How to update old posts for SEO

If users come across old content on your website, they will consider your website like an old site in their mind and will not be able to trust your site one more time to get the answers to their questions, so they will leave your site. Repeating this by other users cause an increase in the bounce rate and reduces the  dwell time

As you know, bounce rate and dwell time are the two important factors in determining a site ranking on the Google results page, so the website ranking decreases over time. Now, if you constantly update a site and its content, the traffic to it will increase with each update, which has a perfect effect on SEO. In this article, we are going to get acquainted with how to update the content of a site, but more than that, we need to know the effects of updating the site on SEO.

Updating old content is effective in these fields:

- The reason for the trust of more websites to link:

When you update content and post content related to new information, due to the fact that other sites may not have done this update yet and may not have content related to new topics, they may link to your site, so over time, your site will be considered as a reputable source.

- Gain user trust:

If the new content quickly replaces the old one, it will gain the trust of users who click on your site to get the answer to their question. It takes effort to achieve any success, as it does here, and if you want to make users trust your website, you should try your best to keep the site up to date, which will become a source and the user may share with others.

- Better site optimization:

In the past,  SEO expert  tried to attract Google's attention by using too many keywords and  get high rankings in the search engine results page, while today, excessive use of keywords causes the site to be penalized.



Now imagine that a site has not updated its content since then and has considered the technique of using too many keywords to reach the top rankings, this site will definitely be penalized. According to this point and the previous ones, we must update the content and posts of the site, which we will discuss in the following. In the first step in updating a site, you need to know which content you need to update.

Which content should you update?

- You should monitor pages that have a high number of quality links and also focus on pages that have a lot of links received from quality sites but have not been able to get high rankings.



- Focus on the most visited pages.



- Do not forget to update pages that have lots of keywords but they have a low ranking.



Tip: Do not waste your time updating content that does not need to be updated.

Methods for updating posts:

1- Merge:

Combine quality old posts with low-quality old posts that have similar topics to gain better posts and also prevent duplicate content that is a factor in reducing  site rankings.

2- Updating the title:

At the first step, the user decides whether to click on the title of an article or not, so if you update the content but do not change the title, the user may not be enthusiastic about entering your website.



The best way to update the title is to mention the year in it so that the user will immediately notice that you have updated your site and page.

3- Updating the meta description:

After the title of an article, it is up to the meta description to decide whether to click on the site or not.

Constantly check  Google Analytics  and find pages from your site that have  Click-Through Rate  and update the meta descriptions of these pages.

4- Use specialized quotes:

You might not have used quotes in the old contents, but our suggestion is that in updating the site, be sure to get help from quotes from elders and experts so that the user can get a better user experience by reading these quotes.

5- Get help from popular terms:

In the past, you may have used nofollow links that are no longer as popular as they used to be, so try to replace them with popular terms that never get old so that your site will be seen more and get more traffic.

6- Updating the introduction:

Nowadays, users only scan a site quickly, and if they find items that meet their needs, they will read the article carefully.



One of the sections that a visitor spends more time on reading is the introduction, and if he/she reads the introduction and realizes that the article meets his/her needs, the user will spend more time on that site.

7- Do not forget to link to new studies:

One of the methods that should be observed in content updates and help a lot to optimize the site is linking to new and valid studies through which the site becomes a valid site in the user's mind.

8- Repair broken links:

Use Check My Links and make sure that all the links on your site are without any problems, and if you find broken or irrelevant links, update the article with a valid and relevant link to add to your site's credibility.  Google's search engine  considers having new links in the post as a strong indicator for the new content of the site and values such websites.

9- Update site structures:

In order for a site to be up to date, you must regularly review the site structures and update them to affect the

optimization of the site

.

10- Pay attention to competitors:

To be better seen by users, you need to be ahead of the competition, so always pay attention to competitors and look at the images, links, content, and keywords they used to see what makes their website popular and try to use catchy keywords and images.

11- Keep up with the progress of science and technology in your field of work:

Science and technology are advancing daily, and in order not to lag behind the competitors, you must study more on the issues related to your profession, so that you should improve your science and knowledge every day; as a result, you can create quality content.

12- Add to old video posts:

This method is very suitable for educational content, and by adding video to old educational content, it is possible to attract more users to the content; also, adding video causes users to share content with their friends on social networks. And increase user visits to the site and

gain more traffic for the site

.

13- Increase the length of the content:

Nowadays, Google is very interested in long-form content and pays more attention to ranking sites with this kind of content on the search results page, while in the past, website owners tried to produce short content which was full of keywords, that is not popular today.

14- Update the photos in the content:

One of the factors that are important for users in any content and attract their attention is the photos in the content.



Being up to date should include all the factors in content, and you should not neglect any point, especially updating photos.

15- Updating the alt text of the images on the site:

The alt-text has a great effect on

site optimization

, in fact, the appropriate alt text should be a description of the image and should be a maximum of 125 characters. The important thing in this regard is to avoid filling the text with keywords.

16- Avoid making many changes at once:

Updating a site is very valuable and can be done by doing different activities, but the important thing to keep in mind while updating is that the content and the page that has a good rating shouldn't have many changes all at once, as this will even have a negative effect on the ranking and cause a decrease in site ranking.

You need to make a few changes during the update, and after a few weeks, check the

website ranking

Last word:

Updating old content has a great impact on

optimizing a site

. In this article, we mentioned tips on how to do the update; with the help of this content, you can get a high ranking on the search results page and maintain your position by repeating it.