Blogger (BlogSpot)Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

7 Best Ways to Update Your Old Content in 2021

Spread the love

Working on a WordPress or Blogger site? Well, surely you have some old content be it six months old or even more. Leaving old content as it is de-ranks these with the passage of time, even if these rank at the top of Google. So, what you need to do is to update these content occasionally. Here, we’ll be talking about the best way to update your old content in 2021 so that not only these rank higher but also do not lose their existing ranks.

Best Ways to Update Your Old Content

Add Numbers in Titles

Studies have shown that dates added to titles increased rankings for a particular brand. Numbers are generally one thing that I always test in title tags that usually produce pretty consistent results and greatly increase clicks, even if your content is not ranked higher. Adding numbers in the format like Top 5 WordPress Plugins or Best SEO Tips of 2021 or even Top 5 SEO Tips of January 2021 will work even better.

But, don’t be spammy about it. Don’t include it if it doesn’t make sense and doesn’t fake it. But if you can include a number in your old content, it will often increase your click-through rate for any given query. The same method works perfectly if you have a YouTube Channel.

Add FAQ

Well, this one works perfectly especially since Google gave us a huge gift when they introduced these in search results. FAQ schema gives you a lot of SERP real estate and increased clicks. Though you can’t always win it, when you do, that can definitely increase or influence people to click on your result, expand those FAQ schemas out.

It’s not appropriate for every old post or content. You want to make sure that you actually have those FAQs on your pages where it is deemed necessary. But it is one way, in appropriate situations, that you can increase clicks. 

For practical usage and examples of how to add FAQ, please watch the tutorial video at the end of the post.

Relaunch Top Content

This one is more like updating most of the content of your old posts without changing the URL. Create new content; add new images/videos; update old internal/external links; remove unimportant links; increase internal links; work on newer and ranked keywords; employ latest SEO techniques; re-share on Social Media forums, etc to name a few major changes. As per MOZ, in some cases, you can see gains of 500% to 1,000% just by relaunching some of your old content with some updates.

Updating Your Top Keywords

So you’re looking at the top keyword that you want to rank for, and going in Google Search Console or checking tools like Keyword Explorer to see what other pages on your site rank for that keyword, and then adding links to the new content to those pages. I find when I do this, time and time again, it lowers the bounce rate. So you’re not only updating your old page with fresh content and fresh links and adding relevance. You’re adding links to your new content.

So make sure, when you publish new content, you’re updating your old content with related ranked keywords and with new links. One important thing, as mentioned earlier, if you see old/outdated and unimportant (internal/external) links, remove these right away.

See Also: Keyword Research Made Easy – Yoast and SEMrush Integration

Long-Form Content

As stated earlier tons of time that content is the King. There is no doubt about it at all. So the longer the length of the content; the better it is. But, the content should be interesting, related and to the point. As per SEO expert, till 2018, the content length of 300 words was quite enough. Then, the number increased to 600 words till 2019-20. Now, experts are saying that 900+ words should be the length of the content.

Let me clear one thing that this is not a definitive formula that the longer the content the quickly it ranks; rather a longer content gives a lot of opportunities to rank high. For instance, increased number of internal/external links can be added; the bounce rate of a site is reduced. Besides, as per studies,  long-form content earns more links and shares.

Long-Form content generally tends to rank higher in Google search results. Nothing against short-form content. Love short-form content. But long-form content generally gives you more bang for your buck in terms of SEO ranking potential. So, work on your older posts and update your old content and try to increase the content length as much as possible.

Add More Headers

Since we have just talked about long-form content, so it will be the time to add more headers <H2>, <H3>, <H4>, and so on. I’m talking about H2, H3 and H4 tags.

Break up your content with good, keyword-rich header tags. Why? Well, as per research from A.J. Ghergich that shows that the more header tags you have, generally you rank for more featured snippets. Sites with 12-13, which seems like a lot of header tags, rank for the most featured snippets of anything that they looked at in their most recent study.

So make sure you’re breaking up your content with header tags. It adds a little contextual relevance. It’s a great way to add some ranking potential to your content. 

Leverage Topic Clusters

This one is a beautiful idea and works wonders. All you need to do is to go to your site, type a top keyword in your SEARCH and the see all the results you have got. When you do that and you link them intelligently and update your old content, you can increase engagement because people are reading the different articles. This way it not only updates your old content but also increased internal linking and thus the overall site performance.

Once you update your old content with these or even with a single change, jump into Search Console and re-index the page so that you don’t have to wait for the next natural crawl.

[Video] 7 Best Ways to Update Your Old (WordPress/Blogger) Content in 2021 [Hindi/Urdu]

So, what do you think which factor will work for you and will help you increase the ranking of your older posts. Also, let us know whether you update your old content regularly or not?

Courtesy


Spread the love

Naeem Javid

Naeem Javid Muhammad Hassani is working as Deputy Conservator of Forests in Balochistan Forest & Wildlife Department (BFWD). He is the CEO of Tech Urdu (techurdu.net) Forestrypedia (forestrypedia.com), All Pak Notifications (allpaknotifications.com), Essayspedia, etc & their YouTube Channels). He is an Environmentalist, Blogger, YouTuber, Developer & Vlogger.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Exit mobile version