Pivoting Website Content

[Chris35]

Hi

I look forward to learning a little more about SEO.

I was wondering if it is possible to pivot or change the type of content on a website and still have it rank on search engines?

Or does this have more to do with the Domain Authority of the website, and whether or not the new content relates to the content that is already ranking?

Any information would be much appreciated.

kind regards,

Chris

[steveaaroon]

I think content is much important in SEO. Especially add your targeted keywords. But also focus on off-page and technical SEO strategies

[amadhiya]

@Chris35 , Now a days SEO is more dependent on the website content, so if your website's current content is not working, you should update the content. 
Your content must need to be based on the Keyword targetted for that page. 
Make sure you use proper H1 tag, Meta title, Meta Description and alt tag images,
On-page is required for SEO content. 

[kmcready]

Hey @Chris35 ,

What do you mean by "change the type of content"? Are you referring to switching from a guide to listicle, or from a blog to a landing page (or vice versa)? 

It's always best practice to have your content line up with the user's intent of the search query. For example if someone types in "ways to improve my website ranking", they are looking for a list of ways to accomplish this in listicle or step by step format.

Ranking is based on the content of the page, if it meets user intent, any internal link juice passed to it or backlinks pointing to the page. In fact, Domain Authority was a metric created by Moz to simply give you an idea of how easy it will be for your site to rank based on your link profile. I wouldn't get hung up on this metric, a lot of folks seem to. If you have the Moz bar or Ahrefs bar for Google you can see super low DA websites ranking #1 for keywords because their content is unique, meets user intent, and answers the question correctly.

Only pivot your content to the type that users are looking for when searching that query.

Let me know if you have any more questions.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Chris35]

Hi Kevin

Thanks for the reply.

Basically I experimented with a sports prediction blog, that ended up getting ranked on the first pages of google for highly searched keywords. It has not been as successful as I had hoped in terms of display ads or affiliate programs despite the user engagement and thousands of page views. I do have to continue creating content to get traffic as the content is not evergreen, which requires a lot of work.

I was looking and maybe doing product reviews on various sports products as the website seems to rank well on search engines, but I'm not sure if this would work.

I guess I could target a bunch of keywords and see what happens, but don't want to waste time on something that may not work.

The blog has a DA of around 16 and the session times were around 10 minutes as the blog covered a very popular Australian sports event in September.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

kind regards,

Chris

[kmcready · Accepted solution]

@Chris35 gotcha! So, from what I understand, you're creating a sports-based website where your current content displayed predictions in terms of scores, outcomes, etc...This is more "informative" user intent, meaning searchers are just looking for quick information, not really to buy or continue their journey to a next stage, aka clicking an affiliate link or product.

The affiliate links and ads need to line up with more mid to bottom-funnel keywords that can result in an ad click or affiliate click (at least). 

If you're keyword is "who's predicted to win Melbourne vs Sydney", that's just straight up information, there's nothing else a searcher needs. Also, ads for highly informative terms that don't lead to purchases or ROI are kind of a waste (in my opinion) since there's nothing that can get your money back.

However, if you turned your blog into a subscription where users can sign up to get these predictions and data to their emails or pinged them to return to your website to see your latest predictions thats a great use and can improve the ROI of your ads.

Right now your content is very top of funnel, so if you started incorporating more bottom funnel objects to your website it can help convert more users and improve engagement in terms of clicks on affiliate links.

For example, if you can get an affiliate link for ticket sales to the events your predicting or gear surrounding these clubs could work.

I would keep the current setup as is since its bringing in traffic, but what is your end goal? And what was the original purpose of building that site?

Hope  this helped.

[Chris35]

Thanks for the detailed reply. Much appreciated.

I think I just got caught up in thinking if the website gets traffic, it will be successful, which was not the case despite all the traffic.

Writing the content was no problem as it is a subject I have a high interest in, but I found the readers just wanted the free information and rarley clicked on ads or affiliate offers.

I guess I could setup a paywall for exclusive access to the content, or create a patreon account, but I am not convinced that users will pay for the content, as there are many other sites that offer free information.

I was thinking of pivoting to Sports Memorabillia, Sports Events, Sports Products or Sports Cards, but would rather learn a little more if I decide to venture down that path.

Thanks for the information, it is helping a lot.

kind regards,

Chris

[kmcready]

It's no problem @Chris35 !

Yea, there's a lot of misconceptions that happen around SEO and a successful website. As you can see simply getting website traffic is nice but doesn't move the needle for "business-related" metrics like ROI or generating leads, customers, and revenue.

I agree about the paywall, if people can get that same information for free elsewhere they might. However if you did have some more details and super unique content that others don't it could be useful.

As long as you keep that website revolved around sports it should stay successful and you can add new content types as you see fit. But I agree with slightly pivoting to create pages that can drive revenue.

Good luck with all that!

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, the SEO community is very active and always trying to help.

Thanks,

Kevin

[MiaSrebrnjak]

Hi @Chris35,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community!

I wanted to tag in a couple of subject matter experts to see if they have any input on this matter:

hi @Alex_Elborn, @StjepanGrcic, @Crystal_Hopper, do you have any advice for @Chris35? 

Cheers
Mia, Community Team