Dealing with outdated content on your website has a lot more to do with cleaning your sock drawer than you would think.
No one ever wants to clean the sock drawer, and while you’re procrastinating, those old, hole-ridden, smelly socks are piled up, taking up precious real estate. As the smellers take up more space, it’s getting harder to find the fresh, new socks that you actually want to wear.
When you’ve dated material to your website, it’s not as easy for people to find the new posts you want to show off. Just like a little spring cleaning is going a long way, you’re going to want to do the same for your website. It’s not as bad a chore as you would expect, and the benefits are tenfold.
You’ve already worked hard to get your blog started. Now learn why you need to keep your content fresh—and what to do with those old posts.
Do I really need to go through the contents of the old blog?
The answer to that is a big “yes.” Blogging is not a set-it-and-forget activity!
Your blog is a reflection of your business. It shows that you know your industry, provide valuable information that keeps potential customers Interested, and is one of the keys to a successful SEO strategy plan. So if you haven’t posted it in a while, and if your content is out of date or incorrect, then you’re not making the most of an extremely valuable tool. Plus, depending on your site, this may result in lower search engine rankings and potential liabilities.
Just imagine if someone finds your website and clicks on an old post that is riddled with outdated information or, worse, grammatical errors. Yeah! Yeah! Do you think the visitor will take your site—and potentially your business—seriously after that?
If someone sees numbers or statistics that are no longer correct, they might assume that you either don’t know about your industry or that you don’t care about the information you provide to potential clients.
Internet users are moving fast. Often, they may land on a search query post and do not realize that the post is very old. If the post is no longer accurate, it may reflect badly on the company. This problem can be implified if the post gets a lot of search engine traffic, slowly eating away at the company’s reputation.
Inaccurate messages that get traffic can taint the company’s image in the minds of the visitors to that page. This amplified a problem that has adversely affected a company for a long time, damaging its image without the cause being discovered.
Another reason to update your site on a regular basis is that old posts may be bad for SEO. Google likes to see a history of great, consistent content, so, in many ways, old blog posts are beneficial to SEO if they are high-quality, relevant, and of course, well-optimized. But there are three scenarios in which old posts could hurt you.
If your blog is old and hasn’t been updated in a long time, Google will see the release dates back and push you to the bottom of the search results. That’s why updating those old posts or writing new ones is a key factor.
Your old posts could have been optimized for older and no longer relevant SEO standards that now have penalties attached to them. For example, before 2011, keyword stuffing—which adds as many keywords as possible to your content—has been encouraged, but now it’s an outdated practice and can lead to Google penalties.
With older posts, you might have been trying to rank for various keywords. However, Google can only display a limited number of your site pages and posts on the top few pages of your search engine, making it more difficult for your relevant, targeted posts to rank well.
Besides, updating content is a much more cost-effective blogging strategy than constantly creating new content.
Content creation is a very resource-intensive process. Each old post should be considered a commercial asset. Like any business asset, old posts should be maintained in order to get the maximum benefit from that asset.
A common mistake is that people think the more content they have on their site, the better, so that’s why they ignore older posts. But the truth is, could always be above quantity.
This content marketing myth goes like this: post as often as you can to get more traffic. Of course, blogging like that might have worked five years ago, and yes, it might still work to some degree today. But the rules of quality. People are more committed to quality content, and it’s the best way to build a brand they love. There’s a lot of noise online, after all.
The only way to stand out is to create something worth taking care of. That’s why it’s so important to update content. Quality takes time, and the only way to ensure that all your content is top-notch is to focus on a smaller pool of content.
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How often do you need to update your content?
The answer may vary depending on the type of blogger you are and your site’s nature, but a good rule of thumb is to do a thorough review every year.
I recommend content managers try to complete a full content audit once a year, provided that your catalog does not contain thousands of articles in-depth. The larger your blog, the more likely it is that you will want to develop a process for rolling updates instead of taking a project-based approach.
Suppose your industry is competitive, fast-moving, or frequently has innovations. In that case, you may need to update your content more often to give yourself an edge—especially in industries such as law, finance, and marketing.
Why is that?
Think about how you’re using Google or any other search engine. When you’re looking for something, you have a lot of options, so you need to decide which headline to click on. It’s much more likely that you’re going to click on something recently published or updated than something that was last updated many years ago. And if you have a headline like ‘The 7 Best Computers (2017 Edition),’ that’s a lot more compelling than a generic title like ‘The 7 Best Computers’ because it’s so much more specific to you as a user.
Also, if there is a major breakthrough, innovation, or something similar, Most bloggers suggest updating your content in the next month or so.
How are you going to choose which posts to update?
While updating a post might sound like a lot of work for you, think about the time and effort you’ve put into your content. Sometimes just a few text tweaks or new images are all you need to make old posts fresh and relevant again. Here’s how to decide which ones are worth renovating.
Analytics of measurement
You might have more than a few blog posts on your site, and in that case, it doesn’t make sense to regularly update all of your content. Instead, go over your analytics once in a while (at least every 12 months) to see your top content. This means content that gets traffic, content that could get traffic in the future, and content that converts.
You can check this with tools like Google Analytics and add conversions to your tracking analytics. You’ll want to update posts that are already high on Google to make sure you keep your spot, posts that are close to high ranking (because only a few updated tweaks can increase their ranking). Posts that once got a lot of attention on social media are no longer fresh and relevant because they’re no longer shared.
Researching your industry
Take your time to see what’s new in your field. Any news might be worth updating your content to include. Then, research your competition. Has new content been published that outperforms you on Google?
Are you looking for tips specific to your particular audience? We’ve written guides to a variety of blogging niches:
- How to Start Your Own Blog on Food
- How to Start a Blog of Photography
- How to Start Your Fitness Blog
Check the User Metrics
See how people interact with your content, including how much time you spend on pages, bounce rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate. You can find this information through Google Analytics. If your involvement is low, updates can be made to improve it. Also, check user comments to see if people have questions about your content—you’re going to add answers to your refresh. You can also use user metrics to improve your conversions. If your content doesn’t convert as it should, these metrics will help you understand why and what you can do to improve it.
Analyze SEO
Make sure your SEO is up to date by checking the keyword analytics to ensure that you use the right keywords because the search patterns can change over time. The insights you get from your user metrics will help you decide whether your content needs to be optimized for engagement. Remember, this is a very important metric for Google! Use the Google Search Console to see what keywords people are using to find your content and to check your click-through rates. These metrics can be used to determine if your SEO titles need updates.
What’s the best way to update Older Post?
Not every refresh is the same thing. Some will require more heavy lifting than others, and use the information you’ve found during your research to help you determine exactly what that makeover should look like.
Use the insights you have gained to improve your titles, texts, and images. There may be new data that you can use to include in a graph, for example? Update your SEO and, if possible, improve the user experience. You want your posts to have accurate information, be strategically optimized for specific keywords, and contain relevant photos. Each post should play a role in your overall marketing strategy, and refreshing it to fit your strategy can make it even more valuable.
Keep these old content recycling approaches in mind:
Turn your old posts into infographics.
Use content and statistics from your blog post to create an easy-to-understand visual infographic; These are great for generating organic traffic through social shares—especially on platforms like Pinterest—and for delivering your information quickly.
Get some new facts—updates old posts with new information, such as current statistics and news. Add relevant details that might not have been available when the original post was created.
Refresh yourself for social. If it did really well in social media, then what we generally do is look at the post and see how we can improve it.
- Are the resources still fresh?
- Are there others that we can add?
- Is more information coming to light in this timeframe?
- Is our call to action good?
- Have we got a strong lead and a kicker?
We do everything we can to improve the article, and then we reset it. And don’t forget to do it again.
Create the “best of” jobs. Consider this version of your biggest hit album. This is a way to categorize collections of old posts and make them feel fresh again, and it could be anything from ‘Our Top 20 Marketing Tips’ or ‘Best How-To Arrange Flowers Posts 2017.’
Film a video of an old article. This works very well for tutorials, recipes, and similar types of posts. Film a video that goes through something you described in a blog post to your readers. Then share it with your social media accounts and add it to the old post for more engagement.
Do a mini make-up.
If it’s good information, but it’s not done exceptionally well, then we’re looking closely at the title and the image. We’re likely to rewrite the title and replace the image. You’re going to be amazed at what a difference this can make. Catchy, clickable images don’t just make an article more visual—it also makes it much more likely to be shared across social media.
Enable your blog with rich snippets.
These provide additional information that will appear on search engines such as reviews, author information, etc.,
Updating the old blog post to improve SEO
A refreshed old post can be just as valuable as a brand-new post.
Consistent, high-quality posts are crucial to a good SEO strategy. Optimizing them to specific, strategic keywords, adding alt tags to images, and increasing the content’s length and quality can go a long way to ranking that content. You can also use old evergreen messages to drive traffic through social media and email marketing.
I am using a keyword tool, such as Ahrefs or Buzzsumo, to look at how the keyword landscape has changed for each piece of content.
Maybe your original keyword has lost a lot of volumes, or maybe a competitor has come in and created something even better than your original piece. Whatever the cause, it will often be worth the effort to identify the most promising keywords that the old content can rank for and then follow.
Other ways to boost SEO is to increase post length, add optimized meta descriptions and titles, avoid outdated SEO practices such as keyword stuffing, link to related posts that your audience might find interesting and useful, and add compelling images and set up alt tags for both search engines and accessibility.
Of course, while SEO is essential to driving blog traffic, you also want to focus on engagement.
To make sure your content is as engaging as it is, it needs to be valuable, and most of the time, that means you need to write long-form content so that you have room to include everything you want to talk about.
Your content needs to be easy to read and skim through—simple words, short sentences, short paragraphs. Make sure you’re offering an amazing user experience. That’s what makes Google happy, no matter how many algorithms it changes.
Don’t forget to say “Tweet” to your own horn.
Once your old-is-new-content is refreshed, it’s time to promote it. Old posts can drive new traffic by putting them on a similar promotion schedule as new posts. Moreover, the social sharing links already showing the last go-around shares are good for new visitors and may encourage more sharing.
How you promote refreshed, content depends largely on the channel you use. It is generally appropriate for social media to promote it in the same way that you promote fresh content. Since your social media readers are constantly changing, it’s likely that many of your followers didn’t see the post the first time around.
For others who have seen it, it is very likely that they have forgotten or vaguely remembered it and are happy to engage with that content again.”
It’s best to send only subscribers who have not previously opened an email to promote that content for email lists. Depending on your site’s design, you can push the redesigned content back to the front page again.
Are there other ways to spread the word? Here are the suggestions of Marr:
- Link to your old blog posts in your new blog posts.
- Get out to bloggers and influencers who might be willing to share your posts with their audience.
- Link to the guest posts that you are writing to other sites.
- Promote stories like “new content!” or “now updated!” on social.
- Create the “best of” posts to highlight the categorized old posts.
Whether you’re new or old, you always want to attract the right traffic, so target your audience. To ensure that your content attracts your target audience, check your analytics and ask yourself: ‘How do people find my content?’.
If you notice that many site visitors can find your content on Google, you’ll want to check what keywords they’re using. If these keywords are irrelevant to your products and services, you may want to improve your SEO. Or, you might get traffic from a social media site like Twitter, but your audience hangs on to Pinterest. Afterward, you can update it to attract Pinterest users, so you can optimize your images and copy them to Pinterest.
How can you give a longer shelf life to your blog posts?
There are a few trade tricks to avoid having to update your content as frequently as possible. If you create truly evergreen content from the get-go, you don’t have to worry about updating it as much. Make sure that your content is the best content on your subject. Take a look at the content that’s out there. How can you do something that’s even better?
To help content have a longer shelf life:
- Avoid seasonal posts or content with a short time frame of relevance.
- Think about what people are going to want to read in five years.
- Put the time to create high-quality content that you will be proud of for years to come.
I advise against trying to make your posts last forever.
Often, being timely and up-to-date with your content will help to get it off the ground. You could try to remove references to popular culture, dates, and other things to prolong the shelf life. But do not diminish the potential impact of your content today in the hope that it will not be refreshed later.
Another way to consider it is to approach it from a visitor’s vantage point to your site. Although most site owners feel that updating blog content is a bother, it can actually have a very high ROI. Website owners think the content is old news, but the content is new to a site visitor.
And while it may seem like deleting an old post is a quick fix, think again. It’s crucial that you’re very careful when eliminating old blog posts, as they may affect your search engine rankings.
You should consider getting rid of an old blog post if it is no longer relevant or relevant. The post generates very low traffic or has negative reactions. Your services or products have changed, and the blog post is about old offerings. But most of the time, it’s really best to re-use and update the content. Don’t just delete blog posts to get rid of them. Have a good reason, supported by research, to remove that post.
Give your old blog a few new tricks.
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That philosophy should apply to the way you approach all content on your site.
One of the biggest things I can stress is to coordinate all of your blog post changes with an overarching website strategy, and when you repurpose a post, do it in a way that fits your plan. For instance, a video might not appeal to your audience, but an infographic might sound pretty good!
Hopefully, the many benefits of refreshing old posts will convince you that cleaning your sock drawer isn’t that bad after all.
Just as you don’t have to buy as many new socks, you don’t have to produce new content all the time. Instead, make sure your existing content is the best of the best,” Hallstrom said. “It’s going to take some work up front, but you’re going to reap the rewards for years to come.