How updating old content can improve your SEO

In an ideal world, every article you put out there would shoot to number 1 spot and dominate the SERPs. The reality is however different. Not every piece of content you publish will bring in consistent organic traffic.

Content marketers are always generating new ideas and content. Content that generates consistent organic traffic- like <a href=”https://www.canzmarketing.com/evergreen-marketing”>evergreen</a>, should be the aim of every content marketer. But there’s no harm in putting the brakes on new ideas and revisiting the previously published work.

In this article, you’ll learn how updating outdated content can boost your rankings, improve SEO, and help you hit those marketing goals faster.

Why update outdated content?

Creating fresh content takes a lot more time than refurbishing old content. Dedicated time and resources to create new content may not be in every brand’s interest. However, there are a lot of perks that come with updating outdated content.

1. Bring freshness to your content

Any content, no matter how good, loses its spark over time. Freshness is one of the ranking factors of Google, on which it judges the content’s quality. Doing so can give your content a facelift and subsequently boost your ranking and traffic.

This is not only applicable to single pages but your whole website. You now have successfully updated older content, in addition to creating new content. This is a great way to compete with your competitors who are only focused on creating new blog material.

2. Improved SEO

Content loses its relevancy and value over time. Search engines are designed in such a way that they find what users want accurately. A relevant, fresh piece of content is given priority over older pieces. Outdated content also tends to fall in ranking. Over time, a lot of old content will ultimately start having a negative ranking effect on your whole website. By making an effort by updating old content, you are showing a search engine that your content is still relevant, updated, and accurate. Search engines are also changing their algorithms frequently – in 2021, the user experience will form a crucial ranking factor for the websites. The more updated your content is, the better experience it will provide to the user

3. Boost audience engagement

Think from the reader’s mind. What if you stumble upon an old and stale content? You will probably hit that back button on the browser and open something fresh and up-to-date. This is a common browsing behavior. Fresh and relevant content inspires trust and engagement. It also has a higher chance of ending up on social media. SEO-friendly content is something that drives more traffic, sales, and engagement.


4. Increases Your CTR

When content is updated, it changes the way it shows up in the SERPs. When the date on the content is of the current year, it makes a much better impression than a date of many years ago.

This increases the rate of clicks that the content receives – the click-through rate (CTR) goes up.
Making updates to old content also changes the way it shows up in search engines.

5. Keeps your website’s SEO updated

Content forms a crucial part of the whole SEO strategy of a brand. Outdated content decreases the chances of your brand to gain more visibility. That’s why being in Google’s good graces is important for your business. Improving your old content gives Google the impression that you mean business and care about your readers. After all, content is not targeted towards Google but the users.

Also, more frequent content updates will get Google to index your website more. It gives the search engines impression that they can expect frequent content changes so the crawlers can swing by more often.

Rebranding your blog content allows you to re-promote it, leading to additional social media engagement, inbound leads as well as organic traffic. All these things just by freshening up your outdated content pieces.

6. Takes less effort

Treating content as a product has many benefits. Like a product, content also has different life cycles like ideation, creation, and promotion. Optimizing your existing content takes less effort than creating a fresh piece. Also, if your new content is superb in terms of SEO but existing content is stale, there will be a tug of war for ranking between both these contents. So make sure your old content is also SEO optimized. As a growth marketer, your job should be to give minimum effort to achieve maximum results, and updating your existing content does just that!