updating your old content
Rachel Moffett

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Best Practices on Updating Your Old Content for More Results with Andy Crestodina

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Quick question for you! Do you take the time to update the blog posts that are buried in the depths of your archives?

If not, you should be!

And that’s exactly what we’re teaching you how to do in this week’s #ContentWritingChat!

So, if your older content could use some sprucing up, let’s dive into the recap for some great tips!

#ContentWritingChat Recap: Best Practices on Updating Your Old Content for More Results with Andy Crestodina

Our guest host this week was Andy Crestodina. Andy is a speaker, a content marketer, and the co-founder of Orbit Media. He shared some fantastic advice with us that’ll help you make the most of the content you’ve already published.

Q1: Why is it so important to keep you older content updated and fresh?

If you’re wondering why keeping your content updated is so important, it’s time to listen up! Check out these responses from the chat on why it’s a must for any content creator:

As Andy said, it’s worth updating your old content for quality and efficiency. Instead of creating something new, you can easily improve upon what’s already there. Sometimes that older content of yours is still great and therefore worth being updated.

Kristen knows that it would be pretty awful if a potential client stumbled upon an older piece of content that didn’t exactly give off the best impression. You risk sending them running far away from your website.

And as Andrea said, you never know when someone might find one of your older posts. You want to make sure it’s updated to your current standards.

Jason pointed out that sometimes the topic is still relevant, but the data could use some updating. You don’t want readers coming across a post that’s filled with outdated information.

Giving your content a refresh is a great way to ensure it stays relevant and shareable!

Julia said updating your old content is actually a great way to boost conversions, especially if those posts are already ranking well in search results.

As Mike pointed out, links can break, trends can change, and facts get outdated. These are all important things to look at improving in your older blog posts.

If it’s still getting traffic, Cristy knows it’s worth updating to keep it relevant for your readers.

Even if a piece of content is old, it could still be getting a lot of traffic. As Ashley mentioned, you might be surprised to see what gets the most traffic when looking through your analytics. It’s better to deliver those site visitors an amazing piece of content.

Q2: Which brands do an amazing job at updating their older content? Tag them and let them know!

Which brands can you learn from when it comes to keeping your archives fresh? Here are some great examples that are worth checking out:

Lisa Jenkins, Social Media Examiner, and Michele Linn all do a great job at keeping older content updated and fresh. Andy’s blogger survey even revealed 55% of bloggers update old content. Don’t you want to be part of that group?

Julia said Content Marketing Institute does a great job at updating old blog posts.

Cheval is a fan of Rebekah Radice and how she transforms blog posts into podcast episodes.

HubSpot is another brand that’s doing a great job according to Liliana.

Kristen thinks Campaign Monitor does an impressive job when it comes to giving their blog posts and infographics new life on social media.

Zala said Buffer is another brand that’s doing a great job at keeping their content fresh.

Q3: Once you’ve chosen an older post to update, what steps can you take to freshen it up?

You have your blog post all picked out… Now it’s time to actually give it a makeover, but you need to know where to begin! Here’s how you can get started with updating your old content:

Andy feels the purpose is to truly upgrade the content. He encourages you to add detail, examples, images, contributor quotes, video, and formatting.

He even shared some great statistics that show media and formatting are essential.

Jason shared some great ideas such as compiling new data, polling users, conducting A/B tests, and more.

These are all great tips from Andrea. Make sure you’ve gotten rid of old or irrelevant information, add useful information, update the visuals, and include additional multimedia.

Julia shared a pretty impressive list of things to do when updating your old content.

Don’t forget to refresh your links as well. As Ryan pointed out, you can link to other relevant content on your site and others, which gives people more to read.

Older content needs to be aligned with your current branding and strategy.

Cristy recommends updating links, any research or data within the post, and the publish date. For any post that received a major update, you can always republish it as if it were brand new. You can include the original post date and the date it was updated for reference.

Lexie said to make sure your post has a call to action (CTA). You need to get people to take action after they’ve read your content.

Q4: What are some great ways to repurpose older content for maximum mileage?

Once you’ve begun updating your old content, you might also want to think about ways you can repurpose it. A blog post can easily be transformed into another format based on what works well for you and your audience. Here are some great ideas:

As Andy said, if your content worked well as a blog post, you can always publish it in a new format. Try turning it into a video, an infographic, or an ebook.

Not only will a video be beneficial for those who prefer it over written content, but it’s a great way to boost views on your YouTube channel.

Leah suggests using a blog post as content for a Facebook Live broadcast.

Another great option, as Cheval suggested, is to turn your blog post into a podcast episode.

If you shared tons of valuable information in your blog post, it could become a great infographic.

Your blog post can easily become a video, a slideshow, or a podcast. It all depends what works best for you and your audience.

Q5: When you’ve finished updating your old content, how can you get more eyes on it? What promotion strategies do you use?

When you have a fresh piece of content, you obviously want tons of new people to check it out. How can you do this? Check out these promotional tactics for a boost in traffic:

Andy shared some helpful ideas for increasing views on your content. You can schedule it on social media, send it out as an email newsletter, link to it from the high traffic pages, add it to your homepage, link to it in your email signature, and pin it to your Twitter account.

Danielle’s advice is to treat your updated content like new content. The same tactics you normally use for a brand new post can still be applied here.

Make sure you’re sharing your content in relevant places. If your audience is there, it’s worth scheduling out a share to boost traffic.

Lexie said you shouldn’t be afraid of using paid social either. Boosting a post on Facebook can be very effective for getting more eyes on your content.

There’s no harm in running ads on content you’re really proud of!

Brent’s advice is to answer questions and share your content with people. You can do so through Twitter chats, on Quora, and many other ways.

Q6: How do you measure the success of older content that you’ve updated? Which metrics are important to track?

After your updated content is live, you’ll want to keep an eye on some key metrics to see how it’s performing. Here’s what you should pay attention to:

Traffic, engagement, links, sharing, and rankings are all important things to look at for Andy.

Lexie suggests tracking time on site/page. She also said to include a CTA to tell people what that next step is.

For Jason, he pays attention to view/open rate, page view duration, and how conversion rates have increased. These are all important things to track!

Julia is all about those conversions. For the team here at Express Writers, it’s a good sign when potential clients start a new chat with our customer service from a blog post.

Gaby said to measure engagement, traffic, shares, links, bounce rate, and feedback. You can compare those stats to how the post was performing before the update to see how much you’ve improved.

Q7: Do you use any tools to help you update and repurpose older content? Share them!

When updating your old content, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you get the job done. Check out these suggestions from the chat:

As Andy knows, Google Analytics is a must for any content creator.

Danielle agrees because Google Analytics is a go-to for her as well. It’ll show you which posts are worth updating because you can easily see how they’re ranking.

BuzzSumo is a great tool to see what’s popular within your industry. Andrea also like LumenFive.

Gaby suggests using BuzzSumo, Google Analytics, Photoshop, and social media.

Google Analytics and SEMrush are must-have tools for Julia.

Canva and Adobe Spark are both great tools to check out.

Q8: How do you choose which piece of content to update? Are there any qualifications?

Now that you have all these tips to go forward with, you might be wondering which posts are worth updating. To find out, you’ll want to keep this advice in mind:

If your blog post is written on an evergreen topic, but has some outdated information, then it’s worth updating.

Julia said to look for content that’s already getting views, traffic, and rankings. She said this is an indicator that it’ll be worthwhile to update.

Lexie’s advice is to find content that your audience connected with previously and improve it. If the content resonated before, there’s a good chance it’ll resonate again.

Content that sparked interested or conversation is often worth a refresh.

Chelsea chooses to update content that’s relevant to current trending topics or new projects that she’s working on.

If a piece of content did well before or has once again become relevant, it’s worth improving it with an update.

Sabjan said to choose posts to update based on the engagement it received. You’ll want to keep an eye on bounce rate, shares, and views.

Ready to join in on the next #ContentWritingChat? We’re hanging out on Twitter every Tuesday at 10 AM Central! Make sure you follow @ExpWriters and @writingchat for all the latest!

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