How to Give Your Old Pages New Google Rankings

by Eric Hoppe Have you noticed a drop in search engine rankings for some of your older web pages? There are various reasons behind this. Over time, some of your web pages will get lower rankings in search engine results pages because of Google algorithm changes and competing websites. However, there are ways you can breathe new life into your older web pages and improve their rankings. Here are some some simple strategies to make this happen. Strengthen Your Internal Links Look at your older content and add internal links to newer, relevant pages. Similarly, find recent, high-traffic pages on your site and insert links back to the older pages you want to strengthen. This will help to build page rank by improving your internal site structure and encouraging visitors to click through to more of your pages. Improve Your External links Regularly check links that point to other websites to avoid wrong redirects and 404 errors. If there are any errors, either replace them with new links to authoritative websites or link them back to one of your own pages that still has high rankings. Check your link profile by using Google Webmaster Tools or a similar program. Create a Link from the Main Navigation Menu A simple way to give an old page a boost is to link to it from your main navigation menu. A high visibility link in the menu should increase page traffic and help it gain better rankings in search engines. Make Pages More Relevant Update Your Content Frequently Updating your content regularly will improve the user experience, which Google loves. The more user-friendly your content, the lower your bounce rates, showing Google your site is more valuable to users. Posting regular blog content will help. If you don’t have the time, why not hire a freelance blog writer to write original articles? Alternatively, buy original content from a freelance SEO content writer. Optimize for Mobile Mobile optimization has become a key part of SEO. Google is rewarding sites that are mobile friendly, so it makes sense to test your site speed and mobile compatibility. Google provides a simple mobile-friendly test for webmasters, but there are many other online tools available. Resubmit Your Website’s Sitemap Once you’ve made changes to your website, it’s important to let Google know about it, so create a new sitemap and submit it to Google. Your site is more likely to get crawled properly and achieve higher rankings because of it. Promote Your Content Again Finally, your content may be great, but you still need to help people find it. Use your social media channels to spread the word, or email your subscribers to drive fresh traffic to the page. The more exposure you can give to your old page, the more traffic it will get, and the more links and shares you’ll receive. In Summary These are just some of the ways you can improve your rankings in search engines for older web pages. It may take time to see the results of your efforts, but follow these tips and you might be surprised at what you can achieve if you persevere.