A content refresh refers to an in-depth edit of your existing web content — from articles and web pages to FAQs and guidebooks. It may apply to capturing new quotes from professionals and weaving them into an old article, or it may be more comprehensive, such as changing the piece’s angle or reworking it into an audio or video piece.
Table of contents
Why Refreshing Existing Content is Still Necessary
● Ensuring Factual Accuracy
Trust is critical for companies. According to Edelman’s 2021 Trust Barometer Special Report, 88% of consumers said trust is an important factor in deciding whether they purchase from a brand or not.
● Keeping Up With New SEO Practices
Google’s algorithms adjust regularly, and the company presents considerable progress every year. Some of them are more important than others. One, for instance, is the 2021 product reviews update, which aimed to clamp down on websites utilizing preliminary list summaries to develop traffic.
Your blog posts might have yielded to Google’s rules a few years ago, but that may no longer be the issue. When you refresh your old content, you’ll guarantee that you stay obligated to search engines’ demands. Consequently, more users will find your site — and your traffic will improve.
So might know how to write better content but content refresh is still part of the plan.
● Saving Time on Content Generation
Coming up with new content opinions is challenging. It needs a lot of time and energy, and you’ll often require more than one person to generate everything. Often, businesses stop blogging because they run out of things to say. This is a reason one of the reasons why digital marketing services for content marketing are so popular.
Refining your old content means taking what you’ve already got and making it better. One clear example of this is how HubSpot refreshes its final list of content marketing statistics every year. You can move straight onto the research step and save time as the opinion is already there.
Another benefit of refreshing the old content is that it can boost new conceptions. Rather than writing generic posts, you can use one anchor piece and make two or more pieces of content that develop on the critical points mentioned. Utilizing this strategy, you’re less likely to run out of engaging content.
How to Refresh Existing Content Properly
● Correct All Errors
Even if you do nothing else, fixing any errors should be a preference for refreshing old blog content. Spelling mistakes require you to go, and you must either remove or update broken links.
Creating content without errors will help strengthen trust with your audience, which will make them more likely to resume reading your content, purchase from you, and suggest you to others.
● Look for a Slightly Different Angle
Many topics are great for short-term blog posts but lose relevance over time. Other issues may be copied or covered by different other websites. When you look back on your content, you may see that some of your topics are too general. And you may be able to appear with a diverse or more appropriate perspective. Updating your content’s existing angle can assist you in standing out in search engine rankings and provide exceptional value to your audience.
Don’t forget the title. Think about what has transformed since the article was first posted and address new pain points your customers may be experiencing.
● Tap third-party content creators
Although updating old content is less time-consuming than beginning from scratch, you’ll still need to dedicate considerable resources. If you should concentrate your efforts elsewhere, consider a digital marketing agency or a freelancer to outsource your content refresh.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 71% of large companies and 56% of medium-sized ones outsource at least some of their content marketing. Assuming that larger businesses are more open to doing this, they understand that they can’t do everything themselves.
Outsourcing your content refreshes will let you concentrate on evolving your products and improving your customer experience. And since you’ll also get more eyeballs on your website from the updated posts, you can diversify your revenue streams and improve return on investment (ROI).
● Switch Up Your Media Mix
With attention spans dropping and more users accessing content on their smartphones, blogging is about more than words alone. Eighty-six percent of businesses already utilize video as a marketing tool. Adding visuals can break up big word blocks and add extra insights to your posts.
There are constantly different media kinds you can add to your refreshed content. Infographics can assist make facts and figures more digestible, while photos can illustrate your message and make it stick. Adding different media will engage more users for longer, making them more likely to revisit your page later.
Conclusion
To sum up, a content refresh doesn’t mean entirely gutting your old stuff to make way for the new. After all, this could be dangerous if search ranking is essential to your strategy.