Updating old content often is a smart strategy. It helps improve your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. It also improves your website’s overall performance.

Refreshing your old content can increase website leads, improve conversions, and boost organic search views.

HubSpot analyzed its content and found something interesting.

• 76% of their monthly blog views came from old blog posts.
• 92% of their monthly blog leads originated from the same old posts.
• 46% of their monthly blog leads came from just 30 blog posts.

They publish 200 blog posts every month. They have nearly 6,000 total posts on their blog.

It was their ‘light bulb moment,’ and it should be yours too.

In this blog article, you’ll learn why you should update your old content. And you’ll get tips to help you do it.

Update your old content often to improve your SEO

I aim to publish two articles each week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

How often do I update my old content? Not enough.

I don’t have a team like the New York Times Bestselling author Neil Patel does to update historical blog posts. His team updates 90 articles a month.

That’s okay. If you have a small team, you can update old content in between creating new stuff. You can also update it if you are doing it all by yourself, like me.

There are different levels of updating content.

You can adjust a couple of sentences and update old stats. To make your content even more compelling, rewrite many articles. Update a handful of paragraphs. Add images and videos. You can improve internal linking and incorporate a few valuable keywords.

There is no metric or magic bullet for how much content you should update. It is essential to update historical content.

It should become part of your daily, weekly, or monthly routine. As a content creator, ingrain it into your daily, weekly, and monthly habits.

Why update content for SEO?

Updating old blog posts with new content and images can increase organic traffic by as much as 106%.

Additionally, 51% of companies say that updating old content has proven to be the most efficient tactic implemented.

Freshness is one of the factors search engines use to judge the quality of content. Fresh content has been an essential ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm since Google announced its freshness update in 2011.

Updating your historical content changes its appearance on the results page. This happens because Google displays the publish date.

A more recent date makes a better impression. Searchers are more likely to click on content published within a couple of days or weeks. This is compared to content that’s months or years old.

Furthermore, more frequent updates of your content will encourage Googlebot to index your website more often. A Googlebot has a limit on the number of pages it’s capable of crawling every day. It gives priority to newer content.

Finally, updated content will allow you to re-promote it via social media. This will result in extra social media shares and inbound links.

Ready to give your older content a new lease on life? Here are some things you should do.

10 simple yet powerful tips to update old content for SEO

Let’s dive into how you can best update old content for SEO.

1. Choose what content to update first

Not all of your content is successful. Content diminishes its value over time. One of the most effective approaches is to find the content that generates the most traffic.

Use your Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and marketing automation tools, like Netpeak Spider, HubSpot, or Marketo.

Review your Google Analytics account statistics to find which content is performing well and which is not.

For starters, take a six-month date range. It is most likely that the content performing well is optimized for long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords do better with search engines because they are precise and less competitive. It is easier to rank for them.

What content should you update first?

Here are several approaches you can take when you can’t decide which content to update first.

• Single out the posts that rank well for keywords that are being searched and with the right intent.
• Go to your Google Search Console to check the average monthly searches and average search volume for your targeted keywords. When these two metrics decrease, you should review your keyword strategy.
• Annually, review the old posts to find content with outdated data. Find posts that can be optimized with high-frequency and missed keywords.

2. Update or remove your thin content

Thin content is content with little or no value. Write at least 300-word articles. Make sure your articles give depth.

Here are some questions you should consider when fixing thin content:

Do you really need to add more words?

If you can convey the message in a few hundred words, through images or videos, it is enough.

For example, one of my blog posts, “The Right Way to Google Yourself [Infographic],” is one of my shortest posts. It is only 500 words.

Despite its length, it is one of my most popular blog posts. It helps that I included an infographic.

Don’t add words just to add words. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Think of the user experience instead. People would rather have the answer to their questions right away.

Does your article or page add value?

Looking back on it now, the piece of content you created a while ago provides little to no value.

If that is the case, you should remove it. Alternatively, set up a 301 redirect to the most relevant link on your website.

Does the old article or page exist on your social media pages?

Your outdated content exists on your social media profiles. You should remove the social media post that originally promoted it. For example, you don’t want people to review your social media feeds and see your old content.

3. Remove your duplicate content

Duplicate content creates problems for search engines and negatively impacts your SEO strategy.

Duplicate content is information that is identical or nearly identical across one or more domains. This poses a range of threats.

4. Find and fix your broken links

A broken link is one that points to a nonexistent web page, file, or image. In such cases, a server should be set up to return 404 or 410 response codes.

Broken links create a poor user experience. Search engines don’t want to give users a bad experience.

5. Simplify your content

Remove fluff words and avoid using complex words that impair the perception of information. If your sentence sounds awkward, you are probably using passive voice.

A passive voice uses more words and can be vague. Using an active voice results in shorter, sharper, and easier-to-read sentences.

Active voice helps your reader gain a stronger connection to your call to action.

6. Make your content more actionable and helpful

Actionable content is content that can instantly be acted upon by readers. Actionable and helpful content guides readers through a process with clear, step-by-step instructions.

It provides value by pointing to examples and tools. Furthermore, this approach addresses the reader’s needs. It also solves their problems and answers the questions they are asking.

To make your content more actionable, add interactive elements.

Some suggestions on key elements:

• Interesting and engaging content. A survey or poll, a quiz or assessment, a calculator or tool, an infographic, a video, or a slideshow.
• Add ‘proof’ points. These points are facts, statistics, data, and expert quotes.
• Better formatting. It helps readers digest your content more easily. Use ample whitespace and include visuals to break up the text.

7. Combine your content into pillar pages

The way people search has changed. This impacts how you organize your content. People are submitting longer and more conversational search queries.

With Google’s introduction of Google’s knowledge panels, featured snippets, and local rankings, a searcher’s behavior is changing.

As a result, these changes have given way to the rise of pinball searches. Since today’s search results pages have many complex layouts, users don’t always process search results sequentially.

They move their attention across the page more than they did before. It means that content creators and SEO professionals need to improve at addressing gaps.

What will stop a searcher from getting the information they need from your website page?

Your website should be organized into distinct main topics. It should tackle as many relevant searches as possible related to a specific issue.

One way to do this is to create a pillar page.

The rise of pillar pages

A pillar page typically covers a specific topic in depth.

For example, you write a pillar page about video. A piece of content on that pillar page includes information about YouTube. This is a more specific keyword within the broader topic of video.

To create a pillar page, you can bring together or cluster topic areas into a pillar page.

If you have a lot of topics about SEO, you can combine your articles on different aspects of SEO.

These aspects include on-page, technical, and off-page SEO. You can combine them into one SEO pillar page. When you have a pillar page, you can link other related blog posts to it.

When you have a pillar page, you can connect other related blog posts to it via links.

Google is now better at understanding the intent behind search queries. It also understands the true meaning of a phrase.

Hence, it is crucial to think beyond the combination of letters and words. Google wants you to cover a topic more broadly.

Pillar pages will help you with semantic SEO. They will help you improve for the general or cluster topic. Not just the specific phrase. Pick a primary keyword phrase.

Recognize the related phrases connected to the primary one. It’s vital to answer as many questions as possible throughout your content on that broader topic.

8. Improve your headlines

This study suggests that people are unlikely to read your content linearly or in its entirety. This means that most people scan your blog articles.

They examine the most prominent parts to find the specific information they need at that moment. They also try to gain a general understanding of the blog post.

To address this, use a clear content structure, supported by headlines and targeted keywords.

The power of compelling headlines

Just because you have a great headline, it doesn’t mean your content will be popular. If you want your content to be found in search engines, use a relevant keyword that accurately describes your content.

Using keywords throughout the content helps search engines understand that your headline accurately reflects the article.

The headlines should be informative, convey a sense of urgency, and be distinctive. Writing compelling headlines helps you grow your website traffic.

Great writing makes your content more shareable. Excellent writing helps you get found on search engines.

To help you analyze how well you have written your headlines, I recommend using the Co-Schedule Headline Analyzer tool.

9. Make your content more evergreen

If you don’t have much time to update your old content for SEO, focus on creating evergreen content. This is a more effective approach. This approach also helps keep your newer content fresh as the content ages.

Evergreen content is one of the most valuable types.

Why?

It never ‘gets old.’

Some examples of evergreen content include tutorials, how-to guides, lists, testimonials, and glossaries of terms or phrases.

If you have added a specific date or time frame, make sure that you update your content appropriately. Go back and revise the date when it becomes too old.

10. Update your call to actions (CTAs)

As your content ages, the calls to action you included no longer be up to date. When reviewing CTAs, you can:

Add more power words – emotionally tinged words that go along with persuasion – to both your CTAs and your content surrounding the CTAs

Include ‘my’ instead of ‘your’ and apply the ‘I want to’ principle. Add trust signals, like privacy assurances, to give your readers a sense of security.

Use the language that speaks directly to your audience. Talk about key benefits, not features.

Bringing it all together

As you create more content, one hard truth becomes impossible to ignore. Not everything you publish will succeed. Some posts will take off. Others will fall flat.

That’s the nature of content marketing. But here’s the difference between average creators and great ones: the great ones don’t just move on.

• They diagnose.
• They refine.
• They give their underperforming content a second chance to shine.

Every blog post, video, or guide you create has a shelf life.

Data gets outdated over time. Links break. Competitors outpace you. What once ranked high starts slipping into the abyss of page two.

That’s why updating old content is not a chore, but rather a growth strategy that improves SEO.

When you refresh your articles with new insights, current statistics, and sharper writing, you breathe new life into your assets. You’ve already invested time and energy into these assets.

Even better, search engines like Google and Bing notice.

They reward fresh, relevant content by crawling your site more often. This boosts your visibility. It also helps you climb higher in search results.

Before creating your next post, take a look back.

Some of your best-performing content is hidden under a layer of digital dust. It is just waiting for you to clean it up. Update content to improve SEO.

Let your old content work for you again.

An earlier version of this blog article appeared on the Netpeak Software blog.

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