Identifying the required content to update, searching for relevant keywords & search intent & optimizing it utilizing the images on the on-site SEO strategy assist organizations to earn benefits from the blog update effort.
There is a lot to content marketing than just forming new content. Crucial strategy content marketing experts require to consider updating & republishing their previous blog posts.
Among other advantages of content marketing, blog updates help drive the SEO & broaden the business value like:
- Saves time
- Boost content relevance
- Assist the content rank
- Drives traffic
Here, in this article, we will discuss ways about how you can update your old blog posts & boost the blog traffic in three simple ways:
- Audit & identify blog content to update
- Carry out keyword research & determine the search of the relevant keywords
- Optimize the body for the SEO & include it in visuals
Audit & Identify, which are the blog contents you should update
The initial step is to generate a repository of blog posts & take the help of Google Analytics for analyzing the key performance metrics.
- Organic sessions: Organic traffic from the search engine results
- Bounce rate: Number of visitors who do not stay on the site and take no action (For instance, clicking on another webpage)
- Average session duration: The time visitors stay on the site
Various other metrics you must track for measuring success are:
- Inbound links: Number of the domains, which are linked to the blog post
- Social shares: Number of shares that the post gets on the social media channel
You may be having more than 100 blog posts, updating all is definitely not the answer. What is crucial is to identify the one, which is worth updating.
To select, which content should be updated, ensure the following:
- Content that has high volume keywords and declining organic traffic: Such posts are those which ranked well for the high volume keywords. However, over time they have witnessed a downfall in organic traffic currently. It can be owing to the competitor’s post taking over and declining search volume.
- Content with very high organic traffic but the lower conversion rate
- Content having high traffic, however, fails to convert. By optimizing and updating them, one can aim to make most of the traffic for generating leads & increasing conversions.
- Content performing well: Republishing can enhance the blog post-performance that actually performed well in the past in terms of getting traffic, links, or shares when they were put up on site.
- Outdated content: Articles can get outdated but require the potential to better rank if updated and then republished.
Carry out keyword research & determine the search of the relevant keywords
Once you have recognized the old blogs you require updating, you are required to even conduct keyword research in-depth.
The idea behind performing this measure is to uncover the potential keyword opportunities, that can assist you to optimize the updated post to a better rank.
Use keyword research tools like Google’s Keyword Planner or Ahrefs for finding, which keywords the content can rank for.
In this process, you may realize that the initial keyword targeting the target audience may be very competitive, extensively broad, and no longer relevant.
To get a solution for this, create a comprehensive long-tail keyword list that would drive traffic with enhanced search intent.
Also, ensure to conduct competitor analysis by reviewing the posts that rank much above the blogs and assess the keywords that they are ranking for.
It will assist you in identifying gaps in content & updating it as per the ranks in case of additional keyword requirements.
It is even crucial to check if the blog post simply aligns with the search intent associated with the target keywords.
Ensure to type target keywords in search results to analyze blog posts that appear on the first search result webpage. In those posts try and identify dominant search intent.
It indicates what are the aspects people are interested to know about & sets the base for the content angle you can actually take in your updated blog post.
For example, search results for keyword ‘accounting software’ basically are related to small businesses accounting.
For ranking it, you require updating the content. Doing so will help the content match with the same search intent.
Optimize the body for the SEO & include it in visuals
Note that Hubspot states three major goals for blog post updation:
- Comprehensive
- Accuracy
- Freshness
Listed below are some of the on-site SEO linked services that you can make most of by comprehensively updating the blog post:
- Ensure to title the content utilizing new target keyword
- Then optimize headers, meta description, body content for the new target keyword
- Add in a new section for making the blog more comprehensive
- Add in new supporting quotes, data & stats
- Eliminate content and links that no longer are relevant
- Replace the data or content that is out of date
- Add in internal links
- Ameliorate readability of post by breaking up the huge para, including in images, using header tags, and adding in bullet points.
One of the crucial things that you must change is the URL of a blog post. Also, you can add the editor’s note mentioning that the blog is updated for the purpose of accuracy.
Inclusion of visuals for producing blog content results
Do not expect the readers to sit through huge chunks of paras. Research reveals more visuals a blog has, the more chances it has to succeed.
Thus, when updating an old blog, a crucial addition one should make is to add in visuals. But note that stocking photos are not the best idea.
Moreover, 40% of marketers reveal original graphics performed well for them. It is no surprise that original graphics usually are unique and highly effective for readers when compared to stock photos.
Few of the original graphics, which you can use when updating your blog are illustrations, infographics, charts and graphs, process diagrams, memes, and GIFs, videos, and screenshots
Sanjay Dey