If you want your blog to rank well in search, you have to be sure to keep your blog updated content for SEO. There are many benefits to keeping your blog content updated, but from an SEO perspective, it is important to keep your content fresh to rank well in searches.
If you visit your favourite store’s website, you usually like to see what’s new or on sale. You may not stick around with anything new to see unless you are making a repeat purchase. You may search for something new on your favourite search engine.
Search engines place a lot of value on new and relevant content, so by regularly publishing and updating blog posts, you are telling the search engines that your site is active and worth indexing.
Not only that, but your readers will want to see the most updated and relevant content on topics they are interested in. Many readers are turned off when they land on an old and outdated piece of content. They may think the blog owner quit or that the small business shut down.
By having freshly updated content all the time, at least several times per week your readers will know you are alive and focused on your business niche.
First, Identify Your Best and Worst Blog Posts
How will you be able to tell which are your best-ranking blog posts? Look over your Google Analytics and Search Console. See which posts got the most incoming links and traffic. You could also check which has the most social shares and comments. The top in all these categories would be your best-performing blog posts. However, there may be some things you could do to improve your rank with these posts with new keywords or updated ones.
Finally, check Google Trends and see if the content is still trending and if so what other topics related to it, are trending. This may give you new ideas to add to the post to freshen the content up!
Add New Keywords to Updated Content
Additionally, each time you publish updated content, you have an opportunity to include new keywords and phrases that potential customers might be searching for. By including these keywords throughout your blog post (in the title, in the body copy, and in the metadata), you can improve your chances of ranking well for those terms.
You will be able to reach a wider audience when you rank for more keywords on a blog post or web page. You can use keyword tools like Ubersuggest, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to find the best ones for your updated content.
Along with new keywords comes more content. The longer the blog post the greater the chance of it ranking well. It will lower your bounce rate as long as it’s informative or entertaining for your readers.
Updated Blog Images
You can add new images to an updated post as well as edit older images for sizing and such. However, be sure to use the alt image text as that helps Google understand what the image is about. It’s one of the 200+ ranking factors for SEO. If you take a lot of photographs you may want to include your images in your blog posts. The more original they are, the better!
Your images should be crisp and look well on your web page and blog posts. If you write something on your image, make sure to use Grammarly (the free version of Grammarly is sufficient) to avoid the embarrassing mistake of having a typo in the middle of your call to action.
Be sure also to compress images to keep your site’s speed fast. Many WordPress plugins can do that for your website automatically. Your images should also be sharable to social media so be sure the images are the right size for the social networks.
Add Videos or infographics to Your Updated Content
When you update an older blog post you can add a video or an infographic to it. The more appealing it looks the easier it is to share and have it shared on various social networks. You never know, the video may make your blog post go viral!
However, be sure to include the blog link in the YouTube or Rumble video for extra SEO juice. Many readers may prefer to learn something via a video vs. reading text in a blog post. (That way you can build backlinks from YouTube or Rumble.)
Your readers also get to know you better when they hear your voice and see you in the video. It creates more trust and people purchase from those they trust.
Of course, infographics are great too as readers may link to or use them from your link source. It’s a great way to generate some backlinks for your blog post.
Research for Newer Content
Do a lot of research to see what has changed with your older blog post. Things change faster today than ever before. You can easily tell if dates are used in the post or headline. Those are the first things you may want to look for an update on.
Who wants to read something from 2014 or 2019 when it is 2022? Be sure your content stays relevant. If not, you have 2 choices, trash the old content, or update it. In most cases, you will find it fairly easy to update an old post. If it is ranking, leave the keywords alone but you may want to change the title.
This research will allow you to lengthen the blog post as I’ve mentioned above and can be a ranking factor as well.
Update Content with Updated Links
As you are updating your blog content be sure that your outgoing links go with the most relevant web content. You don’t want your newer content to go to old content for references and sources. Furthermore, you’ll find more valuable links while you research as you go about updating the old blog content.
Of course, the higher ranking the links are the better for your SEO juice. There are several domain authority checker tools you can run a web address through to check on the domain authority of a website or blog. However, if the article comes up on the 1st page of Google it probably is a great link to include in your post.
Build Trust with Relevant Updated Content
Finally, updated content also helps to build trust with both potential and current customers. By demonstrating that you’re regularly publishing new and relevant information, you’re showing that you’re an expert in your field which will build confidence in your brand.
Readers will begin to rely on you for information. They may sign up for your blog updates via email or subscribe to all your social channels. They may comment on your posts increasing the engagement of your content. May also share them on social media and expand your reach with their audiences.
In Conclusion
So, if you want your blog to rank well in search, be sure to keep your content fresh and up to date regularly! What are you doing to update your content? Do you add videos or podcasts to your blog posts? Let’s discuss this in the comments.
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