7 Ways To Update Old Content To Boost Your Website’s Traffic

Most webmasters used to ignore old content on their websites once it was out of sight. I do not blame them. If I did not know any better and I would have ignored it myself too. Old content used to (and still in some cases) receive no love from site owners.

This is a shame since SEO and tracking tools monitoring your traffic and rankings have allowed us to view old content in a new light. The analytics of old content will oftentimes show that there is still value to be extracted from reviving dead content.

Brian Dean termed this “Content Relaunch” in one of my favorite blog posts. Google has even used the freshness of content as a ranking factor since 2011. Other SEO gurus came forward too with their findings and soon people realized “Wow, our old content isn’t entirely useless after all.”

There are several ways to bring old content back to life to increase traffic. Here is how:

7 Ways To Augment Your Website’s Traffic By Reforming Past Content

1.Optimize Old Keywords

Maybe the keywords we used did not match the searcher’s intent. Maybe they do not even align with our content and there are some chances that they do not fit naturally in our content.

These are some points you should be pondering when looking to optimize keywords for your old content that failed to rank at the time. The idea is to rank high for chosen keywords, so our content attracts the target traffic with objective search intent.

Here is an example from SEMrush:

New keywords with ranking potential emerge over time. It is a good idea to update your keywords in light of new ones if old ones are yielding desirable outcomes.

Fix keyword stuffing if your content has any, as Google considers heavily stuffed content, to lack substance which affects your bottom line. Be reasonable with your use of keywords in your old content. Do this and your content will attract new traffic to your website.

2.Rewrite Paragraphs and Sentences

Once you have optimized the old keywords, it is time to rewrite the paragraphs and sentences to update the content. The process of rewriting is done by retaining the original content structure, using a new outline, and improving clarity.
A basic content structure includes an introduction, main body, and conclusion. However, you will be making adjustments and improvements within each section.

A new outline is basically required based on your old content. It helps you stay focused on the main points you want to cover and ensure that you address any outdated or inaccurate information.

Improve old content’s clarity by using clear language to explain concepts and ideas in a simple way. If the original content was wordy or confusing, take this opportunity to improve the clarity of your explanations.

Rewriting paragraphs and sentences is essential when updating old content. You will probably attempt to rewrite this yourself but take it from me, it is a time-consuming effort, and the result is not even always accurate. Your efforts are best saved for what choice of online article rewriter tool you will go with.

Article Rewriter is an obvious candidate for changing your old content’s paragraphs and sentences with its distinct AI-based sentence mode. Its advanced algorithm based on NLP quickly rewrites any material you throw at it.

3.Updating Old Outdated Information

It is considered a good practice to regularly view developments on any content you have posted so you may update it for improving quality. The new developments could range from something as harmless as a tidbit that adds more to existing content to something significant requiring fundamental changes to your content.

Does not matter how fresh or latest your content was at the time of posting. New information keeps rolling out at a brisk pace. The stuff that you wrote about so confidently could be outdated before a week’s end without you even noticing it.

Not every topic requires frequent changes so soon, but it is a good idea to look over your content once in six months at least. Topics like weather forecasts and news require recurring changes at different intervals of time regularly.

Updating old content or republishing it with new information means it has a higher chance of showing up on SERPs. The more it shows up for relevant search terms, the more chances it has of a higher ranking and attracting more traffic. Search engine crawlers are on the lookout for fresh content.

4.Update Your Multimedia

This correlates with the last point. Updating written information is one thing but those efforts are futile if you are not updating your images and videos to keep up with that data. We have established above why updating or adding new stuff is important for gaining traffic.

Multimedia is an essential aspect to ascertain readability and user interest. Anything that is visually appealing is much easier to grasp than any amount of well-written content.

And it is a much simpler assignment to pull off with all the free image and video editing tools readily accessible for free. Bonus if they are offering AI enhancements as it allows for even more polished work.

For image editing, I prefer My Edit for its straightforward menus and quick results. As someone with little experience in image editing, this tool is made for amateurs like me.

You can gauge its simplicity from the options listed below:

Unlike some image editing tools, this one is not interested in confusing you with technical jargon. Use this to create unique images to update your old content to keep up with recent changes.

5.Optimizing The Readability

Readability is an important factor for boosting your website. You would be surprised at how many people miss the mark with this in their initial attempts.

Readability is the practice of making your writing understandable and easy to digest for your target audience. While updating old content, readability should be on top of the list of things to improve. Improved readability will click with your new traffic and keep them coming back for more in the future.

Your content should be clear and concise with no fluff. Paragraph length should not overwhelm readers. The use of headings, subheadings, bullet points, and header tags is encouraged to increase readability. Make sure your formatting is consistent throughout the content.

Neil Patel’s blog content follows these essential steps to maximize readability. His content is written with the intent that even a non-SEO person would not have much of a hard time figuring out what he is saying.

6.Add Internal Links To Your Old Content

A proper linking strategy will help boost your website’s traffic. It allows search engine crawlers to index old content that would take them some time to index on their own. It passes authority to your updated content making it easier to rank on SERPs.

Your updated older content may become visible to search engines but there’s always more content that was not indexed properly. Add internal links to your updated content to improve the prominence of other neglected content to boost their rankings and your website’s traffic.

Content that provides value and is relevant to this day deserves some much-needed attention from everyone that has never seen it. This in return boosts your website traffic.

On average, any blog post by HubSpot contains a healthy combination of internal links that leads to their old content still faring well for its age and maintaining traffic.

7.Share With Your Network

It is important that your new followers across all your social media platforms are vary of these changes you make to your old content. You have most likely grown in numbers on these platforms, but your new followers are likely not privy to your old posts.

It is imperative that you communicate these changes and bonus points if you are transparent about their analytics. Sharing is caring and it would not hurt your credibility if you were open about why it works and what works.

This is an open chance to reach new potential traffic when everyone is on social media these days in some form. You may even use a different approach to sharing if your last time did not work so well.

Conclusion

Producing new content on the dot takes a lot of time and energy. You are better served using some of that time and energy in updating your old content. It makes more sense. It is a lot less work for a whole lot of rewards if done the right way.

Not ranking for certain content is fine as long as you ask yourself why it is happening. True failure is not learning from your mistakes. This does not necessarily mean that you only target content that did not rank but also content that saw a steep decline in traffic after peaking.

Repurposing content gives you a chance to right your wrongs. Make amendments for the poor/average quality you provided before or for the lack of eyes your content attracted. Conversely, you did not do anything wrong, and it is just a tidbit that needs updating to make your content stay accurate.

Whatever your reasoning is, I implore you to dedicate some time to old content to boost your website’s traffic.