Some argue that old or mature blog posts are more valuable than new posts because they experience a higher volume of organic traffic and shares. Writing useful and effective blog posts can be challenging and time-consuming. Therefore, they should be seen as an investment and mustn’t go to waste. Your content marketing strategy should include driving traffic to older blog posts in addition to new ones. Many of these older blog posts should be generating search results, but they may need some updating.
For your older blog posts to remain relevant, assuming they are good, they must be updated and refreshed to ensure they don’t lose their search value and lose credibility. Here are four reasons why you should refresh old blog posts:
Improve Search Engine Ranking and Organic Traffic
You may notice in Google Search Console that a blog you wrote in 2018 is getting some organic traffic. Yay. But when you analyze the stats, you may determine that your content sits on the second or third page.
Making a list of blog posts with ‘potential’ is an excellent start to your content refresh strategy. Refreshing these blogs with updated content and current SEO strategies can help you bump up your search engine ranking position and, therefore, increase organic traffic. Also, Google Search Console will provide you with a list of keywords people searched to land on your blog. Review these keywords. You may even discover new terms to focus on that will produce better results than your original keyword. You may also realize the search intent for this content is different than expected.
Once your blog content is refreshed, you can submit the URL in Google Search Console to request re-indexing. This will tell Google that you have freshened up the content.
Be a Thought-Leader with Fresh and Relevant Content
“When it comes to improving content performance, marketers report that SEO (67%) and updating or repurposing existing content (51%) are the most effective methods.” (SEMrush, 2020). Out-dated information and broken links make your site seem unreliable and neglected to your readers and Google. It is not a secret; Google likes fresh content. To gain Google and your readers’ trust, you must ensure your content remains accurate and current. You want to be that go-to pet-related resource in your area. Use your blog to demonstrate it by providing the best and most recent information.
When readers know they can trust your content, your blog posts are more likely to be shared and gain backlinks. Just because you haven’t posted new blogs recently doesn’t mean people aren’t finding your old blogs through search engines. These old blogs must be revamped or deleted, or it could harm your website as a whole.
Improve the reading experience for your viewers
If you started blogging a few years ago, there is a good chance that the structure is horrible. If your blog isn’t user-friendly, that will damage your strategy as nobody will want to read it. Easy to read blogs should contain between 600 and 1000 words. The proper use of heading tags, image optimization, sentence and paragraph structure, and internal and external links are essential parts of proper blog structure. If you have a poorly structured blog post that is generating organic traffic, a refresh could produce big results.
A blog that runs long with no breaks in between is hard to read and near impossible to skim. If it is difficult for your readers to digest, you can bet Google will have trouble crawling your post. Your blog should improve your reputation and credibility, not hurt it. When someone lands on your article, make sure the reader can easily find what they are looking for.
Save Time By Repurposing Content
Pumping out new blogs weekly or bi-weekly can be difficult on your own when running a pet business. One great benefit of refreshing your old blogs is that the content is already written! Refreshing and updating your old content is much less time consuming, so you will be able to give your clients informative content quicker. Seasonal blogs are a great example of content that can benefit from a refresh. Once refreshed, you now have new content to share on social media and add to your newsletter.
It is crucial that you don’t just refresh your blogs and let them sit. You must drive traffic to get the full benefit. Remember, Google likes you once others like you first. Providing consistent high-quality content improves the reputation of your pet business.
If you have a bunch of out-dated blog posts, it is time to do an audit to determine which need to be refreshed and which need to be deleted. Remember, if you delete old posts, be sure to set up a 301 redirect. If you need help with refreshing your old blogs, check out our Blog and Blog Refresh Plans. We run old blogs through our extensive checklists to ensure they are relevant and boost their potential.
Erika Godwin is the President of Barketing Solutions and the Co-Founder and CMO of ProPet Software, an industry-leading kennel management software. Erika has over 8 years of experience with WordPress and graduated from Elmira College in 2009 with a BS, Business Administration- Marketing and Management. View Erika’s Full Bio.
