You should write articles that are newsworthy. Update your content constantly. It's bad when you write one good article and then you don't write anything for the next couple of months. Both the SEs and the people visiting sites like new and updated content with a quality approach.
The other thing you should focus on, I think, is the topic you should write about. Today the web is oriented towards the interactivity. That's why you should conduct a research and find what your site visitors want read about and see on your site. You have to let them tell you what they want. Then you'll have to start writing quality and newsworthy content. Hope this helps!

Rearranging the content in the way you suggest would only achieve a superficial improvement. for real visitor retention, you have to deliver something worthwhile. You don't have to be a great writer to have good content. If you give people useful information on a regular basis, they will come back for more. Check out your competitors, see what their sites offer and, more importantly, what they don't offer and see what you can learn from that.

Rearranging the content in the way you suggest would only achieve a superficial improvement. for real visitor retention, you have to deliver something worthwhile.

As I said in my original post, I have evergreen content. My site is a travel guide with 700+ pages and a few travel tools. Destinations, attractions etc do have some possibility of new content, but they are not continually changing. It's not a "news" site.

You don't have to be a great writer to have good content. If you give people useful information on a regular basis, they will come back for more.

Well, I feel that I already have good content. This is more a presentation issue than a content issue.

Check out your competitors, see what their sites offer and, more importantly, what they don't offer and see what you can learn from that.

If, by my competitors, you mean the sites above me in the serps, most are MFA scraper sites and I don't have any intention of changing my site to a scraper.

Evergreen content is fine, but both search engines and human visitors like new content. My main site is about books written mostly by people who are dead (I was going to say "people who are mostly dead" - but it made me think of The Princess Bride. ;) ) But if I don't put up new material regularly, my audience will wander off somewhere else - to read about those same dead authors.

With a travel site you have the world to write about - literally. It doesn't have to be content that will change tomorrow - just something you haven't written about yet.

Setting up your navigation so people can find what they're looking for may be more useful than a new way of presenting it - although I could see a main topic/destination page with links to related articles, possibly even with a brief blurb about each one. Group articles by topic (or destination?) rather than by when they were written. If you don't have a site search function, you might think about adding one.

Maybe these are all things you're already doing - apologies if so.

Hi Beagle,

No apologies necessary .. and I am doing some of what your post suggested.

Setting up your navigation so people can find what they're looking for may be more useful than a new way of presenting it

I'm in the process of adding a new section to my *main* site, and one thing I noticed yesterday was how crowded my left side navigation is getting. I use SSI to include HTML menus related to a given topic. I already have 800 pages, so some of the sidenav menus get pretty long (just one example .. my 'history' section is 40+ pages)

I already have 2 single rows of top navigation.

So I'm thinking of redoing the navigation as well. I've fiddled with it a bit and think that may help as well.

although I could see a main topic/destination page with links to related articles, possibly even with a brief blurb about each one.

That has been my approach for most of my destinations start pages. I also have a start page for types of activities and attractions. Same for nuts & bolts style information.

I also have the internet's largest, most extensive and searchable (short answer / long answer) FAQ on the destination country .. I think. :)

Group articles by topic (or destination?) rather than by when they were written.

That's pretty much how it's set up .. sort of like book chapters.

If you don't have a site search function, you might think about adding one.

Yes, I'm using SWISH-E .. actually, 2 instances .. one for main content, one for FAQ.

I guess part of my motivation is fueled by frustration at watching my site slip in the SERPs, being replaced by MFA and Scraper sites.

Do you/have you considered using breadcrumbs?

You might consider adding a bot crawlable, keyword targeted news feed to your pages. That way, you're continually offering fresh content when you're unable to tend to your pages for a while.

Do you/have you considered using breadcrumbs?

Not realy, but only because I don't understand the scripts .. and I would have to evaluate how they would fit my site structure.

Right now I'm a mix of static .htm pages (about 80%) and some .php pages with a few dynamic fearures. I'm not sure if the breadcrumbs scripts are Javascript or PHP.

I'm very gradually making the transition to .php but don't want to risk it all at once. I had one site lose about 50% of the traffic when I converted the entire site all at once.

Hi go60guy,

You might consider adding a bot crawlable, keyword targeted news feed to your pages. That way, you're continually offering fresh content when you're unable to tend to your pages for a while.

I've thought about that and every time I start trying to figure out how to do that, I get confused. I'm not so great with that sort of application. I just don't understand feeds.

BYW, your 'handle' reminded me of Phillips 66 (gasoline brand). One story goes .. when the Phillips brothers were first getting started they were driving with a tank full of their own gasoline and decided to see how fast they gould go.

One brother said something like , "Boy, this stuff goes lke 60!"

The other brother glanced at the speedometer and replied, "More like 66."

You can embed news feeds in your static html pages using .php. We can't give out these kinds of links here, but do a search on Google for "rssnewsfeeds".

I don't recommend the free version because their server has been erratic lately, and it could disrupt loading on your site's pages. But the paid version resides on your server, and looks easy to install, if you're willing to follow instructions.

I'm not using this tool now, since I have another one provided through a subscription software program. If you have any questions, please pm me.

lol on the "66".

if you perform a kind of a surveillance of your visitors you will find out that they click on really strange places on your site. this would be a good start for you. You will have the chance to rearrange the content in a good way so that your visitors feel comfortable when they browse your site.