Leveraging older posts is a good tactic to save time and effort in creating new materials for your content marketing .
Most content creators focus entirely on moving forward, spending several hours on new posts every week. They do a huge bang for the buck for each item once they publish it. But then they quickly forget that it exists.
However, it is likely that your case is different. Surely, more than once you have considered reaching the impact and conversions you received a few months ago, after writing a post on your blog that motivated and engaged the audience. But the effervescence of that post has expired.
Although, of course. It is true that what most dissuades us, or worries us about writing a blog, is constantly creating new content. A blog must be kept up to date. Because, in addition, it is a commitment. Not only with your audience, but with yourself and your brand.
Why should you worry about old blog posts?
Reviewing, expanding, or reusing old content is always easier than creating a new article from scratch. It also offers built-in opportunities for internal links , encouraging readers to spend more time on your blog.
There are countless reasons why you should worry about old blog posts, but one of the main reasons is that Google likes new content .
Google displays the dates directly in its SERPs to show users when a piece of content was last updated.
So if you update old posts, Google will display the date you last modified them on the results pages instead of the original post date. This means that you can benefit from a higher click-through rate , traffic and engagement.
Also, there is no point in spending many hours or hundreds of dollars creating a new blog post and then letting it die once it leaves your home page.
Apply these 7 steps when you want to take advantage of the oldest posts on your blog
If your goal is to take advantage of the oldest posts on your blog, it is crucial that you do not take random paths. Well if you do, instead of maximizing your conversion rates , what you will get will be money losses.
There are publications that are valuable and well worth bringing back afloat . For multiple reasons, which can be from its value for depth, for its ability to be sharable, for the time that a reader lasts in that post or for its measurable value.
In order to determine which posts you can take advantage of, consider building an inventory of content. You can back them up with analytics like those offered by Google Analytics . Or you can measure them first hand with your audience response.
1.- Ask your audience
Remember that in digital communication, the objectives of your strategies must be user-centered. Because they are about how useful your work is to your readers.
So, take time to ask them in different ways what type of content , from the one you have previously provided, they would like to receive or update again.
Also, it would be interesting to ask them about what doubts have arisen from your content . Knowing this will help you build a strategy to take advantage of older posts.
Whoever does not adapt, does not change. Taking advantage of the oldest posts on your blog will allow you to recognize that there was something you provided your readers with that generated connection.
2.- Reconnect your content
Take time to research with your readers what you want to reconnect with your content. When you already have an editorial strategy in place, over time, you will be able to observe the responses of your readers and find the points where they commit to what you offer.
In this way, you can publish content on this line adapted to the interests of your audience. In other words, take advantage of older posts by consulting your readers and observing their reactions. You will be able to provide them with updated solutions based on what you have already published.
3.- Show what you think about your content
This proposal usually puts us in a difficult situation. In reality, it is difficult to make public what we think about what we do, but we are human beings, we are in constant renewal.
So, you can take advantage of the oldest posts on your blog by reviewing them for new content. Tell your users what you got by doing what you said in that post. What was the result, or what did you learn by doing it.
Showing your opinion makes you better project your image as an expert in your sector. If, in addition to this, you add the factor of questioning yourself, you will win votes of confidence. All leaders have an opinion. Why? Because you have matured over time. And your old posts are proof of that.
The value in a blog post is not the few thousand visitors it receives right away, it’s the tens or hundreds of thousands of visitors it gets in the coming years from search results.
Show that you care and that you believe in what you talk and what you say. That you care about improving every day. So if you want to stand out, you have to dare to question yourself and tell your opinion about things.
4.- Take advantage of old posts to remember your why
Well, surely those who are regular readers of your blog or followers of your account on social networks, know who you are in your sector and what you do.
However, if it’s been a long time since that post where you explained why you do what you do, which motivated you to make the leap, your readers probably won’t remember.
Even if it is a new client that reaches you, either by Google searches , or by the recommendation of someone in your sector. It would be nice to present your story, taking the path of taking advantage of your old posts.
Most of the answers we get, when based on solid evidence, are perfectly valid. But if we do not understand the cause, the raison d’être of the existence of a brand like yours, your readers will probably ask you the wrong questions.
5.- Expand old ideas, with follow-up publications
Another very effective way to take advantage of older posts is to write follow-up posts. The reason is that they can be advertised as new content.
They can also help you build a network of internal links that will keep readers on your blog longer. Some ideas can even be expanded with a series of articles.
Look at the list of topics you have chosen to expand or rewrite and take advantage of the articles that are best for the expansion. Often the best articles for these posts are lists, as each point can become a separate article.
6.- Create perennial content that indexes your old publications
Another of the tactics that work to take advantage of older posts is to link them to perennial, timeless or evergreen content .
Evergreen content is search- optimized content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers over a long period of time.
Within these perennial contents you can include lists. The famous Do it Yourself, procedural content. In them you could include links to take advantage of the oldest posts on your blog. Of course, some or all of these topics will not be relevant to your brand. You must create content that provides value to your audience .
The tricky part of perennial content is that the industry’s hottest topics have often been covered already. Maybe even hundreds of times.
In this case, you should add your own unique spin or search for keywords that have a decent amount of traffic, but not as much competition. This will make your content more valuable and more likely to move up the search engine results.
7.- Revive your content in favor of algorithms
Google is making continuous changes to its algorithms . A significant change in recent years is its move to a more semantic analysis of content. This means that Google doesn’t just focus on finding exact matches for certain keywords in content. You are trying to understand what the content is about. So now it is better to focus on a topic rather than keywords.
However, Google is still optimizing for particular keywords. You shouldn’t just replicate these keywords everywhere in your content. Instead, you should think about related keywords and synonyms.
Adjusting your previous posts to this algorithm is a smart move if you rank well in search results. Take advantage of them!
At Antevenio we give visibility to your content by positioning it at the top of the search results. To do this, we help you create the best Branded Content strategy to amplify the reach of your brand in the medium term.
