Some time ago, you wrote a beautiful article. You published it on your blog, and after a while, you received some backlinks. You also noticed that your blog post started ranking in Google. But what should you do with that article after a while? How do you ensure your articles keep attracting backlinks and traffic from Google? How do you keep your content fresh and up-to-date? I’ll tell you how to maintain your blog posts properly in this blog post.
Why is up-to-date content important?
People expect websites to be up-to-date. When they search for information online, they expect to find something correct and up-to-date. Your job as a website owner is to meet those expectations. If information in a certain blog post is no longer valid, that could jeopardize your website’s and your organization’s reputation. Next to that, up-to-date content is also important for your chances of ranking in the search engines. Updating and improving your articles regularly will be a sign for Google that your website is being maintained properly. For Google, that would be a reason to show your blog posts in the search engines, as Google also wants to present the best results to its users. So, that’s exactly why website maintenance is so important!
Tips on maintaining your blog post
Let’s look at some tips on how to maintain your blog posts properly. Especially if your site is relatively large, keeping all of your content valid and up to date can be pretty challenging. Let’s look at some tips that could help you to maintain your blog posts.
Assess the frequency that is needed
Not all articles need the same frequency of updating. For some, updating once every 5 years will be sufficient, while others would benefit from very regular updates (like every 6 months). Make sure to assess which articles need regular updating and which don’t.
Articles that are very important for your blog should be updated more often. These will be the articles that attract a lot of traffic from the search engines and the articles you use in your marketing or sales and refer many people. I would advise you to update these blog posts every year.
Also, articles about trends and current events must be updated regularly. They need to be rewritten to ensure that the information presented in them is still up to date.
A general rule of thumb would be to update important articles at least yearly. Also, articles about trends and current events need a yearly revisit in order to make sure that the information you have provided is still valid.
Set a reminder per blog post
If you know you need to update specific blog posts regularly, and you feel this is important, set reminders in your calendar. These tasks are easily forgotten and could severely damage the quality of your posts. Setting a recurring task in your digital calendar could help you remember and get the job done.
Assess how much rewriting a post needs
In many cases, updating an article should not be a big task. Don’t feel like you need to rewrite the whole thing. The first thing to do is read through the blog post and check the information on incorrect or outdated things. Correct that information. Assess whether the quality of the post is still intact. Does this post still offer valuable information to your readers? Try to distinguish between an update and a full rewrite. An update will be relatively quick, but a rewrite will entail much more. If you feel this blog post should have a big makeover, you should make some room in your calendar to do proper research and write a new version.
Change examples
A quick update could be replacing the examples in your old article with new examples. That’ll refresh your article, especially if you use examples related to current events. This is a quick and easy way to refresh an article if the content itself is not outdated.
Add a paragraph
Another way to quickly update an article is to add a paragraph to your blog post. In this paragraph you can write about the latest insights in the matter at hand in your blog post. Think about adding a paragraph with the latest trends or the newest best practices to make sure that the information in your blog post is complete. Do make sure that this new paragraph fits within the structure and ordening of topics of the original blog post.
Don’t forget about pictures
Don’t forget about your images whilst maintaining your blog posts! Make sure to check whether or not you have to replace pictures in a blog post. Check whether or not screenshots or images are outdated and make sure to replace these with ones that are up to date.
Check style and branding
While updating, don’t forget to check whether the writing style and your branding is still on par with your newest articles. It could very well be that you’ve made changes in tone of voice and in the way you structure your articles. This often happens without us being very aware of it. It is not a big deal, but while updating it could be a good idea to make sure that there’s consitentcy in style and branding.
Plan some time to maintain your blog posts
You write your blog posts and articles for good reasons. You want to show your expertise to your audience, convince them of the benefits of your products or inform them about news and trends in your profession. Above that, you hope to attract new visitors from Google to your site. Don’t forget about your blog posts after you’ve written them. Make sure to check in on your articles every now and then and make sure that the content is still valid and up to date.
These tasks can be easily forgotten. We all have a million things on our to-do list and maintaining a website is usually not at the top of that list. Plan time in your calendar to work on your website. Schedule time to rewrite and update the articles on your website and write some new ones every now and then. Maintaining a website is important work. Good Luck!