SEO: 301 for updating old posts with new keyword URL (what would you do?)
- SEO |
I have a website that up until now has been based around curated content and getting traffic from Facebook. Given we have always received 500,000+ visitors a month from Facebook, we never gave organic search and SEO a second thought.
However, what we now have is around 1200 posts, each with 1000s of shares and likes, with most less than 500 words in length, linking out to the original source of information. I have done a load of research recently and found that even with our short curated posts we are top 10, 20 & 30 on Google for loads of long tail keywords. As a result we are rewriting lots of these posts with high quality SEO'd content, targeting these keywords to improve rankings. These posts will then become the source of the information, rather than just linking out to other sources.
Whilst going through these posts I have noticed that many of the URLs are 6-15 words long and they don't contain the targeted keyword. For example - a URL may be: /20-Mind-Blowing-Reasons-Why-PARTIAL-KEYWORD-Should-Be-In-Every-Home, but it is ranking in the top 20 on Google for the keyword I want to rank for. My thoughts are rewrite the post so it's longer, much higher quality and SEO'd for the targeted keyword(s), and then change the URL to: /KEYWORD-20-USES (etc). I will then 301 the old URL to point to the new post.
Will doing a 301 redirect like this maintain the Google rankings and pass on the link juice etc from the old posts, to the newer, higher quality and better optimised posts? (And hopefully improve rankings!)
Basically should I change the URLs to get the targeted keywords in, and 301 from the old posts, or should I just rewrite the old posts and keep the non-optimised URLs? What would you do?
Hope this all makes sense?
However, what we now have is around 1200 posts, each with 1000s of shares and likes, with most less than 500 words in length, linking out to the original source of information. I have done a load of research recently and found that even with our short curated posts we are top 10, 20 & 30 on Google for loads of long tail keywords. As a result we are rewriting lots of these posts with high quality SEO'd content, targeting these keywords to improve rankings. These posts will then become the source of the information, rather than just linking out to other sources.
Whilst going through these posts I have noticed that many of the URLs are 6-15 words long and they don't contain the targeted keyword. For example - a URL may be: /20-Mind-Blowing-Reasons-Why-PARTIAL-KEYWORD-Should-Be-In-Every-Home, but it is ranking in the top 20 on Google for the keyword I want to rank for. My thoughts are rewrite the post so it's longer, much higher quality and SEO'd for the targeted keyword(s), and then change the URL to: /KEYWORD-20-USES (etc). I will then 301 the old URL to point to the new post.
Will doing a 301 redirect like this maintain the Google rankings and pass on the link juice etc from the old posts, to the newer, higher quality and better optimised posts? (And hopefully improve rankings!)
Basically should I change the URLs to get the targeted keywords in, and 301 from the old posts, or should I just rewrite the old posts and keep the non-optimised URLs? What would you do?
Hope this all makes sense?