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What’s the point of revising old blog posts?
If you write regularly, you are continually improving your writing style. The behavior and needs of your readers also change.
What has changed for me, for example, in recent months:
I plead for white space.
As a local journalist, I used to structure my articles into meaningful sections without wasting space.
Today I can, if I want, give each sentence its own paragraph.
Because block texts are hard to read online.
When I look at my older articles, I realize that the paragraphs are much too long. So this is certainly something I want to and will change.
Such a revision makes my blog posts better readable and visually more appealing for my readers.
Use your web analytics tool like Google Analytics or Matomo to find such evergreens.
(If you don’t measure and evaluate the website traffic yet, it’s time to start…)
On the other side of the scale: Which posts don’t work at all? Signs of poorly functioning posts:
- no visitors
- high bounce rate
- no conversion
- short visit time
And then there are also blog posts that are no longer current and are of no interest to anyone. For example, who is interested in the online trends of 2018?
If the content of such posts is still up to date, you should take a few minutes to update the years and maybe adjust something here and there.
Which blog posts should you update?
Update good blog posts to make them even better. And bad posts even more so.
What makes a good post? Good posts can be evergreens for example. They receive regular attention over a longer period. For example, via backlinks or search engines.
What’s the best way to go about updating old blog posts?
Optimize content
With posts that are already working well, ask yourself what could make the post even better. How you could solve your readers’ problems even better and answer questions even faster.
After a few weeks or months of distance to your text, you will be able to read it from another person’s point of view.
What disturbs the flow of reading? Which thoughts are inconclusive, and how can you change this? Be courageous and revise your own words without remorse. Kill Your Babies ?
Layout improvements
As mentioned before: Be generous with white space. Especially on smartphones, white space looks much more appealing than block text.
You can also loosen up the text with additional pictures, quotes, or videos. Especially for blog posts that are already popular, this little extra effort is worthwhile.
Set internal links
Internal links are a simple but efficient way to perform on-site search engine optimization.
However, it is often the case that we link to older articles on new pages, but not vice versa.
So take a look at your older articles and think about where links to new content are useful.
Pay attention here, however, absolutely to set descriptive link texts.
And while you’re at it: Check existing internal and external links and remove or correct dead links.
What else to consider
Updating old blog posts is a never-ending process.
To keep up with it, it’s worth doing it regularly. For example, you can revise one or two posts every month. This only takes a few minutes, but it makes a big impact.
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