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How optimising old blogs could be an SEO goldmine

14 Jan

Just because you’ve hit “publish” doesn’t mean that you never have to worry about that blog ever again!

You’ve just finished up on a blog. It’s properly optimised for SEO, with carefully-selected keywords and a topical subject that are sure to get people clicking (and then sticking around on your website).

For most people, that’s where it ends

Of course, that doesn’t make it right!

Over the last few weeks, our SEO specialists in Melbourne have been focused on updating not just our old blogs, but posts from many of our clients as well in response to the most recent core Google update.

And there’s a simple reason why: it’s an easy way to get new leads!

Optimising old blogs

OId blog, new tricks: how can updating existing posts bring in new leads?

Can you bring in new leads by optimising old blogs?

Not only is the answer “yes”, but it’s also an SEO tactic that far too many websites and businesses are neglecting!

Think of it this way: when we bring on new clients, oftentimes the first thing our Melbourne SEO Agency does is look at their existing website and determine how much of the existing content can be:

  • Reused or reappropriated
  • Modified to fit the new SEO strategy
  • Integrated into new content

Oftentimes, this means taking existing content and optimising it, adding in new metadata, improving its rankability with images and cleaning up the back-end.

The idea is that by making these existing pages better-optimised, more relevant and higher quality, we’ll be able to improve your rankings right out of the gate even before content marketing Melbourne starts for real.

Existing blogs are still content – why should they be exempt from this?

Why bother optimising old blogs: the SEO angle

Maybe it wasn’t that well optimised in the first place. Alternatively, perhaps you’re responding to a Google algorithm change.

Either way, it can be a good idea to give them a little refresher every now and then.

One area that frequently needs optimising isn’t the content itself, but everything surrounding it – specifically, the metadata tags, titles and images.

These play an important role in helping a page rank – if you didn’t give them enough attention to begin with, it isn’t too late to change that!

Of course, there are plenty of other reasons to go back…

Get optimised content, fast

Don’t get us wrong, optimising existing blogs can take time – compared to creating new content from scratch however, it’s a heck of a lot faster!

When it comes to getting your site to rank, content is king. That means having an ample supply of well-optimised content for search engines like Google to go over and use when evaluating your site for relevance.

Creating that content takes time. But modifying existing content – including previously posted blogs – helps you buff up your content archive, improving your site’s ranking prospects.

Whether you simply need well-optimised content and fast or you just want to cover all of your bases, existing blogs are a great way to start.

Of course, not everyone has time to optimise (or re-optimise) all of their blog backlog – after all, you still have other things you need to look after. Thankfully, there’s another way of going about it…

Promote blogs that already rank well

Who said you need to optimise all of your existing blogs?

Search engines can be fickle at times. While the goal is to get the “meatier” parts of your website to rank, there are times when the algorithm takes a liking to some random blog you wrote on a whim, and presents it in search results.

Using Google Analytics, you can identify these standout blogs – more importantly, you can see what searches they pop up for and in which position.

If you see one old blog that ranks well for a search that’s relevant to your business, then we strongly encourage you to take a little bit of time out to optimise that page and push it even further up the search results.

Make your site more mobile-friendly

We still cant get over that Google Mobilegeddon update, and Google is continuously going towards prioritizing mobile. Thankfully, most modern content management platforms come with responsive design built-in, allowing your site to scale to fit whatever type of device your visitors are using.

One thing you might not have realised however is how much the content itself can affect mobile friendliness.

For example, did you know that when evaluating mobile-friendliness, Google also looks at…

  • Content length?
  • Density?
  • Paragraph length?
  • Image size?
  • In short, all readability factors

While responsive design is great, it can’t change any of these things – no, you’ll have to go in and do it yourself.

Not just SEO – how else can optimising existing blogs help you get new leads?

While the main purpose of blogging in SEO (and content marketing in general) is to improve ranking, it isn’t the only one – in many cases, your blogs can also be used to generate leads!

You’ve no doubt heard of the 80/20 rule – 80% of results come from 20% of people.

Your website is no different – we’ve seen many sites where the lion’s share of leads are generated by a small number of pages.

For the most part, these are the “meaty”, sales-y pages – sometimes however, it’s blogs.

Is Analytics telling you that a particular blog has a higher than average conversion rate – that’s to say, a surprising number of people who click on this blog continue to explore the rest of your site.

If you notice that one particular blog is generating a lot of your clicks or making a lot of conversions then by all means optimise it and try to push it higher in search engine results – a new lead is a new lead, after all.

Update information

Another benefit of blogging when performing SEO for small businesses? It helps establish your credibility and experience.

Depending on what subjects you choose, your blog can be a big help in winning over potential customers.

Again, we’re going to point to our native advertising blog – clearly, a few people read it, thought “this SEO agency in Melbourne knows what they’re on about” and decided to give us a ring about it.

Of course, this is also a double-edged sword – if you get something wrong in your blogs, you’ll be exposed.

Have you gone back to an existing blog and noticed you got a detail wrong? Has new information come out about a topic you wrote about in the past, making some of your existing blogs inaccurate?

While you may not be able to go back in time, at least you’ll be able to go back to existing blogs and correct the error or leave a note at the top to acknowledge how things have changed.

It’s a simple edit, but it can go a long way towards salvaging your reputation.

Choose an SEO agency in Melbourne that’s committed to getting you results

So there you have it: how updating old blogs can help improve how your site ranks, as well as help you increase the amount of leads you get.

Unfortunately, many SEO agencies overlook this technique – but not us.

Our SEO team in Melbourne is constantly working on your site – part of that means going back to existing content and blogs, making improvements to your content and ensuring that the back-end is working as it should.

It’s this thorough approach that allows us to get the SEO results we do.

Find out how we can help your site rank – get in touch with our SEO agency today on 1300 88 64 50, or click here to ask any questions you may have.