Have you got a ton of old content on your website that you haven’t looked at in years? Then now’s the time to dust it off and update it. In this article, we’ll show you how going back through your older content and giving it a fresh face can help your site succeed.
Writing new blog posts is the cornerstone of an effective content marketing strategy, however, solid structures have more than one corner, and if you let your old content crumble into oblivion, then your strategy won’t be as strong as it could be.
New content is great, but combine this breathing new life into past content and you can push yourself ahead of the competition.
Should I Update My Old Content?
If you are asking this question, then the answer is yes! Old content won’t necessarily hurt your SEO, unless it’s littered with broken links, but it won’t help it either. It’s also worth making sure you check SEO updates, as you may have made some additional mistakes in the past that could come back to haunt you.
Search engines are on the lookout for relevant information for users, and up-to-date content is prioritised over older content. If you update your old stuff, you are showing the search engines that you care about your content and your site, and they will look at your pages more favourably.
More Inspiration, Less Effort, Better Results
Updating old content has a lot of positive benefits aside from SEO. It gives you the opportunity to take a look at all of the work you have produced and see how things have changed.
When you look through the articles you wrote in the past, you’ll see how much you have made since you started out. This is a great motivation boost and you’ll uncover all the things you now know you were doing wrong. This will make it much easier to edit and adapt your older work for a newer audience. You’ll also see how things have changed in the wider world since writing your articles.
Older content can also be a great source of inspiration for new posts. If you have old articles with outdated information, then the new information you now have can be the basis for a great new article. Also, when you update articles, it doesn’t hurt to repost them to your followers on social media, and breathe new life into them once again.
How to Update Your Old Content
As with any marketing or SEO strategy, you should have an action plan before you begin. If you are regularly creating new content, then you already have a good idea of what to include in each article and which bases you’ll need to cover to optimize them.
If you’re not sure about your SEO strategy, then check out this article:
SEO Strategy Guide - Everything you Need to Succeed
To make it easier for you to update your old articles, here is a handy checklist you can use to make sure you don’t miss anything:
Keywords
Keywords are one of the most important aspects of SEO and you’ll want to make sure that your older articles are still relevant. Give them a polish and make sure you are using the terms that people are searching for.
Graphic Design
Your house style may have changed over the years, especially when it comes to the quality of your images. Redesigning and replacing old images will help you stay on brand and ensure that your content stays fresher for longer.
Update Headlines
If you’ve been writing articles for a long time, the chances are your headline writing skills will have improved along the way. Check all of your headlines from past posts and make sure they are as hard-hitting as you want them to be.
Check all of your Links
You should check all of your internal and external links to make sure they still work. If you are also updating your URLs to make them more relevant, be sure to do a final sweep of all of your links once you’ve finished updating them.
Check for Errors
We all miss errors when we are writing. Our minds can play tricks on us by showing us what we want to see, rather than what we are actually reading. Therefore, going back over work without expectation is a great way to pick up on previously unseen errors.
Update your Stats
If you used old research and data in your articles, now is the time to update it. By doing this, you may also discover trends and changes that you can then write about. It will also ensure that your content is relevant to your visitors.
Post on Social Media
Once you’ve updated your old articles, post them on social media. You’ll reach out to an audience that hasn’t seen them before and it can help draw their attention to your previous work.
The Bottom Line
Updating your old articles will give you a steady source of inspiration for new posts and will allow you to ensure that your whole site engages your audience. Not only that, it will show the search engines that you care about all aspects of your site and will help you to climb those all important rankings. It’s also good to give yourself a boost by seeing how far you’ve come.