Would great contents alone, be enough for ranking high?

[nojan]

Hi and thank you everyone for reading this post.

Recently I had purchased a business including the domain. The website has been around for over 10 years with some links pointing back to it including couple of links from dmoz. I am in the process of up dating the website but  most of the pages are not relevant anymore and thus will not be in the new website. I have couple of questions:

1. Since some of those old pages are getting some backlinks, would it be prudent to keep the url and 301 it to say homepage or another page? I want to work out the best way of utilising the current backlinks. Is this the best way?

2. The website is in a highly competitive industry and I want to add a lot of informative contents. The contents will be well written (professionally) and not for the sake of SEO but for providing valuable information for users. Whilst I'm adding the contents, what would be best way of drawing attention of the potential users to it? If I release the same content as a way of notes in its FB page, would that be considered as duplicate content in the eyes of Google? Or should I just share the link on FB? What are the other mediums available that considered to be effective for sharing contents. I'm also thinking about guest blogging for selected blogs. Would this be an effective way of increasing the authority of my website?

I should say that at the moment the site has a PA of 44 for the homepage and DA of 35. Are these numbers OK?

Thanks again.

[duoweb]

1. If you have new pages that are similar to the old content, then 301 redirect to those. If not catch up the linkjuice on the homepage.

2. Just sharing links on facebook will get your very little to no interaction. Incentivize people, ask them a question related to the article (addressing some kind of problem or something).

We don't know which niche you are operating in, but maybe you have authority websites that are posting about your niche? Announce there that there are new owners, maybe new products? Tell them your story...

I find guest blogging more effective than just sharing on social media...

Your PA & DA are ok but the higher they are, the better

[nojan]

Thanks for the reply. I thought 301 redirect might have been the best option.

The industry is personal insurance and there's a lot of information out there but it's not really centralised and most are geared for pushing product/services. My aim is to provide info without making the customer feel that I'm pushing products down their throats.