I’m in the process of updating my blog posts and I figured that I might as well share with you what I’m doing. Now that I have more than a hundred blog posts (170 as of the time of writing), I realized that I should be updating my old blog posts. However, it’s not that easy though, given that I’m just a part-time blogger, updating 170 articles is an overwhelming task for me.
Photo by Avi Richards on Unsplash
Table of Contents
How Often Should You Update Your Blog Posts
So, how often should you update your blog posts? The quick answer is, as often as possible!
But…
Realistically, I don’t think it’s possible for everyone because it’s a very time-consuming task.
Not everyone has a team of writers, virtual assistants, staff, etc that can help update old blog posts. Most bloggers that I know are just a one-man team just like me.
So, how am I doing it?
Related Posts:
Why You Should Update Your Blog Posts
Before we go to the ‘Hows’, let’s start with the ‘Whys’ first. Why should you update your blog posts as often as possible?
Blog Traffic
I have been planning to update my old blog posts since the start of 2021, but I have been putting it off because I’m swamped with other things that I need to do at home. I thought that it could wait because it’s not affecting my blog performance anyway. Traffic has been consistently climbing up from the start of the year until May this year.
But by June, traffic started to drop steadily.
Now, I know that there’s are so many reasons why it happened but one of the things that I have noticed is that, it’s because my blog posts that were ranking in the past, may have been perceived by the search engine as irrelevant now.
I even have blog posts with ‘2020’ in the title, so why will Google still rank them if there are so many new articles that are more relevant to their search users, right?
User Experience
Aside from blog traffic, another reason why you should update your blog posts as frequently as possible is to maintain a good user experience.
If your old posts (that needs updating) are still ranking in the SERP, chances are readers will continuously visit your blog.
But what do you think will happen if the information that they get from your blog is now:
- Not accurate anymore
- Irrelevant
- Almost useless
Instead of gaining a new subscriber, these people who found you on the SERP will just move on to the next blog. It becomes a wasted opportunity for you right?
Blog Income
Blog income is not yet a priority for me. But if it is one of your main sources of income, then you should make it one of your priorities to update your blog posts, especially the ones that are doing well in the SERPs.
If one of your main sources of income is display ads, then you will definitely see that it’s directly affected by the number of people that visit your blog. The higher the pageviews (especially from high-cost countries), the higher the ad income is.
Related Posts:
How to Effectively Update Your Blog Posts
Identify Your Priorities
The good news is, depending on the kind of content that you have, not all posts need to be updated as frequently as the others.
Here are some reasons why and some examples.
There are some blog posts that have been written that are not meant to be updated.
Here’s an example – First Year Blog Anniversary – Lessons and Surprises.
I wrote this article to document my earlier experience in blogging and I don’t think I ever need to update that since it’s an article that is bound to expire due to the nature of its topic.
There are some blog posts that need to be constantly updated.
Here’s an example – Free Annual Fee Credit Cards in the Philippines.
This is an article that needs to be constantly updated mainly because the nature of the content is ever-changing. Credit card companies, often change their promotions, interest rate, perks, rewards program, etc.
Your ultimate priority should be – to keep your top-ranking articles updated to ensure a good fighting chance in maintaining your SERP ranking for those articles.
Schedule Your Updates
You don’t have to update on a weekly basis especially if you are not a full-time blogger. Personally, my priority is still to write new content. What I usually do is schedule a certain time to update old blog posts.
I update my old blog posts once I have written new content for the day/week. This is to ensure that I still get to produce new content on a weekly basis while keeping the old posts updated.
I also use my idle time to update old blog posts. And sometimes, when I’m not in the mood to write a new article, I use that time instead to update old articles.
Put a Disclaimer
To protect the user experience, set the right expectation for your blog. In my case, I know that I wouldn’t be able to update as often as possible since I’m only doing this on a part-time basis.
Having said that, I put a disclaimer on all articles that have ever-changing content to remind my readers to always counter-check the information that they see on my blog to the source (e.g. credit card companies, banks, etc).
Maximize Your Benefits
When updating an article, maximize the benefits of doing so by:
- Updating the content itself
- Updating the title
- Updating the Internal links
Sometimes, it’s not only the content that needs to be updated but also the title.
For example – Best Travel Credit Cards in the Philippines – Updated 2021.
In this example, the title used to say ‘Best Travel Credit Card in the Philippines for 2020’. Since I already have updated the content, I have also updated the title from 2020 to 2021 to inform Google and my readers that this article is updated.
And since I have written new articles relating to credit cards, I have also added new internal links to the old post. I also add links of my old posts to my new posts as long as I feel that they’re relevant enough.
Update the Content Structure
Sometimes, even if we read an article a couple of times before we publish it, there are still some minor spelling and grammatical errors left.
Whenever I update an article, I also use this as an opportunity to spot those errors that I didn’t notice in the past.
I also use this opportunity to improve the article aesthetic by minimizing/removing huge walls of text by splitting the paragraphs or by adding pictures.
By doing this, I feel that I am improving the experience of my readers whenever they visit my blog.
Related Posts:
Final Thoughts
Updating old blog posts takes so much time. You have to read the article again and counter-check all the information you have included from their original sources to ensure accuracy.
It’s a very tedious process and also, I find it a very boring task. However, it’s also a very important task to ensure that your blog remains relevant and to ensure that you protect the SERP ranking that you have worked hard for in the past.
How Often Should You Update Your Blog Posts Click To TweetHow about you? Are you also a blogger? How often do you update your blog posts? Feel free to share your tips and recommendations in the comment section below.
Updating blog posts is so important to keep relevancy in the search rankings. Readers will definitely be turned off by things that have 2020 information in them, which I think I’m certainly guilty of having.
Great post, TH! I’m learning a lot about blogging from reading a lot of your posts and taking notes 🙂
Thanks David. I’m glad that you find my blog posts helpful.
Hey Thrifty Hustler, I agree that it’s important to update content as much as possible. But like you said, it’s a lot of work and can be hard to keep up with. I almost find that it’s harder work than writing a new post. Writing a new post is more creative.
Thanks Graham for dropping by. It’s harder but it’s also necessary especially if those articles are driving substantial traffic to your blog.