Planning web content can be challenging. Your website has two key components web design and web content. While planning to build your website, you need to make a sound website content plan. Well-planned web content can give increase your online visibility, get leads, and the opportunity to increase revenue. Software like content management systems and live blogging software have made content creation much easier.
Content management systems (CMS) have made simplified the process of building a website. CMS systems take care of basic infrastructure and allow you to focus on content creation. CMSs like WordPress are great tools for content creation, content storage, assigning permissions, and publishing content. Planning web content can be challenging, especially when it comes to fresh content, and an underused technique you can use is updating your old post. Your old post can be a fantastic source for new content.
How do you update old blog posts? If you analyze the content for old blog posts in Google Analytics, you may find that 10 to 20% of your articles bring stable visitors to your websites. The blogs may not be top 3, or you may have published the blog a few months ago. The content for old blog posts may be perfect for updating and are worth revisiting.
Advantages of updating your old blog post
Reworking your old blog content is a great idea, and can deliver an incredible ROI for your business. Here are some benefits of updating your old post –
- Boost web traffic to your website – Reworking your old posts can improve your SEO ranking. Studies from HubSpot show a 106% increase in organic traffic from repurposed blogs.
- Helps you save time and resources – Writing new quality content is time-consuming and labor-intensive. First, you need to start with new ideas, research the articles and write the blog. Reworking an old post requires less effort and can still provide tangible results. Use your free time to work on new content.
- Improves user experience – Users like reading fresh engaging content with relevant data. Update old blogs to ensure readers find what they are looking for and use the opportunity to update links if required.
- Retain brand consistency – As your business evolves, your target audience changes. You should reevaluate your content periodically to ensure it meets your present audience’s requirements.
- Improves conversion rate – Refreshing your old content allows you to add the latest initiatives and offers to the blogs.
How to identify the posts from Google Analytics? (Step by Step)
We have laid down the benefits of updating your old blog posts. Google Analytics is an excellent tool to identify posts you can update. The tool gives information like Google conversion rate, time spent on the page, bounce rate, social shares, and backlinks. Here are four different metrics you need to look at.
- Start with posts with high-quality links – A good strategy for shortlisting old content is to look at posts that have been linked to external websites but are not ranking well. These pages can add to the credibility and authority of your website. We suggest you concentrate on updating these pages using the latest SEO guidelines.
- Traffic – You need to know how your content is performing. Google Analytics is a great tool to get information.
Log in to Google Analytics and then go to the Behavior > Overview report in the left menu.
Google Analytics shows you the top ten most viewed posts on your website. You get information like page views, bounce rate, unique page views, average time on page, entrance, bounce rate, and %exit.
You can export the findings to Google Spreadsheets. You can add screenshots of the analysis to compare results.
While evaluating posts with high traffic, ensure the data in the blog is updated. You can add additional information if required and remove obsolete content.
Google Analytics also provides lets you compare traffic over some time. If you notice a decline in the page you should consider updating the page.
ALSO SEE – Free Methods for Keyword Research
- Select keywords to use while updating your posts– While updating and optimizing posts you need to select the primary keyword and one or more secondary keywords. There is no exact way of finding target keywords. The primary keyword should match the intent of the article you should ensure your blog answers the audience’s questions.
Use Keyword tools like ahref to identify pages currently ranking on the second page and look for ways to improve the ranking. Try to organically incorporate the keyword into your article 6 to 16 times. You can overhaul the posts that come on the second page for the query next.
If you are using Google Chrome you can use Guest Window. You can search for your primary keywords. Look at the People Also Ask box, and check if you can incorporate the suggestion. The searches related to the box at the end of the search engine result page can give you related keywords.
- Don’t update content, old content that does not require to be updated– Before you update any post, make sure it truly needs to be updated. Use tools like SEMRush and Moz to audit your content. These tools allow you to measure if web traffic has started to decline and indicate if you need to improve content with keywords.
Periodically evaluate parameters like content, data, keywords, and images of the blog and make minor modifications if required.
How to add Long Tail Keywords to the blog posts?
Long-tail keywords are more targeted search phrases with 3 or more words. Long-tail keywords are less competitive, and it is easier to get ranked. Even though search volume may be smaller, you will still get considerable search traffic. Long-tail keywords will capture leads further in the sales funnel.
E.g. Someone looking for red pencil heels already knows what they want.
Tools like Google’s keyword planner can shortlist potential words. Log into the website. You can now input the primary keyword and click on the Get Ideas tab followed by Keyword ideas.
You now have to edit old blog posts. Start by creating a captivating headline and incorporate long-tail keywords in the post, and try to use the keywords organically as possible. You use the find and replace text option in WordPress to find the old keyword with the long tail keyword. Ensure the text remains meaningful and natural.
ALSO SEE – Find Low Competition Long Tail Keywords
Create detailed content as Google flags content it deems shallow. Ensure your blogs are comprehensive.
You need to understand the user’s intent while writing your article. Google Analytics is a great tool to shortlist long-tail keywords. Make sure your audiences are satisfied with the content and incorporate the keyword organically.
How to get authority links to the blog posts?
Earlier you could get a high score in search engine results by focusing on several links. Now search engines like Google give preference to quality over quantity. It is imperative to attract links from reputable websites and businesses.
Authoritative and reputable websites tend to get good results on search engine result pages and can increase traffic to your website. Here are some tips to get authority links to the blog posts.
- Work towards making your posts a valuable resource. If people consider your post valuable they will provide links to the post. It is more likely to be shared on social media platforms.
- Offering visuals improve audience engagement. Strong visual content improves audience engagement, interaction, and retention. Infographics are easy to read and interpret. They can be reused on many websites and be shared easily on social media. Websites may share the infographics on their website with a link back to your post.
- You can easily edit old blog posts if you are using content management systems like WordPress. Check out if you fill the content gap in the market by repurposing your old blog post.
- Use the latest keyword research to find relevant keywords. Try to incorporate the new words in the article. While editing the find and replace text option in WordPress can simplify your task when replacing old keywords with new keywords.