Refreshing existing content is a smart strategy for maximizing your website’s performance without constantly churning out new content. It’s a quicker process than creating entirely new pieces, and it can help maintain or even boost your rankings in search engine results.
4 Reasons Why a Content Update Is a Good Strategy
There are several reasons why updating content makes sense. They include:
It’s a quicker process than writing an entirely new piece.
It helps maximize your return on investment in the Ws Number List original piece (prioritize spending time on what’s working and doubling down on a refresh rather than risk developing something new).
Refreshing existing content can help maintain or even boost your ranks in the SERPs.
Refreshing your content can help boost your site authority, indicating to Google that you’re relevant and up-to-date.
Which Content Should You Refresh?
Which content you pick for a refresh depends on your aim and the original piece of content’s purpose. If a piece was developed to raise awareness of a particular issue (top-of-the-funnel content), but you’re now trying to use it to sell a service or product, you might as well re-write the content.
Points To Consider When Content Refreshing
Consider the following points when undertaking a refresh. Many will directly impact (positively or negatively) the SEO of the piece you’re working on:
The piece in question contains outdated statistics and information, or there have been changes in your industry that affect how you do business. Examples included changes to legislation or new discoveries.
The piece has started to see a marked drop in rankings on Google: content decay.
You want to out-compete your competitors’ content.
The piece does not meet the search intent it was designed for or does not answer your customers’ questions.
The piece has high traffic but is not converting well.
The age of the piece: Content should be at least 90 days old to allow Google to index it before you start making any significant changes.
A Checklist For Content Refreshing
Using the answers you have put together, now cast a critical eye over the piece under review. Use your thoughts to decide what requires changing, removing, or adding. This could be titles, subtitles, addition or removal of content, or addition or removal of charts, data, and images.
You may need to do some research to check the facts in your piece, and you may need to take some time to hunt down any additional information that you think is needed.
Finally, once you have worked through the IS Lists research and review process, you can start making the actual changes.
