The best part about content marketing is its
versatility. It can be specific to your niche, free and anything you want it to
be, plus it’s easy for beginners to get started.
That said, not every aspect of creating content
is easy. In fact, content marketers can get discouraged in many ways and end up
giving up altogether.
In this instance, we’re talking about the
maintenance of content marketing. Updating older content is a great way to
boost your SEO, but many marketers don’t take advantage of this opportunity.
Here’s why that should change.
Content’s Final Stage
Content creation involves a defined process and
repeated stages that begin with research. From there, the plan is formed to
make new content over time. Once the content is designed or written, it’s
published and shared, with not much done after the fact.
But the time after publishing, the maintenance
phase, is vital. Unfortunately, in the fury of constantly pushing new content,
the end of this process is often neglected.
The content you’ve created to provide long-term
value — your evergreen content — plays an important role in your site. These
pieces are designed to stay relevant over time and guide new customers to your
brand, so they shouldn’t be neglected.
Just think about some of the benefits evergreen
content brings to the table:
●Driving traffic.
●Backlinking.
●Authoritative keywords.
●Site and content continuity.
●Improved ranking.
Evergreen and constantly maintained pieces serve
as a foundation for the rest of your content and grow your authority on a
subject. This also alleviates the stress of constantly struggling to source or
validate new content.
Maintenance doesn’t have the urgency of
creation, however, so it tends to take the backburner in content marketing.
Content maintenance is about nurturing a sustainable relationship with your
growing audience by keeping your post reliable.
If a loyal customer were to stumble upon an old,
outdated post, they may lose faith in your brand.
Content maintenance is challenging though, which
is why many content marketers ignore it. Evergreen content requires time,
research and updates to stay relevant, which means adding a second plan in
addition to your content marketing strategy.
Here are some methods you can use to update and
maintain older content:
Technical Updates
Like anything else, your site needs maintenance
over time. Whether it’s broken links or an outdated background, technical issues
are likey present in your old content.
Even if it was published in peak condition at
the time, there will likely be one or more elements that should be updated.
For example, Google recently made changes to
their meta descriptions. The previous limitation of 160 characters is no longer
the case, so what was once optimized is no longer optimized.
Maybe your meta description still works for SEO
today, but it’s still worth the time to refresh your old content and check for
things like this.
You may also want to experiment with new title
tags to boost engagement and refresh your post. You may find that you have
broken links or links to outdated businesses or businesses that no longer
operate, which harms your credibility.
Broken links hurt your SEO, so take the time to
find newer information or statistics that emphasize your point and link to
those. You can also update your “last updated” timestamp to show viewers that
your content is fresh.
Another technical challenge is the way content
is consumed now versus how it was consumed years ago. The end of Flash, for
instance, has also ended plenty of excellent content pieces that relied upon
it. If you created content with Flash, it won’t last much longer as Flash is
being phased out. Many sites recommend Flash be disabled anyway, so it’s a
change that will come no matter what.
A way to update that content for modern
audiences is by switching out JPEG images for PNG images. PNG images have
better quality and load times than JPEG images, so if you don’t update them,
you may find that you have slower load times that impact your SEO.
Revitalize Your Most Popular Old Posts
While maintenance is important, you don’t need
to update every single piece of old content, nor should you. The best place to
start with updates is with your best and most popular pieces, regardless of how
old they may be.
You can find out what these pieces are with
Google Analytics under the “Behavior” section. This section will show you a
detailed breakdown of each page’s performance for the history of your site and
the posts that have stayed popular over the years. You’ll then have a list of
pieces that are worth maintaining.
If you focus on maintaining and revitalizing
these older pieces of popular content, you’ll most likely be able to continue
to leverage them in the future.
You may also want to consider why these content
pieces have been so successful. Each piece of content has a purpose, so you may
learn more about what works and what doesn’t by analyzing your popular pieces.
If you think that an older piece could do
better, consider “ upcycling
.” Upcycling turns your
old pieces into a new format, which is commonly done with a video. It’s the
same information, but it’s presented in a way that revitalizes the content and
gets it more attention.
Make Relevance a New Goal
No matter how evergreen you thought your content
was, time will always make your posts irrelevant. Eventually, posts will turn
into old news, which requires maintenance to keep them relevant.
One of the benefits here, however, is that you
can turn your piece into something noteworthy with your new perspective. So,
instead of focusing on updating the piece for popularity, focus on making
changes to make it more relevant.
To start, evaluate your content according to
three questions:
●Does your content still pique
interest?
●Is it timely?
●Will it provide a purpose to your
users and your business?
If the answer to all three of these questions is
yes, then you have content that’s worth updating.
The most relevant content will be viewed and
shared more, so taking the time to revamp your relevant content can improve
your content lifecycle.
Once you decide that the piece should and could
be updated, it’s a good idea to check the topic with Google Trends
to make sure there’s
interest in the topic of the old post you’ve chosen to update. If you see too
many peaks and valleys, you may want to wait until the optimal time to revamp
your piece.
Final Thoughts
Content maintenance isn’t the most exciting part
of developing a content marketing strategy, but it’s incredibly helpful for
your business. If you want to continue to create evergreen content that grows
your business, you need to put in the effort to reach your customers.
This means taking the time with your old blog
posts and checking for technical issues, popularity and relevance to see what
will work best. It also means making a serious commitment to making these
changes.
Evergreen content isn’t designed for overnight
success. Instead, it takes up a vital place in your content library that will
bring traffic and credibility to your brand for years.