How to Teach Your Old Blog New Tricks

 You wrote it years ago. It did well at the time. People liked it …they clicked and opened, commented and shared. But your readers moved on. And you never looked back. Maybe it’s time to revisit that old blog post, update it and promote it again.

Updating old blog posts has been one of the most effective SEO strategies we’ve found.

We’re not the only ones.

The bloggers that update past content are three times more likely to report “strong results” from content marketing. It’s a powerful strategy for any content marketing program.

Why is it so effective to update old articles?

There are at least five reasons to update an old post then write something new:

• The topic has been vetted because you have data from the first version
• It’s faster to make because some of the research is already done
• It’s higher quality because the updated article goes deeper into the topics
• It’s easier to promote in social media because you’ll know just who to share it with
• It may rank higher in search because the URL may already have backlinks and authority.

In other words, you’ll get better results with less effort. 

Here is our guide for updating content. We’ll show you which posts to revisit, how to update them and finally how to promote updated content. By the time you get to the examples below, it will already be obvious just now effective this content strategy can be.

Which blog posts should you update?

This works well if you’ve been blogging for a while. You have 100+ published articles. You’ve been checking Analytics and you know that some blog posts are getting 10x the results of others. Our goal is to push more articles into that 10x results category. Certain types of articles have the best opportunities to become big winners:

• Articles that almost rank high. They could become traffic magnets with a little boost.
• Articles that are already high ranking traffic magnets, but at risk of being surpassed by rivals.
• Articles that created a lot of buzz when they were first published
• Research articles that have gone out of date

Two of these are specific SEO opportunities, easily discoverable through our 8-step content marketing audit.

Update articles that almost rank high

You probably have some older content that ranks high …on page two of Google. Find them, improve them and within a few days, they’ll likely bump up to page one of Google.

Unlike classic key phrase research (find phrases, create content, check rankings) this is Google telling you what phrases to target (check rankings, find phrases, improve content). It’s backwards and way more effective.

The data is in your Google Search Console (GSC) reports. You can access this report directly in GSC, in Google Analytics  or in any rank tracking reports in your SEO tool of choice.

In Analytics, go to the Acquisition > Search Console > Queries report.

Choose a date range that gives you enough data for analysis, usually several months.

Create an advanced filter to show only queries for which you don’t already rank high:

The report will now show you the best SEO opportunities, each of which you can capture by updating the associated page.

Update articles that rank well but are starting to slip

This is the second big SEO opportunity. There are two ways to find them. The first is traffic. Just check changes in traffic over time to any page in the Behavior > Site Content > All Pages report.

Another way to monitor changes in rankings is with SEO software, such as SEMrush or Moz. These aren’t free, but they’ll give you a report that you won’t find in Analytics or Search Console: changes in rankings for specific keywords over time. 

How to update old blog posts for SEO and higher rankings

There are two approaches to updating blog articles, one small and one big. Some bloggers use a light touch and simply update the headline and a few sections. Others go big and actually rewrite the entire post.

We typically take the second approach. Go big and completely overhaul the article.

To take the blog post to the next level, we step back and look at the topic again.

• Is there new research on this topic?
• Has our thinking or approach changed?
• Do we have new examples to include?
• Which visuals could best support this content?
• What influencers should we collaborate with?

In the end, some sentences and sections will be kept, but it’s really a rewrite. The process for blogging is similar to that of any new article, from researching the keyphrase research to designing the final image. Here’s our typical process looks like minute-by-minute.

What is URL Recycling?

By writing a new article where an old article used to live, you are basically recycling the original URL. If that URL has been linked to from other websites, you are leveraging the existing authority of that page, which could be substantial.

You can check to see if a page has been linked to using Google Search Console, which shows you the number of domains that link to a given page.

                                  

Google Search Console

Either way, by reusing an old URL, you can target keyphrases that would otherwise be out of reach for a new post. The URL is “pre-authorized” to rank well if it has been linked to by other websites. The foundation is in place to build higher.

With this in mind, I can imagine a two-step SEO strategy, based on building then recycling URLs.

Publish short-form content that is likely to attract links (infographics, strong opinion, quick research pieces). Don’t worry too much about on-page SEO.

After the URL has attracted links (could be months or a year later) recycle it by writing a long-form keyphrase-focused article at that same address.

Now the page will have both authority and relevance, the two main search ranking factors.

This strategy might be slow (literally 1+ years) but allows the SEO to target impossible-to-rank-for phrases. See example #2 below.

URL best practices for bloggers

Once you start recycling URLs, you’ll quickly realize that all new URLs should be created with this approach in mind. Make these your new rules for making URLs that are easy to reuse later:

Never put a number in a URL

Example: www.website.com/blog/7-url-best-practices

…that’s bad because when update it next year, it may have 12 best practices. If you recycle the URL, they’ll be a mismatch with the title and header.

Never put a format in a URL

Example: www.website.com/blog/url-best-practices-infographic

…that’s bad because you may want to publish an article on this URL later. It may not mostly be an infographic (or webinar or ebook) when you update it next year.

Every article’s URL should be short, simple and descriptive. No numbers. No formats.

This took me years to learn.

How to promote updated blog posts

Rewritten articles have special opportunities that fresh content does not. There are specific content promotion tactics for every channel: search, social, email and influencer marketing.

1. SEO: The keyphrase research is already done

You may have selected the article based on keyphrase performance. We showed this process above. You can use that same analysis to do semantic SEO, incorporating all of the related phrases and subtopics into the new piece.

2. Social: Share with people who shared it last time

Using a paid tool such as Buzzsumo, you can look up the “top shares” of the original version. Scan through, find some good ones, then reach out. Or tag them when you share again.

3. Email: Data-informed subject lines

Social is high-data, low-engagement. Email is low-data, high-engagement. But you can leverage social data to guide email marketing decisions. Find the social posts of the article that were engaged with the most (using Buzzsumo or your social media management tool) and use those words in the email subject line.

4. Influencer Marketing for SEO

Find articles that linked to the original (using SEMrush, Moz, Buzzsumo, etc.) and then let the author know that the article has been updated. They may cover it again, especially if the new version includes updated research. (Related: 29 Ways to Promotee Original Research)

5. Influencer Marketing for Collaboration

The outreach to influencers is easier this time around: “This piece was a big hit, so we’ve decided to revisit it…” or “I’m hoping you’ll contribute to one of our most successful articles…”

Definitely don’t miss the opportunity to collaborate with influencers when updating your content. They can improve the content quality, social reach and backlinks. They also grow your network and make your job a lot more fun. Making friends is the best part of life.