Many SEO experts and content creators love the idea of evergreen content that continues to generate sales and revenue for years. With that said, it’s still worth refreshing it every now and again, especially if relevant information changes or it’s a piece of content related to a specific date and time.
If you’re somebody looking to refresh old blog posts for better ranking, then this in-depth blog review from Blogger Tuesday is for you. We explore things like why content refreshes matter and how to find underperforming posts so you can improve them. We also look at boosting on-page SEO, republishing best practices, and tracking performance improvements. By the end, you should have a full understanding of how to go about refreshing your old articles to continue driving value for your blog or business.
Why Content Refreshes Matter
Content refreshes matter for all sorts of reasons, some of which we’ve already alluded to in the introduction. It’s worth really internalising why these refreshes are so important. Otherwise, it can be difficult to motivate yourself to go through your old content and fix it up for an audience in the present.
Google loves freshness
One reason to update content is a pure SEO play. Turns out, Google loves freshness. Its algorithm is always searching for novelty that it can put in front of its users. If something looks up to date, then Google is much more likely to rank it highly compared to a blog that you wrote ten years ago, even if the information inside it is just as useful.
Usually, updating is relatively simple. You can run the article through AI, or you can simply ask an AI to read through it and then highlight where it could do with updating based on the LLM’s research.
Boosting existing authority
Updating your content also has the effect of boosting your existing authority. Usually, if a blog post has been published already, it has been indexed and has accumulated backlinks. Perhaps it has even built significant page authority over time, especially if it is several years old and other bloggers have referenced it as a source of information.
The nice thing about updating blogs instead of writing new ones from scratch is that you can build on this existing authority. All you need to do is make the article even better and more compelling, and you can supercharge its ranking. This approach typically works better than trying to start a new article from scratch.
Improve click-through rates
Blog articles live and die on their ability to generate high click-through rates. When users search for a specific post on Google, they usually want information that seems up to date. For example, let’s say they are looking for the best headphones to buy to work with Adobe Premiere Pro. Ideally, they want a list of the best headphones to buy this year, not from 2020 or 2015.
Reverse content decay
In some cases, you can refresh old blog posts to reverse content decay as well. Over time, articles inevitably degrade, and external links can break, with information becoming obsolete. Google knows this, and it includes these factors in its ranking algorithm.
Sometimes 10-year-old articles can hang around for a long time, but these tend to be the exception, not the norm. For this reason, it’s worthwhile going into your content, testing all the links, and seeing which are still functional. If a link doesn’t work, simply replace it with an updated link or get rid of it entirely. As you’re reading through, check for relevance and make sure that the conclusions and recommendations you’re reaching are still helpful to your audience.
Outmanoeuvring competitors
Lastly, it makes sense to refresh your content because it’s a way of outmanoeuvring your competitors. The search landscape is never static, so if you can jolt the algorithm with a freshly updated article, it can be a great way to leapfrog other relevant content in the space and give you a competitive edge. It can also reduce bounce rates, signalling to the Google algorithm that you’re offering high-quality, knowledgeable, and authoritative information.
Finding Underperforming Posts
Now that you understand why it’s a good idea to refresh old blogs, let’s take a look at what you can do to find underperforming posts.
Write these in a list so you can manage your priorities. Don’t assume you have to refresh all old posts with the same urgency. Usually, you don’t.
Review for historical top converters
The first step is to review historical top converters. These are the posts that had the highest click-through and conversion rates. Usually, these are the most valuable targets for upgrading, since they represent a proven formula for getting eyeballs on your pages and driving success. Your content management system (CMS) should provide all this information for you. If it doesn’t, you can use internal systems or even your CRM.
Look for high impression rates and low CTR
You can also tackle the problem from the other side by looking for all of your lowest-performing content and trying to improve it. Be careful with this strategy because you might be flogging a dead horse, but it can be useful if you think you have genuinely good content but there’s just some technical problem with it.
High impression rates and low click-through rates usually mean there’s something wrong with your hook or your title. If you can fix these up, then you may find that your posts perform much better on Google and that their rank slowly rises over time. Try to use a psychological trick of some description, like leveraging a curiosity hook, so that readers want to click the post and learn more.
Look for “striking distance” posts
Another popular tactic is to search for “striking distance” posts. These are posts that appear on page 2 of Google search results or in positions 11 to 20. If you have a post in this area, it usually means that you’re doing something right. It’s not buried on page 17 somewhere, but often a simple tweak can get it onto page 1. It’s just a question of finding what that is.
In a situation like this, you’ll need to be creative. Think about what it is that’s going to compel audiences to click on the link to your post so that you can obtain more traffic and signal to Google that you are writing authoritatively.
Updating Statistics & Examples
Once you start this process, you’ll need to begin updating your statistics and examples. Quoting facts from 2015 is nowhere near as attractive to Google as citing them from sources published in the last year. The search engine prefers to forward its users to content with timely and relevant information.
When you think about it, this makes a lot of sense. People looking for product reviews or regulatory information don’t want to be forwarded to a website with 10-year-old content. Instead, they want the latest and most up-to-date data so they can make decisions right now on the optimal strategy for their business.
Here’s a rough guide on what to do if you want to effectively update your statistics and examples in all of your articles:
Scan your articles
The first thing to do is scan your articles. Most content management systems provide this functionality natively. You can also use AI to pull out more statistics and facts that these basic search-based systems might miss. If possible, link to primary sources for the statistics that you derive. This sends authoritativeness signals to Google and is fair to the originators of the information.
Refresh outdated screenshots or visuals
A slightly more challenging element of this process is refreshing all your outdated screenshots and videos. For example, if you are walking people through tools, the interfaces for these change regularly. You’ll want to ensure that everything is up to date for the current year so that it remains relevant and useful to your audiences.
Remove irrelevant case studies
Sometimes you’ll find that your case studies are irrelevant. For example, there might be some bad news about a company that you’ve covered, and it’s no longer a good example to use to market your products. You might be mentioning defunct companies that have gone out of business, or even using dated cultural references.
In these cases, it’s worth running through everything and seeing if it passes a “sniff test.” If it doesn’t, all you need to do is quickly replace it using AI or accumulated experience.
Verify external data links
Always make sure links to supporting stats are valid. Given the increased monetisation of online content, you may provide that some of your links take your audience directly to a paywall screen. If possible, seek freely available sources as alternatives. Often you can find the same statistic on a generally accessible website.
Improving On-Page SEO
On-page SEO techniques have advanced considerably over the years, and many strategies that are recommended today simply weren’t considered in the past. Because of this, you’ll want to take into account updated and fresh techniques when reviewing your on-page SEO.
Target semantic keywords
These days, Google prefers it if content creators target semantic keywords. These are just keywords that are linguistically related to your target keywords. Google search algorithms are now intelligent enough to understand the different ways that you might be talking about a particular subject matter and incorporate this into its ranking algorithm. This means you no longer need to stuff keywords in the same way that was necessary before. Once you start targeting semantic keywords, it can make your content sound more natural.
Change your internal linking strategy
Where necessary, you will also want to look into whether you should change your internal linking strategy. When you wrote your original post, some of your newer content simply didn’t exist. Citing it could add authority and make it easier for Google to index and understand the structure of your website. It could also be helpful to readers because they can learn more about specific topics based on your latest thinking.
Update the title and meta description
You can also improve your on-page SEO by updating your title tag and meta description. Google search algorithms are becoming better at understanding the content and intention of your content, but it can still be useful to give them pointers like this to boost your organic click-through rate. Google needs help ensuring that it serves up your content to the right users.
Republishing Best Practices
So what are some republishing best practices you should be aware of, and where do some content creators and businesses get hung up? Let’s have a look.
Keep the original URL
While it might sound strange, if you change the title to update it to the present year, it makes sense to keep the original URL. That’s because it’s already accumulated a vast crawl history and is indexed by Google and other major search providers. It could also be the recipient of valuable backlinks, but it’s always worth checking this in a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs.
Use 301 redirects if you change the URL
If you insist on changing the URL (perhaps because you’ve moved your business or website to a different domain), always set up 301 redirects that forward users to your new content. When you set up the new URL, make sure you choose something evergreen. Try to avoid including a date in the URL unless absolutely necessary. This allows you to more freely update the content over time without having to worry about lost backlinks or indexing.
Resubmit to Google Search Console
When refreshing content, many businesses assume that Google will automatically index it and push it out to the public. We recommend against this. Don’t wait for Google to randomly re-crawl all of your site and notice changes. Instead, be proactive and submit your new URL and content to Google Search Console and click Request Indexing. This manual action prompts Google to crawl your pages sooner so that they index faster for relevant keywords.
Update the “last modified” date
Finally, you might want to explore the idea of updating the last modified date, if applicable. Search engines use this as a freshness signal, as discussed above, to determine whether there’s any new content or novel value they can present to their users.
Remember not to fake this part of the process. Don’t try to change the “last updated” meta information unless you really have updated the article in some significant way. Google has advanced techniques for checking this, and it can downrank publications if it believes that the update is superficial.
Tracking Performance Improvements
Once you refresh an old blog post, the final step is to track improvements. You need to make sure that all of your effort is going to good use and that you’re getting results. The last thing you want is to spend days or weeks updating content to no avail.
Here are some of the ways you can monitor the impact of your updates so you can ensure you’re driving real results:
- Set a realistic evaluation window
The first step is to set a realistic evaluation window. This is how long you wait before you start applying metrics to your efforts. Trying to evaluate them too early can lead to confusion and missed opportunities.
- Establish baseline metrics
Make sure your baseline metrics relate to the purpose of refreshing your content. Before you hit publish, record its current ranking, organic traffic, and impressions. Wait 60 to 90 days, then take a new reading to see whether traffic increased. Don’t expect traffic to increase for every article, but ideally you should be looking for a 20% to 50% improvement on average across the board.
- Monitor engagement rate
Google provides tools like Google Analytics to help you monitor the engagement rate of posts on your blog or website. The engagement rate statistic in Google Analytics goes beyond conventional bounce rates and provides you with more embedded information on your performance. You can use it to check whether the statistics and formatting are up to date and whether you should be using any new media to keep users engaged.
- Keyword ranking movements
Finally, it makes a lot of sense to track keyword ranking movements using Google Search Console or some other dedicated rank tracking tool like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz. This gives you an idea of whether your page ranking improvement efforts were worth it or there’s still more work to be done. Usually, working with the right partners can help you find solutions to dealing with low ranking for specific keywords.
Now you know how to refresh old blog posts for better rankings
Reading this, you should now have a better idea of how to refresh old blog posts for better rankings. Always take a holistic, multifaceted approach that enables you to make the best use of your time. Refreshing old posts tends to be significantly more time- and cost-efficient because you don’t need to start rewriting content from scratch. For more blogging tips, visit Blogger Tuesday.
