It can be easy to be satisfied with a piece of content, publish it, and then forget all about it. However, forgetting all about it means that, over time, performance will decrease and you’ll start to notice less traffic to your website. So, what should you do when that content no longer performs? The answer lies in refreshing and re-optimising old content so that it is up-to-date, relevant and SEO-optimised. But, how often should you update your website content?
Typically, we recommend reviewing old content at least every 6-12 months to check for old-of-date content or dips in performance as a bare minimum. However, there is no hard and fast rule on how often to update content; you should review it regularly for optimisation opportunities.
Read on to learn more about content SEO and how often you should refresh your content for maximum impact.
How Often Should You Update Your Website Content?
It’s essential that the content on your website is regularly reviewed and updated to maximise SEO performance. Google (and other search engines) want to rank the highest-quality, most relevant content for a given search term. Therefore, your content needs to be up-to-date.
How often you update them however, depends on a few factors – there is no one-size-fits-all answer.
Landing Pages
It’s worth reviewing your key landing pages at least every 6-12 months to see if anything needs updating. At this point, it’s also worth reviewing pages against similar pages from competitors to see if there’s anything working well for them that you could do differently.
However, if performance on any given page suddenly drops significantly and is not in line with known trends, it might be time to review and re-optimise. Here’s what to look out for:
- Is the content outdated? Are there any facts, dates, data or other information that is no longer accurate? In this case, your content should be updated.
- Has the page ever been optimised for SEO? If it has never been optimised for SEO, it’s worth reviewing it to see if improvements can be made.
- Has performance dropped? Have organic metrics or keywords on a given page significantly dropped recently? It‘s worth exploring why this has happened and re-optimising the content in line with that information. Learn about the potential causes of this in our blog about diagnosing SEO rankings drops.
- How long has it been since it was last updated? There’s no hard and fast rule, but if a page hasn’t been refreshed for a few years, it’s probably time to review it.
Blogs
Refreshing blog content is a task that is often overlooked in favour of key landing pages. However, it can be the difference of hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your website.
We recommend reviewing the performance of blog content every few months to see if you can gain any quick wins from re-optimising old content. Here’s what to look for:
- Blogs that have previously performed well but have recently seen a dip in traffic. Content that once brought in a lot of traffic shows that there is search volume associated with that topic, but that potentially the blog lacks freshness. Decayed content often only needs updated stats, updated links, and a re-optimised structure to rank well again.
- Blogs ranking on pages 2 and 3 of search results have high optimisation potential and might just need a little extra attention to reach the first page.
- Blogs with outdated information will need to be updated to ensure that it is offering high-quality, relevant content, as required by Google. This might include old statistics, expired trends, dates, or event information, to name a few.
- Keep an eye on what competitors are doing – this could be a sign that you also need to revisit similar content.
Learn more about blog optimisation in our dedicated blog, Is Blog Optimisation Worth It? Or, find out how to properly optimise a blog in our detailed article, How Do You Optimise a Blog for SEO?
Ways to Refresh Your Content for SEO
By now, you’ve probably realised it’s time to refresh the content on your website. Here are a few simple ways to make a real impact:
- Refresh the Written Content – some content won’t necessarily need a complete re-write, but might just need small tweaks to make a difference, such as:
- Reviewing stats, data and anything else that might be outdated.
- Adding expert quotes and opinions to show authority.
- Adding FAQs
- Demonstrating E-E-A-T principles.
- Don’t Forget the Meta Data – review the title tags, H1s and meta descriptions on pages for a quick win. Learn more in our detailed blog about meta data.
- Improve Internal Linking – internal linking is essential for SEO. It’s how Google’s crawlers find your pages. After refreshing a page, use the ‘site:’ search function on Google and look for pages that mention your target query. Where it makes sense, add an internal link to the recently updated page.
- Make it Better Than Competitors’ Pages – in order to rank better than your competitors, your content needs to be better than theirs. Put your chosen keyword into Google and review the top-ranking pages for that query. What can you add to your content to make it better than theirs?
- Request Indexing – once you have finished refreshing a page, be sure to request indexing via Google Search Console. This pushes the page to the top of the indexing priority list and may help you see results just that little bit faster. Learn more in our detailed blog, How Often Does Google Crawl My Site?
Learn more about ways to refresh old content for SEO in our dedicated blog, How Do I Refresh Old Content For SEO?
Breathe New Life Into Your Content With the Experts at Wildcat Digital
If you need help with your content strategy and knowing when to update the content on your website, get in touch with our Content SEO experts at Wildcat Digital. With experience across a wide range of industries in both B2B and B2C environments, you can trust us to breathe new life in your content and generate lasting results.
Get in touch today to arrange a free consultation and see how we can help you punch above your weight online.
Chloe Robinson
Content Strategist & Team Leader
