Are you a business that publishes a regular blog? It is easy to forget about your blog posts once they are published and move on to the next one.
However, while publishing a regular blog is a great way to improve your SEO and build customer confidence, your posts do not retain their potency forever.
Older work will get lost in archives and can become irrelevant, leading to a loss in traffic.
It is vital for your SEO to keep your content fresh. This guide will look at why you need to update content and how to keep it relevant.
Why update your content?
Of course, it is essential to avoid your content disappearing from google search results. However, updating content also can improve your website’s UX (User Experience).
Here are some convincing arguments for why you should update your content.
Improve SEO
Updating content has some significant benefits regarding SEO, rankings and organic traffic.
Beat the Competition: Did you know that when your competition updates a page, they may gain up to 4 positions in SERPS lasting up to 18 months? You can reduce this loss by updating your older content regularly.
Create Effective Content: Over time, the facts you have included in a post may have become less relevant or have been superseded by new studies or events. By adding in the latest evidence, you ensure that your content continues to be valuable to your audience, which will help you rank higher.
Exploit existing links: You can capitalise on any backlinks earned on older posts by refreshing them rather than creating a new post and having to build link opportunities again.
Create Newer Dates: Particularly for search snippets, people are more likely to click on those published more recently. Although it is difficult to quantify, people are naturally drawn to newer information.
Improve UX (User experience)
A poor UX will increase bounces and lose potential leads. Updating content ensures that users find what they are looking for and removes the chance of having broken links.
Use analytics to search for broken links and measure your bounce rate on older pages to identify where you have problems.
What content needs updating?
There are several ways to identify expired content.
Decline in rankings
Monitoring your rankings is a vital aspect of SEO. For content pages, a loss is often due to outdated material.
Are you being outranked by competitors’ newer pages? Then, it is time to update your content.
Decline in traffic
You can use Google Analytics to identify your pages with fewer clicks based on organic searches. Compare the results to previous comparable periods to spot any pattern of decline.
Link equity
Any content that has developed natural links but receives little organic traffic is an issue. You may find that updating the content will optimise it for SERPS and clicks.
You may also find that editors have begun removing links where the content is very old. Linkchecker is an easy-to-use backlink monitoring tool that will help you spot negative trends promptly.
How to update content
We do not recommend simply republishing old content to get a more recent date. Google reinforce that republishing content without any significant changes is against their guidelines.
Let’s explore the best ways to update your content.
How to Add New Information
While Google wants “significant” information to be added, they do not quantify the amount of new information required.
Using your best judgement, you can try the following ideas:
- Add fresh statistics or data
- Update source links
- Update images and videos
- Refer to new trends and events
- Link to your more recent content
- Add new Call to Actions
- Optimise keywords
Set Up a Content Updating Schedule
It is impossible to keep on top of outdated content if you do not set up a schedule to review it.
Here are some ideas for establishing an effective content-updating routine.
- Consider article updates as crucial as new articles and value them as much.
- Ensure a percentage of your published content is updated. E.g. of every six published articles, one should be updated content.
- Spend time analysing performance using appropriate analytics.
- Make a note on your calendar to carry out a blog update regularly.
- Use social media to promote updated content.
- Include updates to static pages such as your Home page and About page.
If your business is looking for help with SEO, digital marketing or writing content, please get in touch with us at SEO & Web. All the content and copy we create at SEO & Web is thoroughly researched, proofed, and factually accurate.
