how to refresh old blog posts

You’ve done it! You have a great site, and you’ve had a ton of traffic. …But lately, your viewership has begun to slip. The anxiety starts to sink in as you rack your brain for fresh, new content. And you wonder, “What do I do now?” No need to panic! It turns out, you’re in luck. If you need time to get those creative juices flowing before you start on that awesome new piece, there’s a solution you might have overlooked. What is it? Your own, already-published content. That old content sitting in your archives! ? That’s right. There’s a gold mine right beneath your feet — you’re sitting on old content that could be incredible with a little glow-up and some tweaking. You might ask, “But how do I update old content?” Fear not. It’s easier than it sounds. In today’s blog I’ll show you, step by step, the best ways to update your old content to create massive ROI. Ready? Let’s get into it. How to Update Old Content and Create Massive ROI Why Update Old Content? How to Update Old Content: 6 Essential Steps Find the Right Content to Update (Audit Your Content) Edit and Update Inaccuracies, Typos, & Wording Check for Broken Links & Outdated Research Craft a New Headline Update the Images and Copy in Your Content Finesse the Meta Content & CTAs Republishing: How to Show Off Your Updated Content How to Republish Content in WordPress Should You Change the URL? Updated Content is New Content Make Your Old Content Sparkle [bctt tweet=”It pays to focus on creating irresistible new content. But never forget – your old content deserves some extra love, too! @JuliaEMcCoy lays out 6 steps to a flawless old content makeover. ✨” username=”ExpWriters”] Why Update Old Content? You might be thinking here — “But, my content is already perfect and I’ve had a ton of views. Why should I change it?” The truth is, if you’re not updating your old blogs, you’re missing out on more traffic to those posts and more potential new readers and leads. Returning to those killer posts you’ve already spent time and money on is an essential part of improving the ROI and the quality of your site. For our own Write Blog, we’ve updated old content transparently and achieved serious ROI from doing so, like with this gargantuan SEO guide: We earned nine new backlinks and more than 20 new comments on this piece alone after we updated it. As you can see, revitalizing your old content helps keep your site up-to-date, on-trend, and in plain sight of Google’s site crawlers. But what about your loyal readers? Trust me, they will thank you for being a reliable resource for the latest and greatest content. Blogs are now the 5th most trusted source for online information. By staying up to date on the latest information and revamping your old content, readers know they can count on you to keep them in the loop. Besides, you’ve already invested the time and effort to create them, why not make them all that they can be? Source: Andrea La-Rosa Think of it this way… You know that hairstyle your dad or your uncle rocked for years? Well… It’s not quite on-trend anymore. Blog posts are a similar situation. You can still love them, but times have changed and so has the information online. It’s likely that, no matter the topic, there exists new and potentially better information about that subject you so diligently researched. So, stay on trend! Schedule in the time for researching and updating, and see what else has surfaced since you posted. How to Update Old Content: 6 Essential Steps Okay, I’ve convinced you. You’ve decided to refresh your old blog posts. But should you start now? And if not now, when? Everyone asks me this question! The answer is, if you have two or more years worth of content, and you haven’t updated anything within that time frame, you’re missing out on valuable leads that could become conversions. Make it a priority to schedule time to update your blogs every quarter. I recommend updating at least 5-10 pieces per quarter for optimal results. This adds up to some serious ROI if you make the commitment. If you’ve decided the time is now, get your editing pickaxe in hand. ⛏️ Let’s take a look at your previous masterpieces to see what’s worth updating. 1. Find the Right Content to Update (Audit Your Content) A great place to begin a content audit is Google Analytics. There you can find metrics like bounce rate, social shares, and time-on-page. These will help you determine which previous posts are the best-performing, and thus worth updating. To start, open your Google Analytics account. On the left-hand side, go to Behavior. Then, click the Overview button. Next, navigate to the bottom right of the page and click view full report in the bottom right-hand corner. On the next screen, there will only be 10 posts by default. You can change this by going to the bottom of the page and editing the Show rows option to any number you like: 100, or even 5,000. Then, return to the top of the page and click Export. Boom! You now have a perfectly organized list of your posts. From here, look closely to determine which posts have the highest conversion rates, the largest amount of traffic, and the lowest bounce rate. These are your golden nuggets that keep visitors engaged. But what if you don’t use Google Analytics, or what if all your posts have similar stats? Not a problem — there are other ways to determine which posts you should focus on. One way is looking at which of your posts are evergreen. Evergreen content is content that will provide unique value for your visitors, generate traffic, and result in conversions for the foreseeable future. If you’re unsure what falls into that category, think about the pieces that took you some time to craft. Examples … Read more