Have you ever created an amazing piece of content, only to have it lose its relevance and engagement over time? In today's fast-paced digital world, content can become outdated in a matter of months, even weeks.
Fortunately, updating your old content is a cost-effective way to improve your
digital marketing. 'Historical optimization' is the process of keeping content fresh and up-to-date, which can have a significant impact on your website's traffic, engagement, and
SEO (search engine optimization).
Check out the powerful benefits of updating old content and why you should incorporate it into your content marketing strategy!
Signs Your Content Needs a Face Lift
There isn’t a hard set rule for what is considered "old” content — it can be something that you wrote, designed,
filmed, or recorded just last month or several years ago. Here are some tips to determine if your content needs updating:
- The information is outdated
- New advancements have occurred
- Low engagement (e.g. high bounce rate)
- Target audience has evolved
- Missing important keywords
- Branding has changed
It’s important to mention that not every piece of old content needs to be updated. Be strategic with updating content so you don’t waste time and resources on content that will produce a low ROI regardless of what you do.
Consider starting with “low hanging fruit” like content that used to rank high in search results or generate a lot of engagement but has tapered off.
7 Reasons Why You Should Update Old Content
Historical optimization is essential because it helps
ensure your content marketing is working and delivers the highest ROI to your business. Let's take a closer look at the benefits that updating old content offers:
1. Improves ranking positions
Google rewards freshness which is why updating and republishing old content can increase its ability to be found online. When your content ranks higher in search engine results pages, it’ll drive more free organic traffic and expose your products or services to potential new customers.
2. Adds more value to the content
Updating the information, images, or
UX design adds more value to your content, which will make your audience more willing to stay on your
website and learn about your products or services. This makes your message memorable while enhancing your brand authority.
3. Increases traffic
By refreshing stale content, you can attract new visitors to your website. Updated content is more likely to be shared on social media and other platforms than old content, which can help drive more traffic to your site.
4. Drives more conversions
A glaring sign of low-quality content is a high bounce rate and low conversions. With historical optimization, you’ll be able to transform old content into a conversion generator whether it’s a “hard” conversion like purchases or a “soft” conversion like
email subscriber signups.
5. Generates more backlinks
People like to share great content and when they do, it produces what’s known as a ‘
backlink,’ which is simply a link from another web page that points back to yours. Backlinks are another important ranking factor because they show Google that your content follows E-A-T (expertise, authority, trust)
search quality guidelines.
6. Improves user experience
Old content may not be relevant or accurate anymore, which can lead to a poor user experience. By updating old content, you can ensure that your visitors are getting the most up-to-date and accurate information, which can help improve their experience on your site.
7. Saves time and money
Finally, historical optimization can be a cost-effective way to improve your website. Rather than creating new content from scratch, you can repurpose and update old content, which can save you time and money while still providing valuable benefits.
Refresh Your Stale Content for Better Results
Your business doesn't always have to be pumping out new content to have effective content marketing. Updating old content typically takes less resources than creating new content, yet produce as many results — or more. Include historical optimization in your content strategy and watch your
performance metrics trend upwards.
Book a free discovery call with Sales & Marketing Technologies and start driving more traffic and conversions with content marketing!
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in September 2020 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.