How To Refresh Old Blog Posts for SEO & Boosting Organic Traffic
Just imagine. People write thousands of blog posts every day. They put their blood, sweat, and tears into the content. People read it for some time. It stays trendy. Then newer posts start appearing on the front page.
Soon, the old post gets discarded in the virtual graveward. This is saddening. Isn’t it? But more importantly, this is a complete waste of good content. You can refresh these old posts.
You can utilize the old posts and garner more traffic to your website. But how to refresh old blog posts? Well, it’s simple. You have to optimize it to today’s standards. You need to update the content so that it is relevant.
Soon these techniques will resuscitate your posts. You will have more traffic and earn more revenues.
Why You Should Update Old Blog Posts
First of all, you are wasting a huge opportunity when you are not doing this. You have invested a lot in those old blog posts. So why let them die?
Keeping your old content up to date builds the reader’s loyalty. There’s a good chance your readers still visit the old posts. When they visit and see outdated posts, they get turned off.
They may never come back. But when all your posts are up to date, people will stay true to your website.
Another big reason is time. Do you realize how tough it is to write a blog post? Just now as I am writing this, I am contemplating life. Nothing is coming to my brain.
I am researching as much as I can but have hit a dead end. I will finish writing this article as you are reading this. But you get the idea.
It’s difficult to write a new blog post. But tweaking and optimizing an old post takes far less time. It’s not only time efficient but it boosts the quality of your blog. You will have a much wider audience. So what are you waiting for? Resurrect those old posts.
How To Refresh Old Blog Posts: 11 Tips
1. Make a List
The first thing you need to do is organize. Don’t just dive into refreshing your old posts right away. You need to make a list of them to optimize them perfectly. Collect all the titles and URLs of the blog posts. Making a spreadsheet will help you a lot.
2. Privatize Certain Posts
You don’t need to focus on all of your blog posts. There will be some which have a much higher impact on your website or business. Try emphasizing on those. Optimizing unnecessary posts that have zero value will only waste your precious time.
You can check the traffic of the posts using google analytics. See which posts have more traffic. Try prioritizing that one. You have to keep in mind that the more posts you choose the less traffic you will get.
So, for starters don’t pick too many posts to optimize. Try refreshing the ones that will make a strong impact.
3. Find Keywords
Now is the hard part. After organizing, pick a blog post and start working with it. The first thing you need to do is find the right keywords. The post will have keywords that are ranking in google. You can find them using SEO tools.
4.Pick a Target Keyword
You have to pick a keyword that will attract a lot of traffic. Don’t just randomly use a popular keyword that has nothing to do with your website. You have to use a relevant keyword for your business. This is a mistake many amateurs make.
They collect trendy and high-ranked keywords and add them to the posts. It does more harm than good. It makes the post incoherent.
So always make sure to use a relevant target keyword. Add some secondary keywords as well. It’s best to add simple keywords. Adding difficult and complex keywords can elude the audience.
But there’s one thing you need to keep in mind. Not always it will do great. When your old post already has keywords that rank high in the search engines then it’s best not to use new ones. Because it will make you lose traffic in the process.
5. Rewrite Your Introduction
What’s the first thing everybody notices in a blog post? Yes, you guessed it right. It’s the introduction. A great introduction is enough to keep the attention of the reader till the end of the article.
So, make sure to rewrite it engagingly. Don’t change too from the original introduction. Just make it feel more up-to-date and trendy.
6. Add Additional Content
Your old post won’t have all the information that matches today’s descriptions. So try adding some extra content. Fill in the gaps. Add some relevant examples to make it more engaging to the audience.
7. Add Internal Links
Internal links are a major key that connects one post to another. Whenever we write a post, we add links to our older posts. So, while reading it, people also click on the link.
Your old posts have some internal links as well. These links won’t make any sense now as they are quite old. So, remove those internal links and add new ones. This is a great opportunity.
In the old posts, add internal links to your recent posts. Therefore, people will go to the newer posts from there. It will boost the traffic to your website.
Related: 7 SEO Mistakes to Avoid
8. Remove Broken Links
Broken links are a major red flag. Suppose you are browsing through a website. The article is good and everything is quite engaging. You are enjoying reading the blog post.
Suddenly you saw a link. You try to go into it but it’s broken. How would you feel? Yes, it can hamper the overall user experience.
Broken links can be a turn-off for your audience. Also, it will make your posts rank lower in the search engines. That’s why it’s essential to find and remove all sorts of broken links.
You may be wondering how one can find so many broken links by themselves. Well, in today’s world there’s an app for everything.
You can use apps like Ahrefs. This is a broken link checker which will find every broken/ incorrect link on your website. After finding them, hit delete and that’s it.
9. Add New Videos or Images
Imagine your audience is browsing through your old posts. Everything seems relevant. But the pictures and videos of the article don’t make any sense. Your audience will get confused. This happens with most blog posts. While optimizing, people forget to change the old images to new ones.
No one likes to read lines after lines of words. This will only bore them. When they look at pictures, their brain stimulates. They get attracted and read more of the post. That’s why you should add new videos and images to your old blog posts.
By adding videos, the users will stay more time on your website. It’s obvious, isn’t it? People will just skim through your articles.
But when there is a video, they can’t resist watching it. It will increase their time on the website. This directly helps to boost your website’s ranking,
10. Keep the Same Url
This is very important. You don’t want to publish your updated post as a new article. The search engines may think that the post has plagiarized content. Therefore, after optimizing your old post, keep the original URL.
However, when your blog’s URL has dates in it, it’s better to remove the URL. Audiences can see the date and think of it as an old post. So, in that case, try making a new URL.
11. Promote the Post
Now’s the fun part. After working so hard on your post, it’s time to promote it. Share the link on social media platforms. Add internal links in your new posts. Make your audiences know that the post is alive.
Should I put dates on my blog posts?
This is a question many blog writers ask frequently. The answer depends on how frequently you update your blog posts.
If you frequently update your posts, then it’s best to keep the date. The readers will know the exact date which helps them keep track. On the other hand, it’s wise to remove the date for old blog posts.
Because when you keep the original date, the readers will notice and think of it as an old post. So, they will quickly switch to other websites. So, don’t keep the dates when you’re refreshing your old posts.
Final Thoughts
There are thousands of blog websites out there. To make yours stand out, you need to utilize everything you have in your arsenal. That’s why you can’t leave out your old blog posts. Update them. Soon, you will see a huge boost in traffic.
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