Check if your content still matches the search intent

As we all know, customers change over time. That is because their priorities change. When that happens, your business must adapt to all areas. When it comes to content, the main thing is to check if its purpose still matches the customers’ search intent. For example, if you are running an eCommerce website, you want to make sure that it still targets the right audience after some time.

A considerable benefit of this approach is that it will increase the efficiency of your website. Creating content takes time and effort. If you already have a considerable chunk created and need to update it slightly, you will save a lot of time.

Furthermore, if you stay true to the search intent, you will not lose potential customers. You may re-engage with the old clients once they see you add more relevant information.

Expand the topic of the content

Another way to update the content on your website is to add more details. For example, let’s say you are running an IT blog to boost your website. Last year you wrote about AI technology and how it is slowly becoming integrated into all industries. Now there is a new AI technology on the market. You don’t have to write a new piece about it, expand your old article and add more information to make it relevant to the current year.

Furthermore, you can expand the content by adding relevant statistics that change from year to year or include a new infographic. By enriching your content, you also engage with the readers in a new and fresh way. They now have a reason to go back to your old article and discover something new.

Re-purpose the content to expand your reach

If we go back to our previous example of an AI article, you can do many different things besides expanding the topic:

1. You can turn the article into a video and post it on YouTube on your channel.
2. You can extract relevant paragraphs from it and create powerful Tweets.
3. You can turn the entire article into an infographic and re-publish it as new content.

These are just a few examples of how you can take a piece of content and make something new out of it. This strategy is very effective because it allows your business to spread to multiple platforms and engage with customers in a new way while saving you time.

Optimize content for new SEO standards

As time goes by, old content often loses ranking. That is because of SEO changes. A piece of content that was properly optimized a few years ago will probably never find its way to the SERP because the SEO now works differently. You need to consider all new changes to the SEO algorithm and make sure they are reflected in your old content as well.

A good example would be to do content optimization for voice search. This is a very popular search option today, especially because more and more people are using their phones to browse the internet. Consider their needs and optimize your content accordingly.

Another example would be to optimize your content and make it accessible to people with disabilities. Website accessibility is a huge SEO factor today, and the lack of it may reflect very poorly on your business.

Finally, it is necessary to optimize old content for new keywords. We already spoke about how customers change and how that affects your business. If you did a shift in your marketing strategy, create a list of new keywords and see how you can include them in your old content as well.

Promote old content like it is new

Once you make all of these changes, you need to find a way to inform your customers about it. Otherwise, all of these changes might go unnoticed. However, if you apply the right approach, you will also gain more likes or even boost sales.

A good way to do this is to simply re-post the content on all social media accounts. Make sure to leave a powerful comment and let your followers know that this is the updated version with crucial information.

You can do the same step via a newsletter. You can even go a step further and split one piece of content into smaller parts and send them to your readers as a part of a newsletter series.

What is the benefit of updating old content on your website?

Now that we know how to update old content let’s take a look at the biggest benefits. So far, we have learned that updating old content on your website leads to the following:

• An increase in the efficiency of your content creation process
• Ensuring that your content still remains relevant
• An increase in the SEO rating
• Reaching new clients through re-purposing

Additionally, more relevant benefits include the following:

• An increase in brand exposure due to re-publishing updated content
• Keeping your readers up-to-date with the latest information in the niche
• Giving your old customers something new to talk about
• Attracting more customers by boosting sales

These are just a couple of the essential benefits of updating old content on your website. This is a necessary process, and it is crucial to do it every once in a while. As a rule of thumb, you should update your content whenever necessary. Keep yourself informed so you don’t miss out on important updates. With that in mind, best of luck in refreshing your website and helping your customers to learn more!

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