Did you know that companies with blogs produce 67% more leads a month than those that don’t have a blog? Blogs have one of the highest ROIs when it comes to your business. A blog allows businesses to share their expertise, build brand awareness, and connect with their audience. In addition, blogs help to build excellent SEO as blog content has a 2+ year lifespan. That said, it would make sense that blog content could or should be used more than once. So how should you do it effectively?
Why Should You Rework Older Content?
We want to be clear that we are not talking about just slapping old content into a new post. Instead, think of it more like “reworking” a post to create a new and fresh post.
That said, why should you rework older content? Because it’s expensive! Whether it costs you your time to write a blog post or money to pay someone to write it, you should absolutely get your money’s worth for SEO. Another great reason to repost blogs is to reshare the information that your readers respond to the most. Utilizing your website’s analytics, analyze the posts that got the best response, comments, shares, and follows as good candidates for reposting.
(A quick caveat: when we are talking about reposting a blog, we are talking about content that you own, not someone else’s blog post.)
How to Rework the Right Way
When discussing reposting blogs, it’s not quite as simple as just resharing an old post. Rather, there are a few things to do when you’re ready to repost a past blog to make it different:
- Copy content to a new blog post
- Update the content – this is very impprtant because Google does not like duplicate content
- Update any statistics listed
- Change the date
- Change the title
- Update links
For example, our post “Easy Ways to Update Your Website Content for Better SEO” was a rework of “Alternative Ways to Keep Website Content Fresh” which was originally posted on December 12, 2019. You can see we updated the title, introduction, and content to create a fresh version of the post, yet on a similar topic. Google does not like duplicate content, so it is important to freshen it up to make it different.
Balance is Best
While reworking the right way is beneficial for all the reasons above, maintaining the original post is also important to retain the existing SEO that has built up over time. Writing a new blog on an existing topic can offer fresh perspectives, up-to-date information, and new insights to your audience. On the other hand, refreshing an existing blog allows you to leverage the authority and backlinks that the original post may have already acquired over time. When you refresh an old blog post, search engines recognize it as fresh content and this can give your blog a boost in rankings,
A balanced approach that combines both strategies is the most beneficial for SEO. By periodically refreshing your
existing blog posts, you can maintain their relevance and enhance their ranking potential. At the same time, writing new blogs on popular or emerging topics allows you to expand your content inventory, target additional keywords, and attract a wider audience. This combination enables you to optimize your website’s visibility and authority over time.
Need Some Support?
Did you know that Hammersmith Support’s SEO service includes a blog generation feature? Couple it with our website maintenance packages, and you’ll have an optimally functioning site that is also optimized for SEO. Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation, and let’s discuss how our services can benefit your business.