How to Update and Improve Your Old Content
In an ever-changing world, sometimes your old content can get left in the dust. Rather than abandoning old posts or just leaving them alone, use these steps to update and improve your content. It’ll provide a boost to your SEO / search engine marketing efforts and offer your users the fresh content they’re craving.
Step 1: Decide Whether the Content Needs a Small Update or Complete Overhaul
Sometimes your old posts will only need minor updates to keep up with new developments relevant to the material. Other times, a whole rewrite may be in order. Reread the content in question and decide the scope of the update. With small changes, you can likely just tackle them head-on but with substantial rewrites, refer to the rest of the steps.
Step 2: Research Again
Since you first published the post, search intent and search terms may have changed. You should check to make sure your post lines up well with those changes and still compares favorably against the competition.
Step 3: Look for Similarity Between Your Posts
Some overlap between your content isn’t a big deal but you should check to make sure that most of your content isn’t too similar. This can cause a problem of keyword or content cannibalism. If you find two very similar articles in the review process, consider combining the best of both. Adjust posts so they discuss the same topic in different ways. Get creative with it.
Step 4: Update the Facts
Some content is evergreen and doesn’t cover topics that get updated with new information frequently. Other content isn’t so lucky. If there’s new information available on the topic in the post, you should update the piece to include it. You may also want to check for things like prices, time-sensitive promotions, and events that are no longer relevant and remove or update them. This process of updating individual details is time-consuming but will build valuable trust with your audience.
Step 5: Consider Other Possible Improvements
Beyond the changes you’ve already made, are there any other improvements you can make to the post? The previous comments may provide some insight into what else readers want from the content. Incorporate the answers to any questions they had into the new article and check out the related searches on Google for more inspiration.
Step 6: Adjust SEO Title and Meta Description
When you make changes to the post, you also need to adjust the SEO title and meta description to reflect those changes.
Step 7: Decide Whether to Keep or Dump Previous Comments
If you made significant changes to the content on the page, you should probably delete the previous comments. They just won’t be relevant to new readers. If not, you might choose to leave them.
Step 8: Update the Date
You should change the date on the post to reflect when you updated it. Users may check to see how recent the content is so you should make sure the publish date shows it’s current.
Publish
The last step is just to publish your new, updated content. Your readers will appreciate that your content is fresh and up-to-date!
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