You?ve Worked On Your Blog For Years
Remember when you added new content?
You wrote the perfect blog post.
Checked and rechecked for errors.
Put it aside for the night and woke up ready to hit publish, satisfied that your content presented your thoughts in just the way you intended.
But that was two, three, maybe four years ago.
If your content is evergreen, there?s no need to worry about your facts being outdated or your point missing its mark. But what if your analytics are showing that your post isn?t generating the traffic it once did?
What should you do with your old content?
With search engine algorithms changing every couple of years, how can you be sure your posts are ranked high on search engine return pages?
How can you get those old posts to perform better and bring you the results you want?
Do you have to start from scratch?
To really maximize the thought and research that went into your older content, you can resurrect your mature posts to make fresh, new additions to your blog.
Here are some things to consider when deciding to freshen up old content.
Is It Worth Repeating?
Does your old post contain information that is still relevant today?
Since long-form content ranks higher on search engine result pages, expanding your original post can be beneficial.
If you stopped at a few hundred words, try to add relevant and useful information to push your word count to 1500, 1800 or more.
But make sure what you?re saying makes sense.
Your visitors want to read engaging and useful content.
Spend some time in deeper research of the original information.
Find and present facts on your topic that shorter blog posts skim over.
Can You Divide It Up?
Was your original material a simple list or maybe a collection of facts you gathered from around the interwebs?
Try taking each individual item and creating new, longer posts. Really research the topics to make each one a stand-alone article.
You can even expand a list post into long-form copy if you add detailed information under each heading.
The key is to offer fresh information in an engaging way and tie the individual topics together in a final takeaway summary.
Images, Graphics And Other Media
If your old blog post was text only, try adding media to breathe new energy into what you have to say.
Be sure to use images that are relative to your message. While cute animations, memes or gifs may seem like a good idea, they don?t always resonate with the reader.
They can even increase your page loading time?something that sends visitors clicking away to the next page result.
Check any images you are currently using. You can add alt text to help search bots determine what your page is about, which could also aid your ranking if you include keywords in the descriptions.
Combine Short Posts
Maybe you have some really good content, but it?s spread too thinly to rank well. Ditch those non-performing short posts, and combine your own content into a well-rounded presentation of a couple thousand words.
By including the most relevant and useful information along with researched keywords, your small posts can be merged into something that performs well for you.
Just be sure that your longer post has a central connecting thought that runs throughout so the reader doesn?t get lost.
Check For Broken Links
If you?ve included links to other sites from your posts, go through them to check to see if any are broken or have been redirected to unrelated pages.
There are plenty of free and paid tools you can use to quickly check links for you.
Promote What You Have
Maybe you don?t want to rehash your old posts. Maybe they?re fine just the way they are, but they?re just not generating the results you want.
Spend some time extracting your own quotes to tweet. Come up with quick summaries and share on your feeds along with links to the older content.
If you?ve created evergreen posts that have plenty of words and interesting images, reshare. Perhaps you have new followers who need to see exactly what you have to say.
Out With The Old, Or Not
Whether or not you plan to revamp your older content to garner better search rankings or higher performance, be sure to leave your original post date on posts that are staying put, even if you change a word or two, an image, or a link.
Unless you are radically changing or adding to an older post, say 25% or more, leave the original date alone and just add a line to mention the date the material was updated.
This builds trust, and your readers will come to depend on your material as fresh and timely, no matter when you originally posted it.
Here are the main points to consider when updating older content:
- Evaluate older content to see if it is still relevant today.
- Expand your older posts with new research. Try to aim for 1800-2000 words.
- Take old lists posts and create multiple posts using individual list topics.
- Add relevant images, graphics or other media, or add keyword descriptions to the media you are already using.
- Combine shorter topic-related posts into one thorough article.
- Scour any external links you?ve used to be sure they?re not broken or redirected.
- Promote the content you have with fresh tweets or summaries on all your feeds.
- Keep the original post date unless you?ve radically changed the content.