I Have Got Told That the Content Has To Reflect the Intent of My Website

Terrie Carrozzella
Hi experts. I have a rather basic question.
I have been told (time and time again) that the content must reflect the intent of your website.
I worked with someone who insisted that we keep blog pages that have nothing to do with our business, they have a decent hit rate, but a 100% bounce rate with only a few seconds of time spent. He insists that not all blog articles have to generate sales and bring traffic to the site to have value. (Side note-article was poorly written and my job was to rewrite or redirect)
The topic of the article focuses on celebrities and actually has nothing to do with what we do. I said traffic is meaningless. He says it exposes our business to those who need to see our message several times before they "receive it". I say it's brand damaging, embarrassing, and not even the right target market.
Who is right?
Thank you!
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Ryan
Blogs should at least be closely related to your business content.
That doesn't mean every article has to be about the product or service you offer, but if you're writing a blog post, you need to find a way to relate it to your main business topic.
I've done blog posts for my marketing business that are about updating passwords, or mastering a quick book, or streamlining office Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)s.
It has nothing to do with my particular business, but it was a useful article for my clients, and I can reply as "it will help you save time so you can receive more clients"
I've done a travel blog post about great phone apps. Not really about "travel", but related to how using the app during the trip can help with x, y, or z.
I've done blog posts for spa meds on make-up tips, the health industry, COVID, etc. Nothing specifically related to the services my clients offer, but I was able to find a way to relate it back to the general theme of the blog / page, and have logical reasons why the information would be useful for that particular client of the website.
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Hassan » Ryan
But very different is another thing he said the topic is very different, Because the blog focuses on celebrities and has nothing to do with business. True. All blogs cannot be used for promotion, they can also contain a lot of information. but getting out of a domain and targeting some other domain just for traffic doesn't make sense
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Ryan » Hassan
Agrees. What I mean is you can make a blog post about just about anything, but you need to be able to find a way to tie it back to your audience. Running a medical spa and want to make a post about celebrities? Find out what beauty tips these celebrities have to offer, or what procedures they have performed before the last awards ceremony.
Run a travel blog and want to make a post about celebrities? Find out where they took their last vacation.
Run a blog for local contractors and want to post about celebs? Find out who recently remodeled their home and posted photos of their upgrades, and talk about what products or techniques were used.
There are ways to tie almost any topic back to the main theme of your website if you are creative enough about it. If you can't tie it back to your main topic, don't post it.
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Hassan » Ryan
The right person and agree with you ..
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Joel Wisdom
Never remove any traffic-driving content. Since you have the option to redirect a 301 will be fine if the content is no longer relevant BUT never delete it and leave it as a 404 – always do 301 redirects.
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Terrie Carrozzella ✍️ » Joel
Yes, that's what I did.
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Mike
I do not agree. If there are no external links pointing to the page, you can remove them. Traffic is meaningless.
Joel Wisdom » Mike
Brings it means indexed traffic. 404 will be detected in the search console as a negative factor by Google. It's not great for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Mike » Joel
So you 410 URL instead of leaving it 404.
Terrie Carrozzella ✍️ » Mike
Doesn't, I don't think so. This page is very much visited, just a bad page. I don't want any more errors related to this site than I would like.
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Joel Wisdom » Mike
You lose juice with that. 301 is better. Navigate to the area that makes the most sense. List of nearby blogs or homepage or similar topic pages.
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Mike » Joel
Read what I said earlier. If there are no external links leading to the page, there is no downside. There's no point 301'ing them. Only 410 of them.
Mike » Terrie Carrozzella
Status code A 410 is fine. it doesn't hurt you.
Joel Wisdom » Mike
A 410 will definitely clear the page from the search cache sooner than 301 but will still show the same console error 404 and negatively impact it. That's why 301 is better.
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Mike » Joel
It doesn't have a negative impact. That is not true. This is special code to notify search engines that the page no longer exists.
Joel Wisdom » Mike
Says that it isn't true doesn't make it untrue. It's documented by others – there's a resource talking about this particular issue which has 410 as errors in the search console – you can always try it out and see for yourself.
Mike » Joel
Did not have a negative impact. Notifications are just that. Notification.
Joel Wisdom » Mike
Did it. Search Console doesn't just tell website owners this, it's a particular error that hurts the user experience that's important in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Mike » Joel
This is not a mistake that is detrimental to the user experience. Would you please point out where Google once said a 410 status code is bad for SEO.
A notification appears in the search console to let you know there is a status code 410 if it appears and you didn't mean to it on the page. That doesn't mean it's hurting your SEO.
Joel Wisdom » Mike,
You can use Google for that. Here is one result:
The problem with serving 410 content headers removed is that Google's support for it is incomplete. Sure, this will remove the page serving 410 from its index faster, but Google Search Console will report 410 under "Not found" crawl errors, such as 404.
You can keep repeating yourself and ignore other information. It won't change the facts.
Terrie Carrozzella ✍️
Why not just redirect? If the user clicks, at least they get the content
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Joel Wisdom » Terrie Carrozzella
Is exactly the reason. Consider humans. Not the engine. 301 has no implication other than not being able to immediately delete from the search cache while 410 has a negative impact on humans.
Mike » Terrie Carrozzella
Because sometimes redirects are actually the worse experience, they don't find what they are looking for. If I click on a search result and get redirected to a page that doesn't have what I'm looking for, I'll bounce anyway.

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Varun
Now that you have it, if it doesn't hurt, so be it. But instead you need a blog post that can somehow tie back into your main funnel, and the more relevant the keywords are to the final sales intent, the better it is with regard to conversion rates.
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Terrie Carrozzella ✍️ » Varun
Yes, my job is to write relevant blogs, and redirect trash. Most notably, a lot of it is junk because the URLs are ignored (made up of characters that start the copy, are not SEO friendly and too long), and the copy is written by someone who is not fluent in English. Lots of bad copy, no keywords, terrible grammar. So that's what I've been doing. But there are some that I think we should divert and my boss doesn't agree because the road has been hit. But people leave the site immediately, the traffic-generating keywords are irrelevant, and they aren't quality leads at all – even from an educational standpoint.

Michahu
It's a ludicrous idea that blog posts should always be 100% about what a site is selling. If it's quality content (it looks like your posts need updating to improve) then that can help in a lot of ways. There are lots of examples of popular blogs that are sometimes not about their brand, and I'm sure that helps. For example ElegantThemes (a WordPress theme) sometimes posts about personal development, and Canva (a design tool) has a category about education. So in this case they have broad appeal. On the other hand, if your site is about renting trucks and posts about formula milk, then delete it.

Terrie Carrozzella ✍️ » Michahu
What about the exit rate close to 100%?
Michahu
You'll find that blogs have always been like that, with high bounce rates. People get what they want (which is a good thing) and leave. The more important question is, did they read the post? If not, then it's a quality problem.

Syed
The reason for your 100% bounce rate is because your blog content doesn't depend on the topic of your website, you shouldn't write blogs that are unrelated to your topic. Blog content should always have some sort of relationship with the type of brand you want to feature. Write what content is related to your brand and what's trending.
Steve
Hello, Terrie – First, there isn't enough context here to actually provide informed advice. I would say usually a blog will have a high bounce rate unless you strategically plan a proper Call-To-Action (CTA) within the content and include related posts or other incentives to influence someone to take a further look. Plus, long-form content is actually a good thing – in fact, the amount of H2 you have and the way you create it (people also ask, etc) are very effective. Google doesn't punish or reward grammar. I would say, you are probably right to stand your ground on unrelated topical traffic. Bait and switch is a concern there for me. If the content is about celebrities and has nothing to do with your niche, then you are useless. It's all about intentions with Google. Stick to a well-planned topic strategy with intent. Hope this helps.
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These may satisfy you:
» Why Keywords are Important in SEO Content!
» Define! What Is High-Quality Content?

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