When it comes to marketing, you’ve probably heard the words ‘content is king’ on multiple occasions. So you continually pump out fresh new blogs in the quest to have your products and services found.

And when you add new posts regularly, the old ones get archived and pushed further backwards. They  just sit there, collecting proverbial dust on your website – and in most instances, never to be read by you again. But even though they are ignored, these long-forgotten blogs are still a part of your blog. It’s about time to revisit them and cheer them up a bit!

The importance of maintaining your blog

Marketing guru, Neil Patel, says the web is becoming saturated. “Out of 1.8 billion sites, roughly 1 billion of them are blogs. That’s roughly 1 blog for every 7 people out there.” Google is now filled with so much content, that it can be really picky about the results it displays.

While it’s good to write plenty of blogs based on various industry-specific keywords, the competition is fierce and it will take time for your posts to appear.

Patel’s solution? Take the time this year to update your blog content on a regular basis. Maintaining a blog is important because it reflects your brand. You need to be mindful of the messaging and impact it has on potential and current customers.

When revisiting your old blogs, ask yourself:

• Does it still reflect my business and the person I am today? Through expanding business and industry experience and self-education, your perspective might be different today than it was two years ago when you originally wrote it.

• Is it attracting traffic? Check out your Google Analytics and Search Console and see if the old blog post is drawing people to your site.

• Is the topic still relevant? You might have poured your heart and soul into a blog post about a conference you attended in 2015, but would people still be interested in reading it today?

To delete or not to delete?

Even if you answered ‘no’ to the questions above, think twice before pressing the ‘delete’ button. With a bit of tinkering, could you bring it back to life?

Only delete posts if they are irretrievably wrong, outdated, or potentially damaging to your brand.

5 actions to refresh your old blog content

To give old blogs an update, try the following:

• Make the content of your old blog posts more relevant and timely

– Check and correct references to public figures (i.e. Has their role changed since the blog’s original publication?)

– Remove broken web links (i.e. Are any links leading to 401 error messages?)
– Adjust time frames (i.e. Change ‘last year’ to ‘2018’)
– Update tenses (i.e. Change ‘is’ to ‘was’)

• Create links to newer blog posts

Adding internal links between blogs on similar topics encourages your customers to remain on your website for longer.

• Update the imagery

Sourcing a new image may improve the post’s visual appeal and attract new readers.

• Improve the SEO

Check your Google Analytics to see how the post is currently performing. If it’s going well, avoid making dramatic SEO changes. Otherwise, consider adding new relevant keywords and updating the meta description, image alt tags etc.

• Create a review process

Now that you’ve gone through the review process, set yourself a reminder to repeat the process on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis.

Just remember, you can teach an old blog new tricks. Don’t just write and forget. Because you never know the kind of results you’ll get!

This article first appeared as a guest blog on Business Woman Media on 6 February 2019