One thing that every blogger should know is that updating website content is a constant activity you need to do. So learning how to do blog updates correctly is a must. Learn how to update old blog posts for SEO and increased visibility with these tips that blogger pros use on a regular basis.
Some of the best blogging tips I received in the past were the key ways of updating blog posts for SEO to grow blog traffic and more engagement.
I see the questions other bloggers ask:
- How do I get past my blogging slump?
- My traffic has plateaued. How do I get past it?
- I can’t seem to grow my blog traffic. How do others do it?
Instead of constantly creating new content from scratch, do a blog update for older content.
Old blog posts are low-hanging fruit – pre-existing content that needs tweaks to make them awesome again.
But how do you update content to make blog posts generate traffic?
I’m sharing my approach to how to bring back old posts from the “dead”. This includes smart ways to use ChatGPT or another AI model to get smart updates. I’ve included my favourite AI prompts for updating blog posts.
No more zombie posts! Let’s look into updating SEO, updating website content and jumpstarting your blog traffic boost.
DISCLOSURE: This post contains affiliate links, meaning if you click on a product or service, and decide to purchase it, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. All recommended products and services are based on my positive experience with them. For more information, please read my Disclaimer.
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Why Should You Update Old Blog Posts?
Over time, you may notice that your rankings go down in search engine results. Google, Bing and other search engines like fresh content, and so do readers. This is one of the top reasons for updating old blog posts.
Here are an additional five reasons to update old blog posts:
- Improve your SEO: Use better, higher volume, medium-competition keywords, fresh content and images to indicate to search engines that your blog content is up-to-date.
- Improved User Experience: Up-to-date information, fixed broken links, and fresh visuals create a better site visitor experience.
- Improved Traffic: Better rankings and new content attract more site visitors.
- Relevant, Up-To-Date Content: Your position as an authoritative, credible expert is improved when you have content that’s new and factually correct.
- Better Conversions: Updating your blog post ending with a call-to-action, new lead magnet or request (like a prompt to share your post) is a great way to engage your readers.
Updating old blog posts doesn’t take much time, but the results can be great.
Updating Website Content: Do This Before You Start The Process
Not every old blog post is worthy of being updated. Here’s a checklist of things to consider when updating old blog posts:
- Is the blog post worthwhile keeping, with a few minor updates to content, blog formatting and keywords?
- Can the blog post be combined with another one for a better blog post? Choose the one that’s ranking better and add the other one to it. Redirect the old one to the one you’ve updated.
- Does the blog post need to be deleted? For example, it’s a product review for an item that’s no longer available. Remember to do a redirect for SEO purposes. In the place of deleted posts, you’ll need to come up with fresh blog post ideas.
- Is the blog post evergreen? These should be updated first, as they never go out of date and answer questions readers have all the time.
For example, this blog post is an “Evergreen post”. The topic is one that readers will have a year from now, and onwards. So I’m going to revisit this post every once in a while to ensure my tips are up-to-date.
Focus on updating old blog posts that are evergreen!
What about content that isn’t “evergreen”? These can be things like event coverage, a write-up of a time you went on vacation, etc. These types of posts aren’t worth updating.
PRO TIP: Although we’re focusing on blog posts, don’t forget about other blog updates. Your key pages often need an SEO update and perhaps new messaging.
Make A Shortlist Of Evergreen Posts To Update
The first thing to do when you update old blog posts for SEO is to make a shortlist of your existing and potential evergreen posts.
I did my list in Excel and keep track of which ones I’ve updated and which ones still need work.
Get organized, and the process will run smoother, and you won’t miss updating any posts on your “must-update” list.
How To Update Old Blog Posts For SEO: A Step-by-Step Guide
With each blog post, I look at updating specific things in each post to MAXIMIZE its chances of achieving blog traffic.
I start with updating keywords because so many of the other updating activities stem from that initial action.
1. Update Keywords
Get ready to learn about how to update blog posts for SEO. We start with the most important aspect of this: keywords.
One of the most successful ways I increased my blog traffic was to update keywords in my older blog posts.
In many of my old posts, I didn’t consider including keywords or long-tail keyword phrases.
Updating blog posts for SEO and keywords means:
- Researching what your target audience is using as keywords and keyword phrases (long-tail keywords) to search for any given content. I use a blend of Google to find what phrases people are using, as well as SEO tools such as Keysearch.io or Keywords Everywhere. Semrush or Ahrefs are other alternatives.
- Finding and using keywords that are more competitive than those you are currently using.
- Following the best practices with on-page SEO to include them in the title, headings and elsewhere.
This is also a great time to update your blog post title and make it more catchy.
A/B testing your blog post titles helps you figure out what resonates best with your potential readers.
| Related: Blog SEO Tips For Beginners – How To Get Google To Rank Your Posts High
2. Update Images And Image SEO
It’s an overlooked activity, but updating blog posts for SEO includes the images.
When I look back at some of my old blog posts on my Suburban Tourist blog, they had some awful-looking images.
Poorly edited, they made my blog look unprofessional.
One of the best ways to update your old blog posts is to update images and ensure that the alt-text is added.
With more attractive images – especially feature images (the first one you see in my post) – I’ve had more clicks when I post them to Facebook and Twitter.
The result is that visitors view my post as attractive and balanced, with informative text. They want to stick around longer when they see I’ve taken the time to make my post look professional.
Making your images fast-loading (i.e. smaller files) is also important for a good user experience. Optimize images to ensure your blog posts load fast.
When the average time spent on your site is longer, it’s a signal to Google and other search engines that your site has worthwhile information.
| Read More: Free Online Image And Photo Editing Tools Perfect For Bloggers
3. Check For Broken Links And Add Interlinks/External Links
One of the easiest ways to update an old blog post is to make sure there are no broken links.
When your blog posts are full of broken links, your site visitors will spend less time on your site. They get frustrated and leave when you aren’t offering them the information they’re seeking.
As a result, Google sees little time spent on your site as an indicator that your content isn’t worthy of ranking.
So, it’s so important to make sure your links work. Make it part of your regular blog updates.
You can check your broken links with tools like Ahrefs. Site audits will reveal if you have broken links.
There’s a fantastic tool called Broken Link Checker that’ll tell you which links are broken and need to be updated or replaced. The plugin is free.
One additional activity is to regularly update your internal links. This helps new posts rank better and gives your site visitors more reasons to check out your site longer.
PRO TIP: I use Broken Link Checker once every two weeks to see which links are broken. When I’m done, I deactivate and DELETE the plugin. It’s a hog when it comes to speed. I upload and activate it again when I need to do another link check.
| Related: How To Generate Backlinks For Your Blog To Boost Your Domain Authority
4. Beef Up Your Content
Update an old blog post with fresh information. It’s a great way to increase blog traffic quickly.
Google loves fresh content. Your readers want up-to-date information, too, and they’re more likely to pin it to Pinterest or share it with others.
BINGO! Instantly, more traffic.
If your blog posts are “thin” on content, it’s time to add more useful information.
On my older Suburban Tourist blog, I had many old posts with less than 500 words (“thin content”).
After deciding whether to keep the post or to update it, I often ended up taking the post and combining it with others on the same topic to make it into one much longer blog post.
The result? A blog post that’s over 1000 words (ideally over 1,500 words), on one key topic with much more useful information.
Here’s one that I created from a number of smaller blog posts with thin content: Five Fall Drives From Toronto.
So with thin content:
- Look to combine two or more blog posts into one bigger one with over 1000 words.
- Take a short blog post and expand on it with more information – additional tips, infographics, a deeper dive into a specific aspect of the topic, and other “did you know? or “Interesting Facts” sections.
Add additional information that will make the post even better.
How Can You Use ChatGPT to Update An Old Blog Post?
You can always ask ChatGPT or your favourite chatbot to review your content and compare it to the top-ranking blog posts. This gives you insights into what you need to update content-wise. Take it one step further and ask it also to provide you with additional keywords, a new SEO title and updated meta description.
Voila! It’s a faster way to update an old blog post.
Here’s a ChatGPT prompt for updating blog posts to rank better:
“You are an expert SEO content editor. Review the following blog post [insert link] and suggest detailed updates to improve its on-page SEO and search engine rankings. Focus on optimizing the title, meta description, headers, keyword usage (including related and long-tail keywords), internal and external linking, readability, and formatting. Also suggest opportunities for adding value (e.g., visuals, examples, or updated data). Highlight any outdated information that should be refreshed. Provide a revised version of the blog post with all the recommended improvements implemented. Provide additional recommendations for related keywords. Include a new SEO title and meta description.”
The goal is to have your ChatGPT be your SEO assistant, reviewing your existing content so you can update smartly.
You can take things further and create a prompt like this for ChatGPT discovery:
Act as an expert SEO content editor and AI search optimization specialist. I am updating a blog post [Insert Blog Post Link]’ originally written in [Insert Year]. My audience is [Insert Audience], and I want this post to be easily discovered and recommended in AI-generated search results such as Google SGE, Perplexity.ai, and ChatGPT answers.
Review the content for the following:
- Provide information that’s updated and expanded on the current best practices, stats and trends for [Insert Topic].
- Improve the content to include subheadings with FAQs, bullet points and numbered lists.
- Optimize for semantic SEO and natural language queries people might ask related to this topic.
- Provide suggestions for a concise, engaging featured snippet-style summary for the top of the post.
- Include internal link suggestions to related posts on my blog.
- Make sure the tone is [Insert – friendly, conversational, etc.] and aligns with my brand.
What you get makes it much easier to do a blog update and start appearing in AI search results.
PRO TIP: If you can transform a topic that’s no longer relevant into something that’s “Evergreen”, this is even better. So, for example, a post on an event you went to for a product launch can be transformed into a product review.
Updating Website Content Is Worth It
5. Add Pinterest Pins To Posts That Are Missing Them
Want to know one of the easiest ways to do blog updates that result in HUGE traffic? I’ll tell you the secret to my AMAZING jump in blog traffic in 2020.
I took some of my seasonal blog posts on travel destinations in Ontario and added Pinterest pins to each and every one of them.
Pinning them to Pinterest, I promoted them about two to three months before the summer travel season started.
I knew that once lockdowns were lifted that Ontarians would be very eager to do day trips close to Toronto and other places in Southern Ontario. So I actively pushed my pins on Pinterest.
The result: a 300%+ increase in blog traffic from my travel posts!
Once you’ve updated the keywords, images and content on your posts, ADD PINS!
Make sure they are easily shareable with a good social sharing plugin, like Hubbub or Social Warfare.
Take a look at your posts that don’t have Pinterest pins and start creating them. You can also get my free Pinterest pin templates here.
| RELATED: How To Create Clickable Pinterest Pins That Drive Traffic
6. Create And Leverage Media Content
Updating website content also means visual content.
Just like you add extra text to a blog post, creating a video or podcast for your blog posts can help you increase blog traffic.
Share links on podcast pages, video posts on YouTube and on Facebook for Facebook live posts. This is another way to invite people to check out your blog posts.
The trick is to give them enough valuable information nuggets to get them wanting to learn more about your blog post. So always include a call-to-action in your media content that drives viewers to your blog.
This is a more intensive way to update old blog posts, but it does create more “link juice” for your blog posts.
7. Change Your Tone Of Voice
One of the best ways to update your old blog posts is to look at how you’re writing now compared to when you started.
If you’re finding your old posts are devoid of your personality, it’s time to update your old blog posts to keep consistent with your new tone of voice.
Blog posts that have readers feeling like they’re connecting with YOU, the person, tend to do better than those that are strictly just about the facts.
After all, if you are the person with the blog, people want to know you as well.
You and your blog are essentially a brand. Each brand has a tone of voice that signifies to people what they can expect.
For example, I had old blog posts on Suburban Tourist that were pretty much just facts, written as if it was a travel brochure. I didn’t use my words to exude my personality.
I should have been adding a bit of my love of wanderlust in each post and sharing a bit more of my personal side.
Changing the tone of voice is as simple as:
- Adding a quote that resonates with you
- Including a joke
- A personal anecdote
- Words that you use on a regular basis
- Colloquial phrases
- Pauses and short sentences.
There. That’s the list!
Simple, right? <=== See what I did here? That’s my last point. You can almost hear me saying these words
The trick is to balance the useful information with a boost of YOU.
PRO TIP: Use your brand personality and tone of voice in your opt-in copy to generate a new follower for your community. Yet another avenue for blog traffic!
| READ MORE: How To Find Your Brand Voice And Use It In Your Blog Content
8. Update Your Old Blog Posts With Consistent Formatting
One of the other useful ways to update your blog posts is to fix the formatting to be consistent with all your new posts.
If you have a consistent blog format style that is working well for you, update your old posts to be consistent.
Blog post formatting includes:
- Your use of white space in your text and images
- How you place your images in your posts
- Your use of headings
- Breaking up paragraphs into two to three sentences for easy reading
- Using bullet lists
- Always adding a call to action at the end
- Using dividers where relevant
Why is blog formatting important?
- It makes it easier for site visitors to read your content, so they’re staying on your site longer.
- Aesthetically-pleasing sites are nicer to visit (would you want to revisit one that looks like crap?)
- They tell the visitor about you and how much you want to make their experience awesome.
9. Re-publish And Promote It!
Now that you’ve completed updating an old blog post, it’s time to re-publish it and promote it.
If you’re using WordPress, you can change it in the main Document section by changing the date and re-publishing it that way.
You won’t lose old comments, but you will have it appear on your blog as a fresh post.
10. Update Your Navigation Menu
One more this to do when updating website content is to look at your user experience. Things may have changed since you originally created your navigation menu in WordPress.
This is the time to tweak the categories, key pages and custom links.
Make sure the flow that you create for your site visitors, from left to right, makes sense.
| RELATED: How To Set Up A Menu In WordPress For Optimal Benefit
What To Do After You Update Your Blog Post
The next step in updating blog posts for SEO is to submit them to Google Search Console for re-indexing.
Head over to your Google Search Console, and do the following:
Take the URL of your newly updated blog post and add it to the Inspect any URL search bar up at the top.
Once you hit enter it will load a screen that looks like this:
Press “Request Indexing”.
This will force Google to crawl the page.
You’ll see it improve in ranking if you’ve done things right with interlinks and updates to keywords.
PRO TIP: You can add a brief note at the top or at the end of your post that says it was previously published and updated to include new information. This is especially important if it’s a post that includes
The next step is to start promoting it again!
Updating Blog Posts For SEO Is A Fast Way To Boost Traffic
It’s yet another blogging task you need to add to your long list of activities. However, when you learn how to update blog posts for SEO, you save precious time.
Updating website content should be done regularly, with older posts reviewed and tweaked regularly. Your competitors are updating theirs!
Use smart shortcuts with the help of ChatGPT, Gemini or your other favourite AI model.
What are other ways to generate traffic? Get fresh eyeballs on it by trying these 15+ blog promotion strategies.
Finally, if you want to do a deep dive into investing in your blog, check out this list of the best blogging tools that helped me grow my blog business.
QUESTION: Have you started to update old blog posts? Tell me what you’ve done that helps you generate fresh blog traffic.
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This post is extremely helpful and has so many great tips. Thank you.
You’re welcome!
This is very useful. I can see how some of my first blog posts could be improved, and I’m definitely going to use some of these tips!
Glad you find this helpful!
This was really helpful. Thanks for sharing!
You’re most welcome Sheenia!
Yes! I need to do this! Such a timely post, thank you!
I’ve been wanting to do this but felt overwhelmed at the thought of it. Thank you for this post, I love a good step by step checklist to follow! You are the best! 🙂
very helpful!
This is super helpful. I actually plan to do this to my blog next month.
That’s fantastic! Tell me how it goes with your blog traffic in the next couple of months.
This is exactly what I was looking for. Many dust to update old post to boost traffic but never how to go about it. Your article covers everything! Thank you so much.
You’re welcome! 🙂
Thank you for the information. This is very helpful.
Changing my tone of voice is one I haven’t tried yet for updating old posts!
These are all spot-on tips! I have been doing many of these things but with more of a scattershot approach than a consistent strategy; seems so stupid-simple, but your “make a list of posts to update!” is one of those “duh!” moments that is so obvious BUT I haven’t been doing very deliberately. Thank you!!!
This was so helpful! I have just recently gone back to update some of my older posts. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for all these helpful tips. Definitely makes me want to go back through and update some of my earlier posts. As a health and wellness website most of my content is evergreen but my style has definitely changed as I been blogging longer. Thank you!
I’m glad to hear this! My voice definitely changed over 10 years.
I love these tips! I think I’m going to beef up a few of mine. I actually have two blogs and am not renewing one of them, and after I transfer a few articles to my current blog, I’m going beef them up lol! Thanks for sharing!
That’s a great idea. It’ll give you a boost in traffic for sure!
This is a great post. I saved it to reference when I want to bring my old blog posts to life.
Glad to help out with some inspiration!
Saving this list- thank you for sharing so much valuable info!
Hope it’ll come in handy in the future!
I need to do this for some of my first blog posts. I can make them longer, and have more keywords so it can rank better! Since I didn’t have many readers back then, I’m sure no one will notice that it’s an old post. 🙂
YES! I had this happen too. Some of my old posts because completely new to my audience.
These are some great tips that I know I need to do. I just haven’t known how or where to start. This is very helpful. Thanks!
You’re welcome!
How often do you recommend we update im 120 days in?
You’ve got time still, but here’s a good tip: for your posts that are doing fairly well, but you think could do better, do some research to see what competitors are using for keywords. Play around with them, with your title. See what makes them really shine!