If you are writing a blog then sometimes you think that you have written a masterpiece like Macbeth. But to make it a masterpiece there are also various processes that you need to follow because blogs are evergreen and timely content.
Pop culture events, Blogs, and news contents are focused in case of timely content. On the other hand, evergreen content provides value for a long period of time and remains pertinent. Updating old content is a rare thing to do because with the passage of time, it’s old news and its relevancy got expired. But reviving old and evergreen content could be of much use.
Website traffic comes from backlinks and it takes time for an old content to obtain backlinks, i.e., since an old content has become backdated so it ahs less likely to acquire and receive new backlinks. If you update your old contents, then it will help to keep the backlinks that you already had, plus you can also have new backlinks by strengthening the authority and value to your content with new and fresh information.
Updating or reviving an old content is not a simple and one-time job. Let’s take a tour through this article about how can you update your contents and what other benefits you can get from it.
How can you Update your Old Blog Posts?
Here are some steps that you need to keep in mind while updating your old blog contents:-
Targeting New Keywords
Do you know how old is your blog? If it depends on the initial public date then are two things that might be true:
- i) Your were targeting keywords based on search volume and keyword difficulty.
- ii) You couldn’t apply proper keywords without proper knowledge of SEO.
Search volumes helps in indicating how many web users are using that keyword or search terms while entering it into the search engines. This is referred to as mainly as MSV (Monthly Search Volume) and how much traffic is there is predicted. Search volumes are evaluated using keyword difficulty – it is a measure to indicate that how a keyword is difficult to rank on the first page of the SERP. But niether keyword difficulty nor search volumes can help you determining your target keywords.
If search volume is related to how many people are searching for that particular target keyword, then high scratch volume is more keywords and it is affected by keyword difficulty directly. So, the best option for you is to opt for both. You can also utilsie tools like Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.
Keyword research is a very important part of SEO. However, you also have to go for the other On-Page activities to improve the ranking of your contents.
Updating the On-Page SEO
Implementing and updating your old SEO strategy on an old content requires to fulfill some key areas:
SEO Title Tag
The first thing that we all see in the SERP is the clickable headings which leads us to webpage and it is called a Title tag. You can upadte this title tag to refelct any new targetted keywords.
Meta Descritpion
It consist of long texts of description present right beneath the title tag. You can also include your targeted keywords so that the web users can find the purpose of your blog. A good and attractive meta description can make your users either click to your content or else they will look for another website result.
Title of the Article
Most of the bloggers doesn’t realise sometimes that the SEO title tag and the article title doesn’t need to be same. The title tag appears on the SERPs, wheras the article title shows on the destination page. You need to update the article title with new targeted keywords as well.
Subheadings
Subheadings are an outline of your content. Before reading your article, your audience will first check whether it is really worth reading or not. So you need to add your targeted keywords to the main header of your content. It will help to keep the relevance of your content and also help to receive a very good ranking.
Updating the Body of the Content
Updating the body of your content is another main factor that you need to go for. You should start by making rewrite to the introduction. After then you have to replace the old and outdated connect with the current information. You should also update the internal links as you update the old contents.
Internal Links to New Contents
An important process to boost SEO is to adding links to revive your old article content. Links can help in increasing the credibility of your post and can also help to get a good ranking in the SERPs. This can be done in two ways:-
- Look for broken links that takes web suer to 404 Error page. If they click a link which they find nothing over there it can lead to harassment and frustration to your audience and hence can lead to the diminishing the quality of your website. You have to either repair, remove or redirect any broken links
- You need to refresh the internal links. It helps you to keep your audience on your website for a longer period of time, improves SEO and boosts the quality of your content. You should add new links to your website as you update your contents.
Adding and Optimising New Videos and Images
High quality articles also comprise of high quality images. There are several benefits of placing high quality video and images to content:-
- Help in increasing the user time of your page.
- Help in getting more traffic
- Help in encouraging sharing on social media.
- I also helps your post to understand easily
Here are some steps to revive your old blog posts with images:-
- Look for the appropriate image – You should look for the right images or videos for your article. If you have budget then you can go for a high standard images with photoshoots and all. Or else, you can look for stock images and free image and video websites like Freepik, WallpaperFlare, Pexels, PxHere and many others.
- Make sure to choose the right file name – To help Google determining you contents through the images or videos, you need to give the file name as same as the Article title or the title tag. It will be better if you give the file name as ‘How to update old SEO content.jpg’ instead of ‘content-concept-laptop-screen.jpg’.
- Enhancing your images with Alt Text – Enhancing your images or videos with the help of Alt Text can help you by making sure to the content readers that they don’t lose any main information. Plus, it will also help you to gain accessibility even if you have problem with visibility.
Fixing the format
It includes best practices ti change the format starting right from definition include of your target keywords, use of headings and sub-headings to make your keywords strong and including numbered lists near to the post at the top.
Typo Corrections and Improvement in Readability
Readability or making easy for your audience to read your blog, is an important factor for your content and especially if you are updating and reviving an old one. Your audience will leave the page if they see that it is really hard to read your contents. Huge quantity of bounce rates can affect SEO in a negative way and hence it is make the search engines determine that your website contents are irrelevant. You can improve this by making sure that you follow:-
- Write shorter sentences.
- Break your texts into long paragraphs
- Don’t go for passive voices.
- Remove if you have filler words.
- Also, don’t forget to use tools like Grammarly or Ginger
To improve readability, you can also think of some other factors which we already discussed before – bulleted lists, headings and sub-headings and images.
Updating the blog post with a new date
If you publish or republish your old blog with a new date, then it will be lot easier for your audience because they will get a fresh new content to read for them. It will also help you to get priority in the SERPs and obtaining organic traffic to your blog posts.
Blog Post Reindexing with Google
So, overall the updating and reviving your old content is to be noticed in the SERP or in the Google pages. To do so, you have to amke sure that after all your updates are done, you have to reindex in Google. If your website is already set in Google Search Console, you should place your blog URL in the URL Inspection tool and request for indexing it. Though will reindex your blog eventually, but if you go for this toll then your process will buck up nad it will help the users to receive your updated content quickly.
Final Wrap Up
Online marketing, which includes SEO are fast paced industry and they are constantly changing their best practices. To amke a very good user experience and buck up with the current SEO practices, it is really very important to update your content regularly and periodically. Make sure you follow the steps and the procedures to update and revive your blog contents and keep it alive like a person in the eyes of your audiences.