As you create content, some of your best work may begin to fall into the depths of your blog’s archive. Although your content will age, it will retain value for your brand if it contains evergreen information. In many cases, there is little need to write a new article on a specific topic if it’s already been covered by an older piece – by giving your older work a facelift, you can save time and money while providing your readers with interesting and actionable content.
Re-Publishing Content Can Lead to an Increase in Traffic
According to a post by HubSpot, they were able to achieve a 106 percent increase in traffic by giving their old blog posts a facelift and re-publishing them. This same tactic has been repeated by a number of other blogs and the results were very similar – in the case of Brian Dean from Backlinko, he saw a 260 percent increase in traffic by re-publishing evergreen content. He also saw a major increase in traffic from social media during his initial relaunch project.
Re-publishing old content is a tried and true way to increase your traffic, but how exactly can you make it happen?
Earning Traffic Through Relaunched Content
Increasing your traffic through relaunched evergreen content isn’t rocket science, however it does require some strategy to achieve the best results. There are three major steps you should follow as you plan to republish your content:
- Find and identify underperforming blog posts in your archive.
- Update the content and add general improvements to make it more enjoyable to read and more actionable to your reader.
- Republish your article with the new additions.
Step 1: Identify Underperforming Content
Content which doesn’t rank in the the top 7 spots of Google’s search results page should be considered “underperforming.” Any content which falls between spots 7 and 15 according to Google’s analytics are excellent candidates for a facelift.
You can also identify underperforming content based on the amount of organic traffic it garners. Content which used to attract organic traffic may have fallen off as the information it contains grows outdated – these articles are well-suited to a relaunch strategy.
Finally, any content which underperformed in the first place should be considered for relaunch. The original content may be accurate and well-written, but there are a number of factors which could have led to its shortcomings. By publishing this content with updates at a later time, it may reach a larger audience and bring new visitors to your site.
Step 2: Update Your Content and Make it Better
Read through your underperforming articles and take notes on how it can be improved and updated:
- Are the images, videos, and screenshots up-to-date?
- Is your post formatted and structured properly?
- Have you recently added new case studies and statistics to the article?
- Are readers asking questions about your content, and is it answering those questions directly?
- Does your article tell an interesting story?
Unless the answer to each of these questions is a resounding “yes,” your content could use an update. Include new information relevant to the topic, and use up-to-date screenshots in order to show readers your blog is well-maintained. The addition of new case studies and statistics can help make your content more actionable and trustworthy, and answering questions you’ve commonly seen in the comments section can improve your content tremendously.
Overall, your goal is to set you best foot forward with re-publishing. Take this time to remove any out-of-date factors from your work and replace them with information your target audience cares about.
Step 3: Re-Publish Your Newly Updated Content
Before you relaunch your content, you should let influencers in your niche know about the changes. Look for bloggers who are writing about the same topic as yourself and send them a brief email explaining your plan. When you content launches, they’ll be ready and waiting to read and share it with their audience, helping you reach new audiences.
You’ll want to change the “published” date in WordPress to reflect the relaunch. Many readers will turn away from an article if it’s older than a few months to a year, and keeping the 2011 publishing date on your article will only serve to hurt your traffic. Use the date you relaunched the content as your “published on” date.
Finally, you want to announce your newly relaunched content on social media and through email. Let your audience know you’ve released something great, and they’ll flock to it in hopes of finding actionable information.
Have you ever republished evergreen content in order to increase your site’s traffic? What are your tips for relaunched content? Let us know in the comments below!
Special thanks for Brian Dean from Backlinko for creating some crushingly awesome content! Read the full article here…
