Did you know that it's really important to regularly check your old blog content and make sure it's up to date?
In 2010, Google introduced the Freshness Algorithm. Google likes new and fresh content, but it also really loves long-standing content that you keep up to date. That includes things like outbound and inbound links, your information, and your graphics too. It can earn you some big SEO points! We LOVE POINTS!!! ;)
Updating blog posts can be something many of us forget about ... why? Partly because we're so busy that we just overlook what we've written and posted in the past, partyly because we think it doesn't matter - it's old news anyway, and party because we're focused on producing new content ... whatever the reason, it's a mistake to forget to refresh!
Outdated content, broken links, content that is no longer relevant damages your reputation with Google and you could see yourself slide backwards down that slippery slope in the search results - and it could so easily be fixed by just updating your old posts!
So what do you do to fix it? What are the steps you need to take to make sure this doesn't happen to the content you worked so hard on?
How to update old blog posts:
- Some of your blog posts will be so easy to update simply by checking the date of information and making sure it's relevant. Deleting the bits that are not. As much as we strive for evergreen content, ( the content we write that continues to be endlessly relevant), there are always a few things that are tired and stale and need a little update.
- Check your stats, check your studies that you've referenced, are there some more recent ones you can use instead?
- Have you used screenshots? Consider replacing the screenshots with more recent ones, I have a number of blog posts with screenshots of how to do things on Facebook, and of course the platform went through a major overhaul in September last year so the screenshots needed to be replaced.
- Add an extra paragraph or two sharing recent updates on a topic. If the changes to the original blog post are substantial, that could be enough indication to Google that you're providing fresh information to crawl.
- Sometimes the only update a post needs is more. This is especially true of list posts - which we do a lot of! Maybe your list of 12 top tips on a particularly topic were the best top tips THEN ... but what about now? Sometimes a major update is required, and you need to change your top tips and add more.
- Images - do they need updating? Perhaps there are NONE and adding images (optimised, named correctly, meta descriptions done) would be a great addition to your blog?
- Have you added your image for your blog to Pinterest? Get traffic to your site by sizing correctly for Pinterest, and linking to your website.
- While little SEO tweaks on their own may not be enough to trigger a “freshness” boost from Google, when you're updating a blog post, give your SEO a little love.
- Look at your primary keyword. Does the keyword make sense? Have you ensured it's in your title, meta description, image name, and a few places throughout your blog post content?
- Have an alt tag set? Pinterest uses your alt tag as a description for your pin by default, so you definitely want some meaningful text there!
- Are you including internal links throughout your site? Update your blog posts by adding relevant links to your older content to ensure your website visitors are constantly encouraged to read more of your content. Rather than have all your posts link to OLD content, link to some FRESH content!
Google loves FRESH. Google loves NEW!
Update and repurpose old content, and by following the tips above, improve your SEO, improve your images and graphics, post to Pinterest (a great search engine in its own right!) and see the results of your efforts!