5 Reasons To Update Your Old Blog Content

Ever given much thought to your collection of old blog posts? Rather than spending hours sweating over new content creation, perhaps you can take advantage of the SEO goodness your backlog of posts have already racked up for you.

Here are 5 reasons to consider reviving your blog graveyard, and 5 little ways to boost your organic traffic and search rankings while you’re at it.

1. STALE CONTENT

Promoting an offer in your CTA that expired a long time ago? Stats out of date? Giving advice that’s no longer relevant?

There are multiple ways your content can go stale, and readers are going to bounce right out of there if your post isn’t useful.

Top Tip: In terms of using your time wisely, refreshing an old blog post with more relevant content is also a lot easier than creating a whole new one. Make the most of what you’ve already got.

 2. BAD LINKS

How frustrating is it to click on a hyperlink only to see that dreaded 404?

From a user perspective, it’s simply annoying – and it suggests that you don’t maintain your blog. From an SEO perspective, broken links can harm your reputation as an authority and affect your page rankings.

Most importantly, if the broken links are on a sales page or part of a CTA, they might affect your revenue.

You can always conduct a link check manually if you have plenty of time or your blog backlog isn’t too large, but there are lots of programs and plug-ins these days that can do the heavy lifting for you.

Even if you don’t find any dodgy ones, there are more great reasons to do a link check on old posts:

• Internal linking is great for search rankings as well as enhancing the user experience, so incorporating newer or better resources can only make the experience more positive for your reader
• If you’ve written additional posts about a certain topic published in your old post – now you can go back in and provide additional information for interested readers, and boost traffic all over your site while you’re at it

3. KEYWORD TARGETING

Depending on how far your blog backlog goes back, your older posts might not have been optimised for search in the first place. Or if they were, they might need a refresh if your rankings seem to be taking a hit.

Take a look at your site analytics to find the keywords you’re ranking well for, and then add those to your old posts – but do it naturally! Keyword stuffing has long been a no-no, so always be aware. It’s obvious to your users and, more importantly, it’s obvious to Google and you could be penalised.

Top tip: A great way to incorporate your keywords into an older blog post is to lengthen it. Google is a big fan of longer content that’s chock full of useful and relevant information, so turn a shorter blog post into a long-form content piece that’s optimised for your desired keywords. Not only will it rank better, but it will be a better article all around.

4. SPAM

In most online comment sections these days, you’ll find a whole heap of it. Automated spam, link-building spam, shameless self-promoting spam – you name it, it’s all over the web.

Having a string of these annoying little comments underneath your post not only damages your site’s professional or trustworthy aesthetic, but it also may deter legitimate fans or readers from engaging with you due to an appeared lack of maintenance. Google’s crawler isn’t a fan of spammy comments either.

Whether you’re tempted to install a spam filter program or have the capacity to delete comments manually, the important thing is to continue to keep things under control.

Top tip: Depending on the nature of your blog, perhaps consider removing the ability to comment altogether. If the intent of your blog is not to spark discussion and engagement between fellow users and your company, don’t waste time and energy worrying about spam and how to get rid of it.

5. META DESCRIPTION

Meta descriptions are the little snippet that shows up in search results when it contains the words a user has searched for.

Now, search engines claim that their algorithm doesn’t take meta descriptions into account so they don’t necessarily affect rankings, but it does consider click-through rates! Having users continually click through to your post is a solid indicator to Google that you’re a reliable search result, and you may be rewarded for it.

• It pays to have a description that not only accurately summarises what a reader will find on the other side, but you also want a description that is optimised for your target keywords
• Having an accurate summary is vital, sure, but focus on rewriting your meta description to make it more enticing in order to boost organic traffic
• Note that it’s always best to have the most vital info at the beginning of the description

Final top tips: If you’ve completely changed the content of your old post, it’s recommended to add an editor’s note just to be transparent. Secondly, don’t forget to track your before and after stats.

Want a little more info? Check out these 7 SEO copywriting tips to boost the traffic on your website.

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