How to Update Old Blog Content
Has your old blog content stopped bringing you traffic? In this post, I’ll cover how to revamp your old blog posts to bring you new traffic!
This post contains affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure here.
Why Update & Revamp Old Blog Posts?
If you are consistently writing blog content, you are bound to grow and evolve. Your writing may improve, and your style could change. Even the entire direction you’ve taken your blog may have changed over time.
Some of your old posts may be downright embarrassing. Have you ever looked back at your old blog posts and cringed?
You may even be tempted to delete them (whatever you do, DON’T DELETE! This can really mess up your sitemaps and confuse Google).
So what to do? I’m here to tell you, those old posts are little diamonds in the rough, just waiting to shine. So don’t delete. Revamp.
You likely have a good base to work with already, so why throw that away?
Let’s Start Revamping!
To begin, read your old post from top to bottom. Jot down a few notes of anything that pops out at you. I’m sure there will be some obvious things you’d like to adjust.
Here are the questions I like to ask myself as I read my content:
1. Are you formatting your posts differently these days?
Maybe you’ve changed how you format your headings and paragraphs. Are you using a different heading size/style/color than you were in the past? Caps vs. lowercase? Regular vs. bold?
Be sure to update your formatting to match your current style to stay consistent and make your content easy to read/visually interesting.
Keeping a cohesive look from post to post makes you look more professional.
Related Reading: How to Make Your Blog Posts More Visually Appealing
2. Is your information/advice still valid?
With Pinterest and social media constantly evolving, it’s important to check your old content to make sure you aren’t giving your readers outdated advice.
Let’s face it, algorithms and technology change often. It doesn’t take long for posts to be irrelevant if they’re not updated regularly.
Update any information that has changed to ensure you stay credible and helpful to your audience.
3. Have you learned more about your old topic?
It’s natural for your knowledge to increase over time. Take time to re-evaluate the original information you provided.
You’ll likely realize your knowledge on the subject has grown and you have more to say. This is the perfect opportunity to provide new insights and tips to your readers.
Google likes long-form content and wants to answer its user’s queries in as few steps as possible. If you can make your post longer and answer more questions that keep users from going back to Google search results, your post will rank higher.
4. Have your writing skills improved?
There’s a good chance your writing skills have improved since writing those early posts. Perhaps you’ve started using a grammar/spell checker or have just evolved in your writing style.
Take some time to make adjustments and improve the readability of your post. Are your paragraphs too long? Paragraphs that are overly long can cause your readers to lose interest.
Keep it short and sweet to keep them focused. White space is your friend!
Double-check that your grammar and punctuation are correct. Poor grammar can really make you look unprofessional and lose the respect of your audience.
Bonus Tip: If you aren’t using Grammarly yet, I highly encourage you to consider it. It’s the World’s leading checker of spelling, grammar, punctuation, and plagiarism. It’s not just for your blog.
Wherever you write on the web, Grammarly will make helpful suggestions. It can truly take your writing to the next level. The better your writing, the more credible you will seem to your readers.
Did I mention they have a free version? Check it out. You won’t be sorry.
5. Have you written any related posts?
As you re-read that old post, you may realize you’ve written another post related to the same topic.
Add links to those related posts where appropriate to drive traffic to more of your content. Keeping your audience on your site longer is great for SEO!
6. Have you joined new affiliate programs?
You may have joined a new affiliate program that relates to your topic. Take the opportunity to add links to those new products or programs that may interest your readers.
Looking for new affiliate programs to join? Check out ShareASale, Impact, Sendowl, or MINE!
Related: 4 Ways to Make Money From Home With Sendowl
7. Are your links working properly?
From time to time, a link may become broken. Sometimes a product you’ve linked to becomes unavailable. Or maybe an affiliate program has changed its links.
A link that takes your readers nowhere can affect your credibility (not to mention it’s super frustrating).
Check to make sure all links are still taking your audience where you say they will.
You can easily use a plugin like Broken Link Checker to do this.
8. Are you happy with your images?
How do your images look? Still fresh and attractive, or old and dated?
Maybe your design skills have improved since you created your images. Or maybe a better image has been added to your favorite stock photo site.
And I can’t stress the importance of having an image that is Pinterest friendly. Please don’t miss out on potential traffic from Pinterest because you don’t have a pin image, with text on it, within your post.
It’s worth your time to design a new main image that’s extra “pinnable”.
Related: How to Write Better Pin Titles
9. Have you filled out your metadata?
This is a mistake I made in my early days. I was excited and rushing to get my content out into the world. I uploaded all my blog images without bothering to fill out the metadata. Rookie mistake!
I was naive and just didn’t know any better. Make sure you’ve filled out your alt text for each image.
To give yourself an extra boost, check out the Tasty Pins Plugin. It is a game changer for filling out your alt text and Pinterest descriptions.
For more information on metadata and alt text, check out my previous post HERE.
10. Can you improve your SEO?
Your SEO skills have also likely improved. Add any useful keywords, tags, and categories you can think of. Do some keyword research and check out the posts of those ranking above you to see where you may be lacking.
And again, make sure your metadata is filled out.
SEO can seem confusing and overwhelming at first. But it is SO important.
If you want to really up your SEO game, check out this post on Debbie Gartner’s easy to understand and implement eBook, Easy On Page SEO.
P.S. She also has a FREE Intro to SEO Course if you have zero budget.
Ta-Da!
That’s 10 things you can do to revamp that old, tired content. You should basically have a brand new blog post at this point!
What’s Next?
• Re-Submit your post’s URL to Google Search Console to let Google know your post has changed and needs to be crawled/indexed.
• Design one or two new pins for the post and share it to Pinterest with a NEW description. This will let Pinterest know it’s a new pin. And Pinterest loves NEW content!
• Reshare your post with new updated images to any other social media platforms you have. Make sure to check if optimal social media post sizes have changed.
Now, get to work revamping those embarrassing old posts! Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do them all at once.
This is a great blogging task to take on when you’ve got writer’s block. When you are feeling stumped for ideas, evaluate your posts using these 10 questions and enjoy feeling like you’ve created brand new content to share and promote 😉
To get the most out of those old posts, be sure to grab our free printable revamping checklist below!
Of course there are many, more advanced ways to update old blog posts. I recently took a training with SEO & Traffic expert Lena Gott where she taught me how to update posts using information gathered from Google Search Console.
I mention this because it was so incredibly valuable, and YOU can have access to the training too.
How?
This was a live training provided to members of the Beyond Pinterest Mastermind group I’m in. The monthly live training calls are amazing and the membership is well worth the price.
Check it out HERE if interested.
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Great post, very valuable and useful info Karen. I’m sharing it to my community. Hugs!
Thanks for the share and the love! Glad you found the post helpful 🙂
So many great tips here for a new blogger!! Thank you! These will keep me busy for a while! Blessings!
Thank you! It’s important to review old blog posts and can often lead to new info and therefore new blog traffic! Win win 🙂
This is very good info. Recently I have been involved with Thrive Themes new SEO product. What I learned was – you’ve written another post related to the same topic. Adding links to those related posts actually is not correct. You are competing against yourself. You can use interlinks but the best thing to do is to combine the two articles where appropriate to drive traffic to more of your content from Google who loves long form content.
Hi Kathryn,
Thanks for the comment 🙂 This is interesting. It’s true that Google loves long form content. But in my experience, linking to our own content is also important, as this keeps readers on our site longer, and therefore reduces our bounce rate…which Google also loves. I’m going to research this further.
I have gone back and revamped a few of my posts but after reading this, I think I should go through all of them. Thank you.
It never hurts to go back and review old blog posts on a regular basis. I almost always find something I can improve on! Thanks for the comment, Karen.
You just gave me so much to think about. I have been wanting to go back through old posts and make some improvements! I think the motivation is now sparked!
Awesome, Jody! So glad to have helped light that spark 😉