Why Content Refresh Matters and When You Should Carry One Out

Why you should refresh your content

There are two main reasons why content refreshes matter: SEO and brand image.

1. To rank well

Several things go into this. First of all, Google prefers fresh content — to the point when simply changing the publication date will initially fool its algorithms. Of course, the search giant will catch on after crawling your page and finding no new content — so don’t change the date for the sake of it.

Secondly, you can improve all your main performance indicators by updating content: time spent on a page, clickthrough rates, conversions. Fresh content will have an effect on your business goals too!

Thirdly, any decent SEO specialist worth their salt will tell you about the importance of backlinks (i.e. when other sites link to yours because of your authority). When you publish an in-depth helpful piece on something, others will start linking to it. But the opposite is true as well: if your content goes stale, sites will remove their backlinks to improve the experience for their users.

Finally, refreshing content allows you to avoid content cannibalization — a situation when several pages on your website compete for the same keywords. The main problem with cannibalization is that Google does not know which page is the main one — and so they choose one as primary and one as secondary, often basing the evaluation on which page provides better UX. Merging several competing pages into a single big one will allow you to avoid this.

2. To maintain your brand image and authority

People come to expect certain things from brands. They’ll trust Forbes for business advice, the Economist for political landscape analysis and Harvard Business Review for advice on management.

To establish yourself as a leader in your niche, you’ll need the content you publish to stay relevant. Outdated facts, links and general info will lead to brand image erosion and distrust from your target audience.

When you should start thinking about a content refresh

There are several factors when content refresh should become top of your mind. We’ll examine the three most prominent ones.

1. When your articles slide down the ranks

You probably have a pool of articles that perform well and do what they are supposed to: attract organic traffic by staying high up the search results for the target keyword.

However, no piece you produce can stay on top forever — even evergreen content requires a periodic update. When you notice that your top-performing articles plateau in traffic and clicks — or maybe even begin to decay — it’s time to freshen them up.

2. When you are targeting a new buyer persona

This happens all the time: businesses start small and target solopreneurs/small companies first as their prospective buyers. Yet, once your product attracts enterprise-level companies and becomes increasingly complicated and expensive to update, it’s time to rethink your selling priorities.

When marketing to a different target audience, your content should reflect that. Giving the content a new angle, another buyer persona to attract will need a revamp.  How you position yourself becomes an issue — and your articles should be adapted to align with your business goals.

And, of course, how you market matters too: monitor marketing trends and shape your content strategy accordingly.

3. When you want to improve lead generation/conversion rate

Perhaps your content is performing well in traffic but not so much in generating leads and/or selling your product. In this case, you should identify which pieces are good at what they do — getting people to leave their email or part with their money — and which are not up to scratch.

Do not tinker with the former category: it might lead to a drop-off in performance. Target the weaker pieces instead. Think of how the content might be made more impactful to achieve its goal of generating leads/selling your product.

How to prioritize content for a refresh

There are multiple indicators a certain article/web page needs a refresh. We’ll dissect which pages you should target below.

Identify articles ranking low on the first page of Google search results

…and those ranking high on the second page. The first Google search result gets a lion’s share of traffic: over 25% of all clicks. The first three results combined account for over 50%. And few searchers ever visit the second page. That’s why moving articles from the second page to the first is paramount — and so is moving them up the ranks on the first page.

What to do

Competitor analysis. Study the posts that rank above yours. What do they have that yours don’t? Some things are not fixed easily, though, like the domain rating. Attracting more backlinks can be a process too.

Still, there are several things that you can change quickly. Article length is one of those: Google loves in-depth content. User experience is another important factor to rank well. Add a table of contents (perhaps a sticky one), incorporate more visuals, break up long paragraphs. Finally, make it clear what you want your reader (and potential customer) to do: evaluate your on-page CTAs.

Address content cannibalization

It’s something we’ve already touched on: content cannibalization happens when several pages on your website target the same keywords. As a result, Google chooses one primary and one secondary page — and the latter might end up quite far in search results.

What to do

One way is merging several close pieces into a single large article. There are two important caveats to keep in mind here: content should maintain its flow and structure, and you should configure redirects from old pages to the new one. Oh, and naturally you should use the highest-performing page as the page for the revamped piece.

You can also expand existing content — if you come across a subtopic that merits its own page when looking for competing pages. Adding new articles on the subject you want to be considered an industry leader in will help with ranking on Google.

Align your articles with a new content strategy

Your content strategy may shift based on several factors. Here’s what can happen and how you should address it.

What to do

If your user interface (UI) has changed, the least you need to do is update all screenshots in product articles — and your help center too. Use your common sense though: differentiate between minor UI changes and major ones — only the latter will impact how your product behaves and what the user should do.

If your messaging has changed, it’s trickier. Your posts will probably need re-writing — in some part at least — to reflect how you position yourself. Pay attention to how the new messaging ties into your CTAs, and change those too, if necessary.

Finally, your buyer persona might have changed: we’ve discussed this above. Tweak which examples you use, which benefits your new target audience will reap, and which features can help them achieve those.

Revisit articles not ranking for their main keyword

The search intent changes with time. At some point, your article might have done well to answer your potential customer’s query, but now it doesn’t.

What to do

That depends on just how outdated the content has become. If the search intent changed completely, you may need to rewrite the article fully.

However, if your article is still in the ballpark of what the readers want to know, edits might be enough to put it on an upward trajectory. Here’s what you can do:

• Change the format of the article: for example, you have a guide, but people are searching for a simple list.
• Shift the tone of the piece: people might now be looking for in-depth information, as opposed to just finding out the basics (or vice versa).
• Cut out the fluff and get straight to the point.

Rescue non-converting content

Some of your articles are informational, but some will have an action in mind — an action they lead your potential customer up to. This might be a lead magnet (e.g. for email signups) or a CTA geared towards a purchase. Either way, if readers are not doing what they want them to, it’s to reassess your content.

What to do

• Analyze readers’ behavior: where on the page do they drop off? You can use a tool like Hotjar: it provides a heatmap of your website so you know how far your readers scroll, for example. Change the copy/visuals to prevent them tuning out.
• Review what you offer on the page. Is it aligned with the stage of your readers’ customer journey? Has your target audience changed?
• Freshen up the content. Add visuals, social proof, quotes from experts — depending on what your target audience reacts to.
• Test out new CTAs, visuals, formats — a total revamp might do the trick and lead to better conversions.

What else you can do to breathe new life into old content

Most of the things we’ve discussed above will need some serious effort — because rewriting is involved. Yet, there are many other ways to give your content a fresh coat of paint.

Tinker with on-page SEO a bit

You can make your content rank higher by simply:

• Updating your title and meta description by adding the current year and/or targeting a more specific keyword.
• Leveraging SEO email marketing: let your loyal subscribers know a new article is out — or use the new post to encourage email signups.
• Targeting new keywords — to rank for more keywords overall by expanding new content (alright, this one will require a bit of work from your copywriters).

Add social proof

Show your visitors how many people have read your article/taken up your offer in the last day/month. Here’s what it can look like:

Redesign old content

Alright, it’s another way that will need a lot of work from your copywriters. If your current format (e.g. a blog article) is not hitting the mark in terms of organic traffic/leads/conversions, reformat it. One way to do this is to shape your offer into a static landing page.

Perform cosmetic surgery

This means addressing potential on-page issues. Most of these will be a quick and easy fix. Here are the most important bits:

• Update statistical data: simply fact-check the article you published. Do you quote any experts? Reference any studies? Check if these facts and figures are still relevant — and refresh them if they have become obsolete.
• Add new insights: this somewhat echoes the previous point. Add new facts that support the point you are trying to make. Or maybe ask the opinion of your in-house — or outside — subject matter experts for the opinion. Google will dig the fresh numbers and quotes.
• Refresh design elements: update the header banner if your product underwent changes to brand design. Check the infographics inside the article. Pay attention to the images you use throughout. Mind the CTAs, quotes and anything else that breaks up the text visually.
• Improve readability: Google pays an awful amount of attention to on-page user experience. You should too: break up long paragraphs, include visuals, provide a table of contents (a sticky one if it’s a long read). Ensure all links are clickable and working, check that images are enlarged upon click, write out the image captions for context.

Wrapping up

Content refresh is a way to give old content a new life. Refreshing your content is important for two main reasons: newer articles improve your rankings on Google and they help you maintain your brand image.

Many factors can trigger a content refresh: declining organic traffic, changing your buyer persona and arresting the drop in leads/conversions.

Target articles ranking low on the first page of Google results, before turning your attention to articles competing for the same keywords, pieces that no longer align with your content strategy, pages that do not convert for their target keyword, and posts that do not convert at all.

Freshen up your content. Some ways are relatively easy and quick, like updating your titles and metadata, others will require you to get your hands dirty — up to the point when a complete rewrite is necessary for one reason or another.

The important thing is that content refresh should become part of your strategy. Done right and regularly, it can be just as effective as creating new content — most of the time without the hassle of drafting something from scratch and waiting until it starts to rank.

Here’s a screenshot of one of our article’s performance after getting refreshed: