Are your old blog posts gathering dust and not generating the organic traffic they once did? It’s time to breathe new life into that old content. Updating old blog posts is an important part of any effective SEO and content marketing strategy.
All in all, to improve your website, update old blog posts. This is a great way and help with SEO, attract more visitors, and enhance user experience. Learn how to do this in our guide for 2024.
Why Update Old Blog Posts For SEO?
Before diving into the process, let’s explore why updating old blog content is so important for SEO:
- Boosts On-Page SEO: Search engines love fresh, relevant content. Updating your outdated piece of content with fresh and new information, images, and keywords indicates to Google that your content is current and deserving of a better position in search results.
- Improves User Experience: Outdated content information and broken links create a poor user experience. Refreshing your old content ensures visitors find accurate, current information when they land on your blog post from the search engine results.
- Boost Creditiblity: Outdated information and broken links create a poor user experience. Refreshing your old content ensures visitors find accurate, current information when they land on your blog post from the search results.
- Increase Clickthrough Rates: Refreshed content with optimized titles, meta descriptions, and content can entice more clicks from the search results, leading to an increase in organic traffic to that blog post.
Which Of Your Old Blog Posts Should You Update?
Not every old blog post needs an overhaul. Here’s how to prioritize:
- Update Articles That Almost Rank High: Use Google Search Console to find keywords your post ranks for on the second or third page. With a few tweaks, you could push those posts onto the first page for a traffic boost.
- Update Articles That Rank Well But Are Starting to Slip: Keep an eye out for blog posts that used to be traffic powerhouses but have started to decline. Refreshing the content could help maintain or even improve their rankings and traffic.
Anything on top of this should be considered for a new post for SEO opportunities to attract more search traffic.
How to Prioritize Which Blog Posts to Update?
With an archive of content, it can be overwhelming to decide where to start. Use these tactics to identify the best opportunities:
- Use Google Analytics to Find High-Traffic Posts: Look for posts that have driven a lot of traffic in the past. Prioritize updating these as even a small ranking boost could lead to significant traffic gains.
- Check Google Search Console For Keyword Opportunities: Identify blog posts that rank in positions 8-20 for high-volume keywords. Refreshing these could help them climb onto the first page.
- Look For Outdated Posts That Need a Refresh: Some posts may still rank well but contain outdated information or advice. Prioritize these for an update to maintain accuracy and credibility.
How To Update Old Blog Posts For SEO?
Ready to start revamping that old content? Follow these steps:
- Conduct New Keyword Research: Use keyword research tools to find new relevant keywords to include in your updated post. Aim to target keywords with good search volume but lower competition.
- Rewrite Headlines and Meta Tags: Optimize your post’s title tag, meta description, and H1 for your new target keywords. Make sure they’re compelling to boost clickthrough rates from the search results.
- Replace Outdated Information and Statistics: Swap out any outdated data, examples, or advice with the most current information. Cite reputable sources to back up your claims.
- Tighten or Expand Ideas: Take the opportunity to tighten up your writing and make your points more succinctly. Or expand on topics that need more depth and detail to fully answer the search intent.
- Improve Visuals and Other Media: Add new images, infographics, videos, or other engaging media to make your post more visually appealing and informative.
- Update Internal and External Links: Replace broken links, add links to relevant new content on your site, and swap out external links with more current, authoritative sources.
- Improve the Readability Of Your Old Blog Posts: Break up large walls of text, use shorter paragraphs, and add bullet points to improve readability and scannability.
- Optimize For Conversions: Add or update calls-to-action to drive visitors to related content, products, or email sign-ups. Make sure your CTAs align with the post’s content and goals.
- Use the Same URLs (Unless There’s a Reason Not To): Avoid changing the URL slug of the post so you don’t lose any existing link equity. If you do change it, make sure to set up a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one.
- Republish the Blog Post With the Updated Date: Once you’ve made all your changes, it’s time to republish. Update the publication date so it’s current.
- Get Search Engines to Recrawl the Page: Manually resubmit the URL through Google Search Console to encourage bots to recrawl it ASAP and index your changes.
- Re-Promote Your Updated Blog Posts: Share your updated post across your social media channels, email newsletter, and other promotion platforms to drive new traffic and engagement.
How to Choose Which Content to Refresh?
Not all old blog posts are worth updating.
To get the most SEO impact for your efforts, prioritize refreshing content using these criteria:
- Look at Pages With Lots of High-Quality Links: Posts that have earned many high-quality backlinks are prime candidates for refreshing. Improving these already authoritative posts could lead to even better rankings and traffic. Use tools to track backlinks and identify opportunities.
- Find Pages With the Most Traffic: Use Google Analytics to identify blog posts that generate the most organic traffic. Even small optimizations on these high-traffic posts could result in a significant boost in overall traffic.
- Prioritize Pages With Lots of Keyword Impressions But Low Rankings: Check Google Search Console for posts that get a high number of impressions for relevant keywords but have a low average position. Updating these to improve their rankings could lead to big traffic gains.
- Don’t Waste Time Updating Old Content That Doesn’t Need to be Updated: Avoid getting bogged down by refreshing every old post. If a post still has accurate information, ranks well, and generates steady traffic, it likely doesn’t need an overhaul. Focus your efforts where they’ll have the biggest SEO impact.
Use these criteria to guide your content update strategy to efficiently allocate your time and resources towards enhancing the blog posts that will deliver the best results for your SEO goals.
What to Not Do When Updating Old Posts?
While refreshing old content is important, avoid these mistakes:
- Don’t change the URL unless necessary to avoid losing link equity
- Don’t update content that’s ranking well and still accurate – prioritize posts that need a refresh
- Don’t keyword stuff – aim for a natural keyword density
- Don’t neglect internal linking – add links to and from related posts on your site
Why New Content is Still Important For SEO?
While updating old posts is a great SEO tactic, creating new content is still important. Aim for a mix of refreshing old posts and publishing new content to keep your site relevant and demonstrate your industry expertise.
Best Practices To Maintain Content Freshness
- Conduct a content audit every 6-12 months to identify posts that need updating
- Set reminders to check performance and refresh content periodically
- Make sure writers create evergreen content that will stay relevant longer
- Keep an eye on industry trends and news to spot opportunities for updates
FAQ’s:
Why is Outdated Content Bad?
Outdated content can hurt your credibility, lead to a poor user experience, and even cause your rankings to drop if the information is no longer accurate or relevant.
Do I Need to Update All Blog Posts That Get Google Traffic?
No, prioritize posts that are declining in traffic, ranking on pages 2-3 for good keywords, or contain outdated information.
How Do I Track the Performance Of My Updated Blog Posts?
Use Google Analytics to monitor changes in organic traffic and engagement. Check Google Search Console to see if the post’s average ranking and CTR have improved for target keywords.
Do I Need to Build New Backlinks to Updated Posts?
While backlinks are important for SEO, focus on making your content the best it can be. High-quality, refreshed content can naturally attract new backlinks over time.
Do Longer Blog Posts Rank Better?
There’s no perfect word count for SEO. Aim to cover the topic thoroughly and provide the best answer for the search intent. Quality and depth are more important than length.
Can Updating Old Posts Hurt Your SEO?
As long as you follow best practices like maintaining the same URL, updating content carefully, and avoiding keyword stuffing, refreshing old posts should help, not hurt your SEO efforts.
Is it Okay to Delete Old Blog Posts?
If a post is completely irrelevant, outdated, or low-quality, it may be best to delete it. Just make sure to redirect the URL to a related resource to avoid 404 errors.
Does Deleting Old Content Help in SEO?
Deleting low-quality or irrelevant posts can improve your site’s overall quality and relevance in the eyes of search engines. Just make sure you’re strategic about what you delete and always set up proper redirects.
Conclusion
Updating old blog posts is a smart addition to your SEO strategy. By improving your existing content, you can boost your search rankings, drive more organic traffic, and provide a better experience for your audience.
Use the tactics outlined in this guide to identify the best opportunities for updating old posts and execute your content refreshes for maximum SEO impact.
Combined with publishing new, high-quality content, your refreshed blog posts can help take your organic search performance to the next level.