Updating Your Old Blog Content: Why It’s Important

As a content creator, you may often focus on creating fresh content for your blog. However, updating your old blog content is essential for a better user experience and improved search engine rankings. This post will discuss why you should update your old blog content and how it can benefit your content marketing strategy.

Key Takeaways

Reasons for Updating Old Blog Content	Rating (1-5)	Study or Reference
Keeping content fresh and up-to-date	5	HubSpot’s Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2022
Improving search engine rankings	5	Moz’s Search Engine Ranking Factors 2021
Increasing website traffic	4	Ahrefs’ Study on the Impact of Updating Old Content on Organic Traffic
Enhancing user experience	5	Google’s Core Web Vitals & Page Experience Update
Boosting social media shares	3	BuzzSumo’s Analysis of 100 Million Articles

The table above summarizes the key reasons for updating your old blog content, along with their respective ratings and supporting studies or references. Keeping your content fresh and up-to-date, improving search engine rankings, and enhancing user experience are the top-rated reasons, emphasizing their importance in maintaining a successful content strategy.

While increasing website traffic and boosting social media shares are also crucial, they may have a slightly lower impact on the overall effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. Nonetheless, updating your old content is a critical aspect of your content strategy that can lead to significant benefits in the long run.

What Is Old Blog Content?

Old blog content is any post that’s been published on your blog for more than a year.
Old blog content can be outdated for several reasons, but there are two main ones:

• The topic has changed or evolved since you wrote it. You may have learned new things about the subject since then or discovered further information unavailable when you first wrote about it. In either case, this means that what was once relevant and exciting news isn’t as valuable anymore because it’s no longer accurate or up-to-date.
• Your writing style has changed over time (or maybe even just since last year). Maybe when you were younger and less experienced as an author, your writing style was different–and if so, then old blog posts will feel like they don’t quite fit with how well-written newer posts are now!

How to Identify Outdated Content

When updating your old blog content, it’s essential first to identify what needs to be updated. You can do this by checking the accuracy and relevancy of your old posts.

• Check for accuracy by reading through each post and ensuring that everything is still true today (for example, if you wrote a post about how much you loved cats in 2015 and now live with dogs instead). If any facts have changed since then, update them accordingly.
• Examine the relevancy of each post by asking yourself: “Does anyone care about this anymore?” If not enough people care about it anymore, or if there are newer topics out there that interest readers more than what’s written on your site, consider revamping those old posts into something new!

How to Update Your Old Blog Content

• Adding fresh content
• Optimizing content for SEO
• Improving user experience
• Adding new features and plugins
• Enhancing content with visuals

Updating Old Blog Content: Benefits and Considerations

• Gaining organic traffic.
• We are improving search engine rankings.
• I am increasing click-through rates.
• Generating more leads can be converted into sales and business opportunities for you or your company, depending on what and to who you’re selling it.
• You are enhancing the company image by appearing as an authority in your industry on the web (and, therefore, in people’s minds).

Strategies for Updating Old Blog Content

• Content audit
• Content calendar
• Content marketing strategy
• Content creation from scratch (if necessary)
  A content audit is the first step in updating your old blog posts. You will identify which old content needs updating and how long it will take to correct it. You should also set a goal for the amount of new content created each month and what frequency this occurs (daily/weekly). You can create a realistic schedule, so you don’t feel overwhelmed by all the work ahead.

Tips for Updating Old Blog Content

• Use keywords strategically.
• Write for search intent.
• Keep content evergreen.
• Utilizing low-competition keywords and phrases is a great way to help your site rank higher in Google’s search results. Still, it’s also essential to use those exact words in an article relevant to your business or industry (and not just because they’re famous). You’ll want to ensure that any new blog posts you write have high-quality content so that people will want to read them!
• If all else fails, try leveraging influencer marketing: This method involves getting influential figures within your niche market–like celebrities or industry leaders–to share links back towards their websites with links back towards yours as well; this helps boost the traffic coming from these types of sites since they already have large followings online.”

Tools for Updating Old Blog Content

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• SEO plugins (like Yoast, All In One SEO Pack)
• Email marketing tools (like MailChimp)
• Grammar checkers

Types of Old Blog Content to Update

Content that’s outdated and no longer relevant to your niche: This type of content will likely be low quality, with weak writing and little in the way of compelling data. Instead of editing these posts, it’s probably better to delete them and start from scratch.

• Blog posts
• Recipes
• List posts (like “10 Things to Do in New York City”)
• Guides (like “How to Make a Cake”)
• It can be a good idea to rename old blog posts so that readers who may have bookmarked an older version of your story can still find it.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

A few common mistakes to avoid when updating your old blog content.

• Keyword stuffing: This is the practice of adding keywords to a post to increase search rankings. It’s usually done by repeating words repeatedly, which makes for awkward reading and can even get you penalized by Google if they spot it.
• Exact keyword matches: If you’re writing about “how to make brownies,” don’t repeat that phrase every time you mention brownies in your post–say something like “chocolatey treats” instead!
• Punctuation mistakes: Make sure you use proper punctuation whenever possible; otherwise, people won’t know what part of speech each word belongs to (e.g., “I saw” vs. “I saw”). Also, check for missing apostrophes! For example: “I’m going out tonight.” vs. “I’m going out tonight!”

Keep Your Content Relevant and Evergreen

Regularly updating your old blog content helps maintain relevancy and transform it into evergreen content. Evergreen posts are the types of content that remain useful and relevant for a long time. Updating old content on your website can help improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and increase web traffic.

A content audit is a step-by-step evaluation of your online material in which you examine existing content for accuracy, relevancy, and effectiveness.

Update your content regularly to ensure it remains relevant and accurate.

Improve User Experience and Authority

Updating your old content can help improve the user experience because visitors want relevant, informative material that meets their needs. This builds authority by establishing you as a credible resource for valuable information.

To improve your search engine rankings, your blog posts must be titled and coded correctly. This will make them more accessible for people to find and more engaging to read.

Boost Your Search Engine Rankings

Google constantly updates its search engine to provide users with the most relevant search results.

When you update your outdated blog content, you’re increasing your chances of being recognized by search engines as a valuable and relevant source of information.

Use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to analyze the performance of your content, identify profitable keywords, and track your keyword rankings. Incorporate these keywords naturally into your content to avoid keyword stuffing, ensuring that your focus remains on providing value to your readers.

Increase Organic Traffic and Conversion Rates

Updating your old content improves your search engine rankings and drives more organic traffic to your website. Adding new information, addressing user queries, and optimizing your content for relevant keywords will attract more visitors and boost your click-through rates.

A well-updated blog post also has a higher chance of converting visitors into customers or subscribers, providing them with an excellent user experience and valuable information.

Enhance Your Content Marketing Strategy

To be an effective content marketer, you must publish and update your old content regularly. Creating a calendar of posts will help make sure that your blog is always filled with helpful information.

Updating your old blog content is essential for boosting your SEO, authority, user experience, and overall content marketing strategy. So take some time to review the areas of your existing posts that need improvement—and then rewrite or revamp those pieces, so they’re more engaging for readers.

Keep Your Content Accessible and Shareable

If you update your old blog posts, they remain accessible and shareable. Add features like image alt tags (for blind users) and clear formatting so people can easily read your content.

Add social sharing buttons, email subscription forms, and calls to action to encourage readers to share your content, join your email list, or explore other resources on your website. If you promote affiliate products or services, ensure your affiliate and outbound links are up-to-date and relevant to your audience.

Monitor Your Blog’s Performance and Adjust Accordingly

Continuously monitoring your blog’s performance and adjusting your content strategy is vital for long-term success. Search Google’s Search Console for the posts receiving the most search traffic and update them regularly to maintain performance.

Study low-competition keywords and search queries that can help you improve your content’s ranking on SERPs, then create top-ranking articles—ultimate guides or step-by-step approaches.

Optimize Your Content for Mobile Devices and Loading Speed

Since mobile devices are increasingly how people access the web, your blog posts and website must easily read on all kinds of screens—whether the user is on a desktop or iPhone.

Use plugins to optimize images, improve page speed and enhance the overall performance of your website. These optimizations can impact conversion rates and help you achieve business objectives.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Revising and updating your older blog posts can benefit your business, improving search engine rankings, providing a better user experience for readers, and strengthening the content marketing strategy.

To ensure long-term success in your content marketing efforts, focus on providing high-quality content optimized for mobile devices. Monitor the performance of your blog to spot opportunities and make adjustments as needed.

Updating your content is one of the most influential and cost-efficient ways to grow your online presence.

References

• According to Hubspot: updating old blog content can help improve your search engine optimization (SEO) and increase web traffic¹²
• Content Writers: suggests that the best reason to update blog content is to bring fresh, relevant, and up-to-date information to your readers
• Affiliate Marketing for Success: recommends updating old blog content to ensure that you don’t lose your blog readership
• Hubspot: also provides a complete guide to updating and republishing outdated blog content
• Databox: provides 25 tips for updating old blog posts for SEO and boosting traffic