How to Refresh Old Content and Why You Should Do It
.png)
Not all content can be considered evergreen. Some articles lose relevancy over time, while others become outright inaccurate with neglect. Refreshing your old content can keep it from becoming useless to your organization and help bring in leads for years to come.
In this post, we’ll provide more details about why you should refresh your old content, and what’s involved in getting it done.
Why should you refresh old content?
Trying to figure out if you need to create new content or just refresh what’s already there can be confusing. Here’s a starting point: If your website is already established and has a steady stream of visitors available, then you may need to focus on updating your existing content rather than crafting entirely new content. Your old content is likely already attracting readers and can be improved with additional information, etc. to boost rankings at a faster rate than a new post would be able to match. It’s especially beneficial to update instead of creating from scratch if your old content has a mismatch of traffic and conversions, as you can fix this issue with just a little effort.
Okay, so if you suspect it might be time for a refresh, where do you begin?
How do I refresh old content on my blog?
Refreshing old content is all about making potentially outdated posts relevant and useful again. You can handle this in many ways, but the process normally comes down to filling identified information gaps and better aligning content with your current objectives.
Refreshing the information in a given post can involve adding updated and related information, narrowing the scope to match the most important needs of your readers, boosting visual appeal with the right graphics, or simply modifying the formatting to match your brand image.
You might find it necessary to insert brand mentions where appropriate, add a clear call to action, or clarify an existing prompt to ensure your readers know what their next step should be.
1. Start with a custom SEO content audit
Audits are often looked at with fear and trepidation in the corporate world, as they can signify budget risks due to unforeseen liabilities. Fortunately, SEO content audits are far less ominous. To conduct this kind of audit, all you need to do is examine the existing content on your website. You should be looking for insights into the performance of your content as well as how you can improve it to achieve better results. It’s also helpful to consider what content you should remove from your website to ensure your brand's message remains crystal clear.
Above all else, auditing your SEO content makes it possible for republishing and refreshing opportunities to be identified, then acted upon. Generally, your SEO audit should follow a series of simple steps:
2. Gather data for assessment
Getting a bird's-eye view of your content is a great way to begin an audit. Understanding how many articles, posts, images, etc. you have on your website and what you’ve produced so far can go a very long way toward informing your decisions on improving. It’s especially important that you note the date the content was published or last modified during this process. Without dates, your content is practically impossible to properly update later on. Dates make identifying particularly old or potentially outdated content much easier in practice.
3. Filter and label data
The intel you have on your content is only as useful as the labels and filters you can apply to it. Associating important details such as page views, positions in sales funnels, actions visitors should be encouraged to take, and details worth adding with individual pieces of content helps inform your SEO content refreshing and updating strategy.
4. Act on your data
Once you’ve collected and assessed all of your content data, you can begin to take action. Improving your content overall can mean many things, from deleting off-topic pieces to consolidating separated items into cohesive guides.
Over time, content can grow stale—or worse, utterly outdated. Whenever you discover old content, you should first determine if it offers anything worth keeping as opposed to simply deleting it. If the content in question offers something uniquely valuable, deleting it may actually be a mistake. Instead, consider refreshing it to improve its relevance.
Updating and reposting content revolves around refreshing previously published content so that you can redistribute it to readers as fresh material. This can dramatically expand the reach of your business's existing content and allow for the same core material to reach diverse segments of your potential customer base.
Simplify your process with SaaSpirin
Content creation doesn't need to be difficult, but it's often time-consuming enough to distract from core business objectives. Instead of handling content in-house, why not work with a team of writers who understand your industry and can take care of the content side of your marketing strategy for you? Sign up with SaaSpirin today to give our content creation services a try.