranked number one, We're not going to see a huge win from that. Right. So I start going up the list and looking at stuff that I'm like, okay, this is really low on the low. You know, really low in position. But the volume is, you know, 1600 or 7,500 or 2300. And I'm like, okay, let's.

Let's take that and let's update those things because those things are going to give us the big wins. So that's how I'm finding. What to actually work on. You don't even need a tress to do this, right. You could use, and he should have the setup. You should use Google search console, which I'm also going to pull up on my computer. And you could go to a search results. I believe it is. Yeah. And. You can sort, you can actually add your average per position. As a metric.

And you can start to look at. Okay. Let's look at the positions and we're going to go down the list and we're going to go look at. You know, things that are ranked at eight. Position number eight, but have a ton of impressions. Right? So if we, if we sort by impressions, we'll see, okay, I have this post. It has 54,000 impressions. But it's position 9.6. Well, that's, you know, that's a sign that says you should probably work on that post because if you were to rank.

You would get a ton more clicks, right? Cause an impression. So it means that there's 54,000 people seeing that meaning they landed on the page, but I'm all the way at the bottom. I'm number nine. I'm number 10, probably. Right. So I've only got 54 clicks to that post, which is not terrible. But if I were a number three, even I would get way more clicks to that post. So that feels like something I should work on. And you can even find ones that are like, You know, slightly lower than that.

Like, I there's this one post that I rank on the six position it's like, okay, work on that one. Right or just go take a look at a bit and see if it needs work. So that that's just ways that you can prioritize. What posts that you want to rank that we'll post, you should work on. And, and then now let's talk about what we're actually going to do those posts, right? So there's a couple of things that I think. I could give you some, some quick wins.

Okay. And I wrote an email about this, but I'm just going to go through a couple of what I think, you know, A quick. If you want to do a quick update, you didn't want to rewrite the whole thing. This is what I would do. Okay. One. I would change the headline. It's probably bad. So go through and make sure that you're hitting the keyword in the, in the headline. It doesn't have to be the exact keyword. But close enough.

And make sure that the headlines actually something good want to click, right. You've got to think of those magazines and the, in the grocery store. Especially, I always think of the cosmopolitan ones because it's like, you know, 10 tips to drive your man wild. So like, yeah, I want to do that. I want to drive him wild. I'm gonna pick up that magazine. And the content probably sucks, but got me to pick up that magazine. It makes me want to drive my man wild.

So. Think about that, you don't have to be super sensational. But a tool that I like to use is headline analyzer been using it for years. Been, been screaming about it for years. It's just a good tool. It's just like, it's not necessarily, you don't have to consider it like the end all be all. It's just helpful. So, you know, you might have a very simple title, like, you know how to download WordPress. It might be the simple title, but.

You know, you add some emotional weight to it, some power weight to it, and you start to see like how to download WordPress in five minutes, how to download WordPress without pulling your hair out, you know? That kind of thing. Just, and that's not really going to help. In terms of like technical SEO, but it's definitely going to help the click through rate. Once you are, once you are ranking, then you have people clicking into it. Cause they're like, oh yeah, that's speaking more to me.

Or like, that feels more like emotional and powerful. So I'm going to click that. Right? So it's. It's more appealing to the visitor as opposed to Google itself. Now what it does for Google though, is it shows that people are clicking it. More, maybe you're maybe you're down at number like six, but you're getting like an abnormal amount of clicks and it's like, well, it's headlines. Good titles. Good. So pop them back up to number three, see how it does there for a little bit.

So it does help in that way. Another thing you can do is update the date, the published date, and make sure you're displaying the publish date on your website. You know, I hate to say this. I used to remove the date because I thought. Well, Who cares? Who cares that the date, you know, who cares when I wrote it? It's not, it's not like the type of content I'm writing is super relevant. Right? It's not news content.

But. You can't tell me that you're not on Google and you see two posts and you want to learn from it. And one was, you know, published in. Two years ago and the other one was published a year ago and you're like, I don't know. I kind of want the more recent one. I feel like that's more updated. So it just does this psychological trick to your brain. And I also think it helps with that whole, and I never really believed this when it came to SEO, but like Google wants freshness. Fresh.

Fresh content. How about the oven? So I. I just say. Okay. Update the content a little bit. Hit the update button. It's not that hard to do and it, and if it helps a little bit. Great. If it doesn't help at all, who gives a shit, you did it and it, and you know, It's updated. So, those are like really, really too quick wins. That you'll see in the Serbs, you could also update the description as well, but nowadays I'm noticing that like, Google's not really pulling your meta-description anymore.

They're kind of doing their own thing. So, I really wouldn't worry about a too much. But it's there. Okay. So if you were to, again, want to do some quick wins, scroll all the way to the bottom of your post. And I'm going to tell you two things that I do that I think have really. I don't even care if this has helped with SEO. It just feels like a really smart thing to do and, and really helpful thing to do to your, for your people. Okay. So first thing. Add some FAQ's to your post.

Especially if you're doing how to content. Right. So what do I mean. And here's a trick. So basically what I do. Is I'll go into the post and I'll say, okay, I want to rank for this keyword. Whatever it is my primary keyword. I'll open up incognito mode in my Chrome browser, I'll go to Google and I'll type in that.

Primary keyword just flat out and you'll see this people also ask section with a bunch of like, maybe like four questions, but as you keep hitting the drop downs on those questions, more questions, keep popping up. And so you start looking at those questions and you pull out one that you think might be relevant to your content.

And then if you scroll all the way to the bottom of that search results page, you'll see even more questions that Google will, you know, Google is basically giving you here's what your posts should be about. Here's what should be in your posts. And what I do as a shortcut is maybe you've answered some of those questions. In the post, right. And maybe it's in sentences. Maybe it's buried under a certain paragraph.

But what I do at the bottom of all my posts now is I'll create an H two headline that says. Frequently asked questions about the main keyword, right? And then I'll in age threes, put in literally word for word, what those questions are from Google. And then. I'll just do a paragraph. One paragraph that answers that question as tight as possible. Right? So that's going to require some editing. You know, you can write out the whole answer if it's a long answer, but then try to shave it down.

So it's like the most bite-sized thing and that'll help you win some featured snippets. That'll help you win spots in that question area. And it may even help you rank on Google a little bit for your main keyword because you're adding more content and it's actually really easy content to rank for you. Don't. I'll have to think about it. You can do the research really easily, easily on Google, and then you can just add it right to the bottom of the post.

And the other thing you could do, and this is not necessarily for SEO. But if you want to boost your revenue a little bit, you want to boost your subscriber. Count a little bit. Some of the things that we've been doing is at the very bottom of every single post we used to just write like, like for instance, on swimming diversity at the end of every post, we would write a paragraph that kind of like. You know, and I see this happen all the time and you'll, and you'll, you've.

You've probably done it before. And if not, you're doing it currently. But you'll right. A headline that says in conclusion, And then you'll write some dopey paragraph that's or a couple paragraphs that are just like, not really summing up the content kind of just being whatever, like you just don't know how to end a piece. Right. It's just, it's just like, whatever, the way that I kind of look at it is. You got to think about it in terms of like YouTube.

And the way that I, you know, th the, the goal for me on YouTube at least. Is to get people to watch all the way to the very, very end of the video. Right. And what you do is you don't have that. Ending where you're just like, okay, that's it, everybody. Thanks for watching by the way, if you want this and it's like, you're going into your like standard spiel. And people have dropped off by that. And they're like, okay, this is how he ends every video.

It's it's, you know, he's going to spend another minute talking about nothing or the same thing I've heard last week or whatever, and you cut it off. But if you give people content, meaning like new content to the very frigging last 20 seconds. And then the last 20 seconds you throw in an end card. Well, then you're more likely to get people to click over to another video. So the goal is to like, not throw in outtakes at the end, don't do stuff that's like. Not really.

I mean, I'll take it as a funny, cause that's like that is content, but like again, you just want to deliver all the way up until the end. And so what we've been doing is literally doing that, delivering all the way up to the end and the very end, instead of doing that in conclusion. Few paragraphs nonsense. And then ending with happy swimming or in brew cabinets, happy brewing. We do. Need more. Pool maintenance help or need more homebrewing help question mark as an H two.

And then we bullet out all of our products or, or things you want people to take action. On. For example, we have download our cheat sheet, which has gets us. Subscribers we have subscribed to our YouTube channel would help helps our YouTube channel out. And we have check out our product, just three bullets with links and a little pear, a little sentence. That's it. Just super helpful.

Copy and paste it, throw it in every post, change up the words here and there for a little, you know, a little bit. But I think that's a nice way to like, Cut out that in conclusion, throw in some like actionable shit and move on. Okay. So that's, those are my quick, quick tips, quick wind tips. Now as far as the content itself. I think.

Especially when it comes to how to content, you gotta think, and this, and this is why, you know, I going back to like, People always ask me, like, how do you pick your niche? It's like, I don't pick my niche. It picks me because my, I mean, you know, I have a pool website cause I've been doing pools since I was 13. It just like I did that first, you know, pools picked me and then I started a website around it because I knew everything. Same with home brewing.

I started homebrewing first and then I started a website about it. And the same with online business, right? It's like, and that's what everybody does is, is you start, you know, you have success with one little nice site and all of a sudden, you're, you're qualified to talk about online business to everybody else. Right. So that's that's exactly what money lab is, but I've been doing it for like 10 years and it's like, okay, well let me start my own little. You know, playground. So. What I do.

Is you got to think about. The like you. This is why I. Hmm. How do I want to say this? Let's say. You're doing it yourself. You got to sit there and be like, all right. What's the best shit ever. What are the questions I want to answer? And I do this by. Looking at literally doing the same thing I did with the FAQ's. I'll Google the keyword incognito mode. And see what everybody else is writing about. Look at their headlines, look at what topics they're covering.

And go and just cherry pick the ones that I think. Yeah. Cause I know the topic so well, I'm like, oh yeah, I got to answer that question. Oh yeah. That's a good section to have, you know, and I'm not re I'm not copying and pasting the full text. I'm just, I'm just writing down those ideas. Into an outline. And you build the outline. And then you start filling in the buckets, right? So each, each bullet point and outline is your, is your headline right? Either your H two or your H three.

I only use H twos and H three is H. One is for your main title. And then I start filling in the buckets and what's nice about being in the industry. And especially if you know it. You just start typing. And yeah, writing is hard, but like who cares? You're just gonna spill it all out of your system and edit later. I did this at brew cabin. You know, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, changing out my dry hopping process.

So I wrote about that first, the thing that I'm doing every single day, but I can't just talk about my dry hopping process. I have to talk about other ones to give people alternatives, give, give the whole gamut. So I had to go research. What other methods I'm like, oh yeah, right. There's that method. Let me write about that. Maybe let me go out in the garage and actually do that method. You know, who CA it's it's easy for pools. Same thing.

I know a little bit, but there's some parts that I'm like, I'm a little unsure about that. So I'll go and do that research. And just add it and just type it, type a type of type it, and then edit, edit, edit, edit. Right. If you're hiring a writer in this case, And you know, the topic well, Consider your writer, your first draft. Okay. Let them write the first draft and then you go in. And it's spent another couple of hours, like improving it, adding to it, not correcting mistakes.

You don't want to do that. You just want to improve it. You want to add your take. Because that's what makes your website different than everybody else's that you're competing with? You got to have a take, you got to have a stance. I think at least. So, yeah, that's, that's what I do now. That's just the text. Any dumdum can write words. Let's be honest. And I'm not putting any writers down out there. Okay. But I'm a dumb, dumb, and I could put words on a page.

Right. I can, I can literally type one letter at a time on my keyboard. It's kind of what the computer does now. Does it require skill 100% if you want to be good at it. But like I said, they have fucking AI now robots dumb, dumb robots that are pumping out articles. Okay. I'm sorry, but if a robot can do your job, then your job's not that hard. I don't know. I don't like that. I'm not like making that general statement. But you, I hope you get what I'm saying is that.

There, you know, you're really going to have a hard time competing with words is what I'm saying, right. Because. Let's say you do the skyscraper technique, right? Which is the Brian Dean. Backlinko yeah. That's his term. And so you're like, okay, I'm going to find this post. And it's ranking number one, I'm just going to outward it. I'm just going to make more words and I'm just going to cover more topics and then you put it out there and you have your blog posts and whatever.

Okay. Well, then that person goes, oh shit, man. I'm being outranked by this. Clown. Let me out word him and then they, that person outwards that person. And then you're just playing out word game. Okay. No one has a competitive edge because no, one's better at the game. They're both equally as good at the game. So. You got to think outside the text outside. What you would, what you, what anybody could really do or pay for. Right. And here's what I think it is. I think. It's video for one.

Not everyone can do video. Not everybody can do video. And two graphics. Not everyone can take pictures. Anyone. Caveat anyone. Can go on 1, 2, 3 RF, which I love. We're going Unsplash and pull a friggin stock photo. Any asshole can do that. Okay. You have a computer. And a credit card. Your, your S there's your skill. Okay. But what if you were taking your own pictures? And maybe putting a little watermark on it. Making sure it's yours. Okay. You post that on Instagram. That's original content.

That's not, that's not stock photos. Shit. Okay. Now same with graphics. Make your own graphics. You know, I I'm a graphic designer by trade. That's my original job like from like, well, my original job was teaching. Adults had to take care of their pools. But after that, then it was like, okay, I'm doing graphic design and website design. And then I got into like affiliate marketing and you know what I do today? But yeah, it was, it was graphic design on a computer.

So I that's, so that's like, I, that skill is there. And you can pay for that skill. I think that skill is crazy important. I think video is crazy important. Text. You are. It's going to be tougher. It's going to be a tougher you know, and you know what I'm saying? Right. You know, What I'm saying? Anybody can type. But creating good graphics and creating good video. Is harder.

And I'm even noticing, you know, we spend a lot of our time and effort putting out YouTube videos for the keywords that we rank for, for the articles that we have on our website. Well guess what our videos are, outranking our posts. In Google. So, what does that tell you? You know, Google is favoring video a little bit. So you want to outrank your competitors. Make a video and make a good video. Right. We also have image images that are image search.

You know, make sure you got your all tags in your images, make sure you title your images. You know, don't just put I M G underscore 0 5, 0 dot PNG, and then upload that literally type in the goddamn thing it is. And then as your file name and upload, that that helps. Like little things that help. You know, am I telling you that's a huge, quick win? No. But any chance I could throw a keyword in somewhere that makes sense.

And that is actually helpful for maybe people who are blind and don't have the ability to see your images. They have their own technology where they can click it and it tells them what that image is. That's helpful. It's the same with color blind people underlining your links is helpful. It's not, it's like, fuck the design. Fuck whatever you want to think about. I want my design to look like this. You're helping people by underlining your links. That's simple.

Okay. So. Like I said, this turned out to not be a quickie. But super Longie. Okay. And yeah, I That's what I think you could do. The other thing too, like. Think really, really hard about internal linking at this point. Right. You're in the post. You're updating it. Link out to link out to other posts. Right while you're thinking about it while you're writing this stuff. You know, this is why it's good to know your content. You know what you're working with, know your website, know everything.

It's your thing. Anyway. That's it. And I'm going to try to end this with content. Meaning. Email me mad@moneylab.co, and I will see it next time.