Refresh Old Blog Posts For More Pageviews
There comes a time when it makes sense to refresh old posts for lots of reasons. May be you've finally nailed your voice or you've switched themes and the formatting on old posts is messed up. Or maybe your brand has change its visual style or you learned SEO and want to fix your old posts.
When you take the time to go back and refresh your old blog posts, you'll find that they can become traffic magnets for your website.
How To Discern Which Blog Posts Need a Refresh
The best way to figure out which blog posts need tending to is to go through your analytics and find the posts that don't have much traffic and/or have a high bounce rate.
But while you go through these old blog posts and you find yourself having an urgent need to delete them all, I'm gonna caution you against doing that. They are old posts that have age that Mr. Google likes and works to your advantage for SEO. As well as if you're getting some traffic, that's better than no traffic.
Oh, and keep the URL the same!
You can refresh these posts to be more engaging and relevant to where your business is now.
If the post is totally random and makes no sense in living on your website, then go ahead and delete it, but also create a 301 Redirect so if someone comes through that link that visitor is directed to somewhere on your website that isn't an error page.
Your next step is after you identify which old blog posts need refresh is to also figure out the keywords that each post is ranking for. You can figure this out from your Google Search Console. From those results, choose the one you will be targeting in your post.
Update Information In The Content
Can you fill in gaps or add more information to the blog post? Are there typos or grammar errors that you can correct? Has more information come to light or have you gained more knowledge since you wrote this post originally? Is this a trend post that you can make a timeless post?
Add Content Upgrade To Grow Your Email List
Is is possible for you to add a content upgrade that will help your audience as related to this post? Maybe a worksheet or checklist? Having multiple content upgrades helps attract new subscribers to your email list.
Add New Email Sign Up Forms
This relates to the last item and even if you don't have a content upgrade to add, make sure you've got your email list sign up form. You want to make it very easy for people to subscribe to your email list.
Write Alt Text For Any Included Images
Alt Tags is text used to describe images for people who use screen readers as well as for search engine bots scanning the internet trying to interpret your image.
Add Links To Your Related Blog Posts
You may have some relevant newer posts that you want to direct your readers to that are on the same topic or related topic.
Update Social Media Images
Depending on how much time has passed, you may need to change the sizes of your images for social media sharing or if you have installed a new theme with different image requirements.
Update Your Call To Action
Every post should end with a call to action, so make to include one if you didn't have one before or edit the CTA to be more relevant.
Document Your Updates
Create a spreadsheet and make note of when you have updated the blog post, because the process of refreshing old blog posts should become a regular task as you continue to create posts.
You'll also want to take notice of how your post does after you have refreshed it to see how its overall performance improves.
Refreshing An Old Blog Posts Is Really Worth It
Lest you think that when it comes times to refresh an old blog post is a worthless endeavor, I can assure you it's not.
And after it's updated, you can promote it to the world like it's brand spankin' new content!
Hola!👋I'm Alycia. I help eDesigners land dream clients + get profitable with smart online marketing methods. Want in on the only membership group that will help you get organized, get visible AF, and get majorly PROFITABLE? Hell yes, you do. Follow me.
Hola! I'm Alycia Wicker and I help online interior designers grow their business.
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