How To Freshen Up Old Blog Posts To Increase Your Traffic
Saturday, November 21, 2020
Bringing out regular content is great for your blog, but don't forget about the old blog posts that have gotten you this far. Keeping your content fresh and exciting is important for traffic. You don't want blog posts to be sharing outdated or even incorrect information because it's a year old. You also don't want to be losing traffic because your post isn't hitting the spot. Updating old blog posts can be a long, painstaking process, but it's worth it in the long run! Here are some easy ways to refresh your old blog posts, give them new life and attract new traffic!
Why You Should Refresh Your Old Content
Before you read this post, you may be wondering why it's necessary to update your old blog posts. There are lots of reasons why you should update old content:
- You can make the post more SEO optimised
- You can attract new traffic
- Your information may be outdated, so you're giving incorrect advice
- It can improve your blog post's quality
- You can achieve better navigation throughout your blog
- Broken links are fixed, possibly increasing your DA score
- Your content will be more relatable for new audiences
Change The Images For Your Blog Posts
I've been blogging for a while now, and I recently went through a massive blog post revamp. I edited around 50 posts and am continuing to do that. One thing I really disliked was the images that were used in some of my posts. Some of the images were poor quality (I'd taken them myself and thought adding a filter made it look good... I was very wrong). Some of the images weren't relevant anymore. I also threw Pinterest pins in some of my posts to encourage shares.
If you're looking to refresh your blog posts, change the images. It makes them look new, as the image isn't recognised by your readers. You can also get rid of photos that don't look good anymore. I took out the pins that made my posts look tacky and hard to read. When you change the photos, make sure you add the alt text to the photo so you can gain traffic through image searches. It's also better for your SEO. I changed the image to a lockdown blog post to make it more "evergreen", and it's now one of my most popular blog posts!
Give Your Title A Keyword Update
Changing the title is a great way to freshen up a blog post. You must keep your URL the same as before. When you change the title of your blog post, there are several ways you can make it more readable and clickable. To do that, you may want to add words like "guide", "checklist" or "the best" to attract attention. You want to grab your reader's attention without being too clickbait. Make sure your title reflects what is in your post!
When updating your title, you should also switch up your keywords. I like to use MOZ to determine what keyword suit my blog posts. The better your keywords are, the more likely you'll gain organic traffic. Keywords are important for organic traffic but don't stuff your title with them. It looks spammy and will impact you negatively instead.
Fix Links & Add New Ones
When updating your blog posts, try to add in new blog post links where you can. Every time I post something new, I go through my old posts to see where I can link the new content. I also try to put in affiliate links as it increases my chances of a sale. Adding in links improves your blog navigation and can improve your DA score. When adding a link, you could either hyperlink it on a relevant keyword or do this where you see fit:
Linking out to other reliable sources is also good for readability. If you find a reliable study that backs up your blog post, link it! But make sure the link works. There's nothing worse than clicking on a link and being redirected because the page no longer exists. Regularly checking your blog for broken links is a great way to freshen up your content. You can change them, add in other working links or see if you can change it to an affiliate link!
Improve The Readability
Before hitting publish, you're supposed to proofread your blog posts. No matter how many times I read a post, I always seem to miss a SPAG mistake. To freshen up your content, read through your blog posts and change things that don't make sense. Sometimes you can read a sentence with fresh eyes and realise it doesn't quite make sense. You may also notice that your writing style has changed over time. That's normal, but you may want to change paragraphs to fit the way you write now.
While improving your content's readability, you could change the paragraphs or add in a navigator. To freshen up a post, split the paragraphs into more readable chunks. At the start of your post, you may also want to have an interactive contents page which takes your reader to the relevant paragraph, rather than them scrolling through. A navigator is optional, but you should consider it.
Add Meta Tags For Your Posts
If you've edited your blog post and its title, you should consider adding or editing the meta description. The meta description is a brief summary of your blog post and is displayed when you search up something. It's useful as it contains keywords and can help readers organically find your content. Make sure you have a meta description for every post and page on your blog. It's good for SEO purposes. If you're going to freshen up a blog post, make sure you change the meta tag, so it's relevant to your post.
Update Information & Add New Ideas
Information changes all the time, and it's down to you to keep your readers up to date. If you include facts and statistics, keep them updated. You can also say "last updated" to notify when you last checked your statistics. If you have years in your blog post, try to take them out. For example, you may have a "Christmas Gift Guide 2020", but it's suitable to use for every Christmas. Taking out the number and reposting it the next year will give your content a new burst of traffic.
You can also add new information and ideas. If you have a list blog post, add more to the list. It will give your readers new ideas to consider. For example, I have a post about blog content ideas. Every month, I add new blog post ideas so that my readers never run out of things to write about! Adding things is a great way to ensure that readers keep coming back to see what has changed.
Change The Purpose Of The Post
When I first started blogging, I wrote a post about my Disney recommendations. When this post didn't take off, I decided to change the purpose of it. Rather than listing my "10 current favourite Disney Plus shows", I made a huge list of all the films and shows I'd recommend. I even created a little freebie checklist. It's still a post about my Disney favourites, but it's more relevant to people.
If you want to freshen up your content, see if you can repurpose blog posts that weren't as successful as you'd first thought. If you did a food taste test, see if you can add in a little recipe. If you reviewed a product, can you turn it into a monthly favourites post? Or even list 20 reasons why you should be using "insert thing here". Changing the purpose of your blog post can bring it back to life and interest more people. There are lots of things you can turn even the worst of blog posts into!
You should regularly update your blog content, especially when it comes to outdated information. Why waste a blog post and miss out on traffic when you could spend 30 minutes updating it and give it a whole new life? When you start updating posts, you may find they get more traffic, especially if you create new pins to go along with them. Have you been updating your blog posts? How do you like to freshen them up? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
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5 comments
Thanks for sharing, I'm in the process of updating my old posts these tips are great :)
ReplyDeleteNic | Nic's Adventures & Bakes
Great advice, Em. I'm in the process of going through all my old post. I'm now self hosting so I'm working on improving my SEO.
ReplyDeleteFlora ¦ www.florasmusings.com
I'm still a fairly new blogger for freshening up old blog posts --- I need more blog posts and content up on my blog! But thanks for the heads up, really helpful tips! I badly want to know how to check for broken links and how to fix them for free. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletewww.lifebeginsattwenty.com
You are totally amazing and smashing this blogging game love! Can't wait to see what else is to come xx
ReplyDeletethis post was so helpful to read and so true! i love revamping old posts. i actually did this with a few blogtober posts because i felt like my oldest blog post deserved more attention now that i have more of a following.
ReplyDeleteand we should be sharing all our old posts. we worked hard on them and they deserve some love.