Blog writing is an essential part of content marketing. It drives traffic, increases leads and boosts sales. Once you’ve created a piece of content, the benefits can last for years to come. But, have you ever considered updating blogs from years gone by. That’s what historical blog optimisation is. If you feel like your site needs a boost after many years of blog writing, this could be the tactic you need to improve your SEO.
What is historic blog Optimisation?
Historical blog optimisation is the practice of re-editing and amending blogs you have done previously. This could be from the month, year or even decade before. Optimisation could include:
- Updating information on the page in line with new data or sources.
- Adding in more images or videos to support the article.
- Adding new features to the blog like a resource block, a call to action statement at the bottom or a table of contents.
- Writing extra sections or paragraphs to aid clarity or provide extra info.
- Re-editing to improve readability, spelling and grammar.
- Linking to blogs and pages on your site that have been created since the original post.
In many cases, historical blog optimisation is about improving your past pieces with the knowledge you have gained since. With each line you write, you become a better writer and marketer, so it’s an important skill to have to be able to assess old work and add or remove from it effectively.
Benefits of Optimising Old Blog Articles
The different amendments listed above, each have different benefits to optimising old blog posts. Some are focused on the user, others on SEO. Whatever the aim, historical optimisations is all about applying new knowledge to your website in the current world.
Improve Readability
If I looked at some of my written work over the past ten years I probably wouldn’t recognise it. I’m sure some of it I’d be a bit embarrassed about. I can even look at pieces a year ago and think I could rewrite that and make them better. This is because as a content marketer I am constantly writing and improving my craft just through sheer volume of practice. By rewriting or re-editing blogs written previously, there is the opportunity to make the piece better from a readers standpoint. Improving blog posts from a readability perspective will make your audience more likely to read the piece in full, understand it comprehensively and gain the key takeaway you are hoping for as the writer.
Keeping Data Up-To-Date
It’s simply good housekeeping to keep the information up to date on your website. In the case of a blog article, updating the text with new data or better sources of data improves the trustworthiness of your brand. If readers click through to some of your sources and find a 404 page or another article littered with errors, this will reflect badly on your business. As new research is conducted you may find that older blog posts are completely inaccurate. In other cases, websites and companies disappear leaving your articles with inactive links. Historically optimising your blogs external links and collected stats is essential. It will improve trust, maintain your external link profile and ensures you are not spreading misinformation.
Evergreen Content is High Converting
One of the most beneficial aspects of historical optimisation is its impact on your SEO strategy. Search engines love fresh content but they also reward older content when it provides excellent information and value to the correct audience. This is called Evergreen content. Content that is not time-sensitive and provides relevant content even years after its creation. Some of the highest performing blogs in my career have been ones I created years before they started gaining lots of traffic for a client. This is because the blogs are still relevant (evergreen) and they are still providing content that users are enjoying. This is especially true for longer blog posts that perform particularly well if they have been around for a long time. Historical blog optimisation can increase the benefits further by building on blogs that are already performing well.
Fresh Content & On-page SEO
A secondary element that benefits SEO is it creates ‘fresh’ content for search engines. Optimising posts from the past highlights to search engines that you are updating blogs and they can deliver this as fresh content to their users. New algorithms and content styles mean it’s important to update posts, and pages, frequently to ensure you are working in line with best practices. By re-optimising a page you are showcasing to search engines that you are taking their advice on board. Historic optimisations should be a consistent part of your SEO strategy over the long term.
Adding new links
Also beneficial to SEO as well as readability and resources, is adding new internal links to blogs. If you have a consistent blog writing strategy, you will have produced a great deal of content in just a year. A piece you wrote at the beginning of the year will not contain any of that fresh content unless you take the time to add it in. By adding new pages or post links to an old blog, you will boost the on-page SEO of that piece. It will also help your readers find relevant information and will encourage them to click through to other pages on your site. It’s another good housekeeping practice that should be done at least once a year, if not every month.
Content Audits
While historical optimisation can be done on an ad hoc basis, it’s always best to create a strategy to aid you. One way to do this, if you’ve never done any historical optimisation for your site previously, is with a content audit. A content audit can consist of:
- A Content Inventory – A content inventory is a process of cataloguing the entire contents of a website and creating a document to hold the information. A content audit is a process of evaluating that content.
- A Performance Analysis – Evaluating the performance of the content is specific to each business but in general, most companies should be looking at traffic acquisition, behavioural metrics and conversions.
- Issue Identification – Issues can arise from; poor SEO practices within content, lack of historical optimisation or not utilising content in other marketing campaigns.
- A Content Plan – Once you have discovered where your strengths and weaknesses lie, you can create a content plan. A content plan can show you what content you are missing, what you should focus on next and how to make gains by optimising or repurposing content.
By using a content audit to hone your strategy, you can see what’s working and what isn’t. This will lead you to find new content potentials and improving your site from both an SEO and a user experience perspective. It will also allow you to plan a consistent content strategy going forward.
Get help with Historic Blog Optimisations
If you would like help with historical blog optimisations or need a content audit, get in touch. I am an experienced content marketer with a focus on research-driven copy. My focus is always on boosting your site’s SEO and making every page better for your customers. Book a call to discuss your needs. No obligation, just a friendly chat about you, your business and how I can help.