How to Refresh Old Content for Maximum Engagement

How to Refresh Old Content for Maximum Engagement

Content, Content, Content!

We're surrounded by content nowadays. From blogs to social media to videos, so much is vying for our attention. It can be overwhelming, right? As a content creator, the pressure is constantly churning fresh, engaging material. But here's the thing: not all of it needs to be brand-spankin' new. Breathing some new life into your old content can be a game-changer. So, let's dive into how to refresh old content and make it feel shiny and fresh again. Ready? Let's do this!

Why Refresh Old Content?

There are loads of perks to refreshing old content rather than constantly starting from scratch. Here are just a few:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Boost

Updating old posts gives them a fresh lease on life in the eyes of search engines like Google. By optimising headlines, meta descriptions, and keywords, you can help your content rank higher in search results.

More Engagement

Old + new = something people are more likely to click on, read, share, and interact with. You're giving it a whole new audience by sprucing up outdated content.

Saves Time and Effort

Creating high-quality content from scratch is hard work. By refreshing old stuff, you can reallocate that valuable time and energy elsewhere without sacrificing quality.

More Visibility & Traffic

Refreshed posts gain more visibility on social media as well. You can reshare optimised posts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., to drive additional traffic to pages that deserve a second life.

Bigger Email List

If you have an email list (and you should!), revisiting and improving your top posts gives you a great excuse to email subscribers about hot-off-the-press content.

Establish Authority & Trust

Keeping your content library up-to-date shows your readers you're committed to providing the best information. It enhances your credibility as an authority when you're dedicated to accuracy.

Higher Conversion Rates

Your top posts can result in better conversion rates and more sales/sign-ups for content tied to products or services.

What Content Should You Refresh?

While you'll want to conduct a content audit to determine which specific posts are most worthwhile to update, focus on evergreen content that isn't time-sensitive. Topics like these typically age better and will provide more long-term value from a refresh:

• Essential how-to guides and resources that don't rely on current data
• In-depth tutorials and references
• Listicles and roundup posts (i.e. “14 Best Productivity Apps”)
• Historical overviews or profiles
• Content that ranks on page 2 or 3 of Google with a little more optimisation

Viral posts popular in their prime but now see diminishing returns are also great candidates for revitalisation.

How to Find Content Worth Refreshing

You'll want to dig into your site's analytics to surface once popular posts but now see declining traffic. In Google Analytics, you can:

1. Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
2. Add a secondary dimension of “Source/Medium.”
3. Filter for “google / organic”
4. Look at traffic for your top posts over the last 1-2 years.
5. Flag anything that has a clear downward trend as a contender for refreshing

Step-by-Step Guide to Refreshing Old Content

Ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work? Here's a handy step-by-step process to follow:

1. Review and analyse your old content

Start by revisiting your chosen posts and looking at them with fresh eyes. As you review, ask yourself:

• Is the information still accurate and up-to-date?
• What opportunities are there for optimisation?
• What parts need a complete overhaul vs. a minor tweak?

Make notes of areas for improvement, fact-checking, and optimisation. This analysis will inform your refresh strategy.

2. Update facts, stats, and examples

One of the easiest ways to breathe new life into old content? Swapping in fresh facts, statistics, and real-world examples. Dig into recent research and case studies to uncover compelling new data points and references. Not only will this help with SEO, but it also demonstrates your command of the most up-to-date info in your field.

3. Punch up headlines and subheaders

A drab title and uninspired subheaders are like an old, worn-out sweater – they just won't do anymore. Invest some brainpower into crafting punchier, more engaging headlines and H tags. Try utilising powerful adjectives, creating a sense of urgency, or framing your topic as a how-to. You want something that makes readers sit up and go, “Ooh, tell me more!”

4. Optimise for search

In the wise words of the SEO experts: “If they can't find you, you don't exist.” Help new readers discover your refreshed content by:

• Researching high-volume, low-difficulty keywords to naturally incorporate
• Updating metadata like page titles and descriptions with SEO in mind (include said keyword)
• Building internal and external links to and from related content

5. Spice up the design

A fresh lick of paint can transform that outdated blog post. And by “paint,” I mean all the visual design elements:

• Custom images, graphics, screenshots
• Embedded videos, GIFs, tweets
• Bolded text, italics, and short paragraphs for scannability
• Bulleted and numbered lists
• Pull quotes and tweetable snippets

Feel free to get a little funky with your formatting – it'll keep readers engaged and add some much-needed pizazz.

6. Give it a final proofread

Before hitting publish, thoroughly proofread your post one last time. It's all too easy to miss a typo or funky formatting after staring at it for so long. Consider:

• Reading it out loud to catch any awkward phrasing
• Having a colleague do a quick readthrough for a fresh perspective
• Running it through a tool like Grammarly to catch any sneaky spelling or grammar errors

The last thing you want is an embarrassing mistake undermining all your stellar refreshing efforts!

7. Update the publish date and promote

Lastly, update that publish date to reflect your hard refresh work. Then, it's time to relaunch your content and shout it from the rooftops!

• Share it far and wide on all your active social channels
• Send an email blast to your subscribers
• Consider pinning it to the top of your Twitter timeline or Facebook page
• Link to it internally from other high-traffic posts and pages

Give your refreshed gem all the promotional love it deserves to attract new readers.

Best Practices for Updating Stale Posts

Once you've identified your targets, follow these steps to revamp and revive your evergreen articles properly:

Improve Existing Content

Start by evaluating the existing text. Are there ways you can enhance, expand upon, or tighten up your writing? Aim to refine the core content and ensure the post is as strong as possible before making any other updates.

Add Updated Examples

Root around your niche and dig up fresh studies, statistics, anecdotes, tools, expert quotes, and other relevant examples to replace or build upon outdated references. This helps signal to Google that the content is current.

Optimise Title and Headers

Take a magnifying glass to your title, meta description, and headers (H1, H2, H3, etc). Clarify and punch up these areas to reflect the core topic accurately and incorporate your primary keyword target once or twice.

Include New Internal Links

Link out to more recent posts you've published on related topics. This aids navigation, keeps readers on your site longer, and helps solidify your post as a content hub.

Embed Relevant Videos

Consider filming and embedding a short 1-2 minute video encapsulating the key takeaways from your post. Or curate relevant YouTube videos to embed from credible sources to enrich the content.

Replace Stale Images

Nothing screams “outdated content”, like cheesy stock photos from 2009. Update your visuals with modern, custom-branded graphics and images matching your current aesthetic. This gives posts an instant facelift.

Strengthen Calls to Action

Improve any call-to-actions by clarifying the next steps you want readers to take. This might involve signing up for your email list, following you on social media, downloading a lead magnet, etc.

Final Optimisation Checklist:

• Copyedit piece to clean up grammar and style
• Review for flow and transition sentences
• Assess overall formatting and readability
• Fix any broken links, code, or media
• Update post URL and publish date
• Tweak meta tags as needed
• Redirect any existing URLs/links to the new updated URL
• Reshare on social (ideal for a fresh dose of eyeballs!)

Creative Ways to Repackage Existing Content

If you want to multiply the impact of your best blog posts and rake in extra traffic, consider going beyond just updating the core copy. Here are some creative ways to repackage and repromote your top evergreen content in new formats:

1. Turn Posts into Videos

Identify your most popular, in-depth posts and turn them into YouTube or IGTV videos. This involves filming yourself presenting your article's key insights and tips in a concise teaching format.

Short, easily digestible video content is wildly popular across every platform. It exposes your expertise to a new audience while sending more backlinks and traffic to your original post.

2. Create Tweetstorms

Pick out the juiciest tips, statistics, and quotes from your top posts and turn them into value-packed tweetstorms. Break your content into bite-sized insights and tweet them out steadily over time (you can schedule these in advance with tools like SocialBee).

Tweetstorms get great engagement and allow you to repurpose the most share-worthy gems from your posts. As you build an audience on Twitter, all those high-value takeaways surfaced to tons of new eyeballs.

3. Design Link-Worthy Infographics

Infographics make for extremely shareable and link-worthy assets. They also offer a super-skimmable, visual way to consume data-heavy content that you've published.

Highlight the core steps, tips, data points and takeaways in a vertical infographic format. Then, leverage that visual to solicit more backlinks as foundational content assets in your niche.

4. Pitch Guest Posts on Other Blogs

Once you've optimised your best posts, find complementary blogs or publications that would love to publish excerpts or data points. Write up a unique angle or “sequel” using your research, and pitch it!

Guest posting is a killer way to drive referral traffic to your original, in-depth articles. It's a win for both sites – you provide free content in exchange for gaining exposure to their audience and a backlink.

5. Design Supplementary Downloadables

Do you have hefty tutorials or guides over 2,000 words? Consider pulling the core process or framework into a visual, branded PDF or worksheet.

Then, you can entice new readers to download your checklist, flowchart, workbook, etc, in exchange for joining your email list. A great way to grow your subscriber base while adding fresh incentives and lead magnets!

Conclusion: Out with the Old, in with the Refreshed!

And there you have it, folks – a comprehensive game plan for injecting new life into those tired, outdated blog posts just collecting dust. By devoting some TLC to refreshing select older content, you can free up time and resources to create fresh, excellent pieces while boosting key engagement metrics.

It's a total content win-win! So, flex those editing muscles and breathe new life into those evergreen posts and pages. Your readers (and your analytics) will thank you.

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