SEO, an acronym of Search Engine Optimization, is an important tool for making sure your blog is found by the right people and gives them the in-depth information that they are looking for. If you have an old blog post that may not be ranking as well as it used to, there are a few things you can do to revive it. In this post, we’ll give you 13 tips on how to raise your evergreens back in the search rankings with a proper SEO strategy.
In this blog:
- First of all, what are blog posts?
- Why spruce up evergreens?
- FOCUS: On-page SEO vs Off-page SEO
- 13 tips on how to make your old blog post relevant again
- Conclusion
- Glossary
First of All, What Are Blog Posts?
Blog posts are mostly chronological articles published on a blog, a dedicated page on a homepage. These occur in all fields, industries, topics and designs. Whether they are beauty, corporate or travel blogs – there are hardly any limits to diversity and creativity. Nevertheless, you can roughly distinguish two types of blog posts:
Time specific content – trends, current events or news articles are listed here. These discuss a topic that is of particular importance at the moment. Examples could be:
- How can I improve the user experience in Web1?
- What impact will the Covid pandemic have on the e-commerce business?
- World Cup in Qatar: How bloggers can change opinions
- 10 ways how small businesses can benefit from the 2020 marketing trends
- How web pages can increase search queries from the Trump election
In addition, there are certain blog posts, known as evergreens, that are likely to remain relevant throughout their lifetime and can add precious value to the readers. These may include the following topics:
- 10 tips for successful SEO
- A tutorial on how to read SEO analytics in WordPress
- The basics of successful conversions in online marketing
- How to increase the click-through-rate within your content strategy
- Technical SEO for professionals
These evergreens are designed to provide readers with informative content for months or even years after its publication.
Why Spruce Up Evergreens?
The Internet is a fast-paced place. Preferences, search behavior, and the emergence of new generations is what makes this place so dynamic. So while your evergreen may be well written and relevant, it may be listed very low in the search engines – if at all. This, in turn, ensures that fewer users will read your blog. The reasons for the lower ranking are complex and varied:
- It’s possible that the post no longer receives as much organic traffic* because of the missing relevance
- The backlinks are no longer up to date or removed
- The meta description is missing
- The post was not optimized for SEO in general
- The page speed has slowed down
- The information is outdated
- etc.
*At the end of this blog you will find a detailed glossary, which describes the most important terms around SEO in more detail.
Let’s make an example: some time ago you wrote a blog post about the best bars in your city. But the creation happened already 2 years ago and during this time your city has welcomed many new citizens and a lot of new bars have been established. Therefore it is not relevant for future readers to read your blog post anymore. Moreover, due to the dynamics of the internet, the keywords you used back then and the state of the underlying algorithms, the copy is no longer relevant enough to rank well. All this ensures that your blog post will be read by fewer people.
Our tip: Algorithm updates are executed more often than you might think. Take a look at these updates from time to time, as they are usually not communicated through the media.
FOCUS: Onpage-SEO vs Offpage-SEO
If you write blog posts for a larger audience and want to make sure that your blog ranks on the first page on a search engine, it is especially important to pay attention to a successful SEO. For blog posts, a distinction is made between On-page SEO and Off-page SEO. The On-page SEO is mainly achieved with well-written content, appropriate photos and videos and well crafted meta descriptions. What is often forgotten are also the technical conditions: good performance, fast loading time and permanent availability are just as important as the content itself.
Good content also depends on the correct use of relevant keywords and the analysis of your copy. There are some tools that can help you with this. For example:
- Google Analytics & Google Keyword-Planner: These in-house SEO tools from Google allow you to search for the most relevant keywords and analyze your content for free.
- Answer The Public: This visually appealing tool shows you exciting insights to deduce the search behavior itself.
- SEORCH: Another free tool that provides you with suggestions from various search engines through the autocomplete function.
- ClearScope: This paid tool is especially suitable for larger and more professional teams, as they have various metrics and features that are substantial for marketers.
- Ahrefs: This SEO software suite is an all-round package that offers a keyword tool as well as solutions for link building, rank tracking and much more.
- Semrush: Another software package where you get over 55 tools to improve your SEO.
Off-page SEO, on the other hand, is about your blog gaining awareness. Proactive marketing is the central topic here. The backlinks mentioned above are a very successful and important tool to make your blog better known. In addition, social media offers you a great platform to promote your blogs. Further Off-page SEO measures can include:
- Strategic brand building
- Content marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- etc.
Only if On-page SEO and Off-page SEO are synchronized, your blog post can become more successful.
13 Tips on How to Make Your Old Blog Post Relevant Again
Now, we’re going to show you how to spruce up your old blog post with a few valuable tips while improving your search engine ranking so that your evergreens stay as fresh as possible.
- Check the accuracy of the post: Before you start refreshing a blog post, you should check if the information is still up to date. If the post is outdated, you may need to update all the information. An extensive Google search can help you with that.
- Correct the grammar: Languages are dynamic. Take the time to do a grammar check and deliver a high-quality language.
Our tip: Try to use the Grammarly plugin. Even the free version can show you spelling and grammar suggestions in real time.
- Add recent information: If the post is still relevant, you can update it by adding recent information. This can help make the post more interesting and up-to-date.
- Do a new keyword research: With current and relevant keywords you can improve your ranking noticeably and sustainably. Important: Note that so-called “long-tail keywords” can also be useful. These keywords consist of several words and are also often used in voice commands, as they are usually more specific.
- Change the format: Maybe it’s better if you turn your old blog post into a top 10 list or a comprehensive guide. However, this depends entirely on the topic.
- Internal linking: You’ve probably written other blogs in the meantime. Make sure you link to them in your new text. However, pay attention to relevance – the link should be related to the new blog in some way.
- Change perspective: You may want to change your perspective on a topic or write from a different point of view. This can be a great way to refresh a blog post and give it a new dimension.
- Maybe change the title: Make sure the title is short, concise and appealing. Important: The title is usually displayed by search engines as the title tag. It should contain a maximum of 70 characters.
- Define your SEO strategy: If you write many blogs, it is valuable to create an SEO strategy and apply it across all posts. If you are new to this topic, you can also get support from an SEO agency.
- Add new images or media: A blog post can be made more interesting by using images or other media, increasing reading time and breaking up the text. Our tip: You can also achieve this with multiple subheadings.
Good to Know
Images in blog posts are so important that there is a term for it: Image SEO. Among other things, it is about integrating keywords into the file names and descriptions, and carefully choosing the content and size.
- Gamify your blog: A blog post doesn’t always have to consist of just text and images. You can be as creative as you like in the design and integrate a minigame, a quiz or a survey. Contact us – Together we gamify your blog and transform your readers into fans.
- Use SEO plugins: If you use WordPress to create your blogs, make use of the variety of tools and integrate SEO plugins into the creation of your posts. They can show you the SEO status of your blog in real time and help you analyze your current work.
- Publish the updated post: Once you have made all the changes, you can publish the updated post. Make sure to update the title and date of the post to show that it is a new version.
Our tip: Focus on organic search! Most people prefer to click on search results that are not marked as ads. You can achieve this with the tips listed above, among others.
Conclusion
Best practices in creating a blog post change rapidly in digital marketing. With evergreens, it’s therefore very important that you update the content regularly. Not only to share the right information, but also to stay relevant to your target audience and search engines.
Glossary
Here you can find definitions of some important terms used in this text:
- What is organic traffic? Organic traffic means that the readers of your posts come via a search query, for example via Google, and not via paid ads.
- What are backlinks? A so-called backlink is a link from another homepage to your page.
- What is a meta description? The Meta Description describes the text under the title in the search engine.
- What is link building? Link building describes all measures for the acquisition of backlinks.
- What is a SERP? A Search Engine Result Page is the page you see when you search for something on a search engine.
- What are featured snippets? Featured snippets are entries on Google that are listed as the top result and provide a clear answer or description of your query.
- What is an alt text? Alt texts describe images and graphics that can help visually impaired users understand the content of the image, for example, through screen readers.
- What is an anchor text? The anchor text describes the link text that can be clicked after a search.
- What is a crawler? A web crawler is a program that specifically and intelligently analyzes the Internet and its content. This is mainly used by search engines to index and evaluate websites, which can influence the ranking.
