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[SEO Case Study] How To Generate More Search Traffic By Updating Old Content

How To Generate More Search Traffic By Updating Old Content

In this post, we'll share with you a case study of how we updated our old articles, which brought us total increased search traffic for our local SEO client.

It's a simple process for anyone who wants to get more search traffic from their old content.

Let's dive right in.

Why Updating Your Content Helps You Rank Better on SERP

Before we share the case study, let's first talk briefly about why you should update your old content.

Improves the Freshness of Your Content

It's no secret that Google wants to provide the most up-to-date content for its users. It shows that your site is highly active by releasing new content. It also ensures that users are not getting old and boring content when they search for something on Google SERP.

If a user clicks on your site, then he'll find that it still contains fresh and new content. This is something that many of the users will be happy to see because most of them always want to check out (just like your social media updates). Your site needs to have recent information that matches their query.

For example, imagine that a user is looking for the latest iPhone update. If you write an article about it and publish it dated back in 2017, users can get frustrated with your site because they don't want to waste their time on something outdated.

Allows You to Do More With Less

You can't write something new each day, but you can update the old post with more information. You'll discover that updating an article will take much less time than writing a fresh article from scratch. It's a time-saving technique that can help you to get more search traffic from your old content.

You Can Make Your Content More Informative

If you update the old article, then it means that you'll be including more information in it than before. The new information will make the content much more informative and resourceful for your users.

Helps You Get More Traffic By Optimizing For More Keywords

You can update an old article by using more keywords and phrases to optimize your content.

This will help you get more search traffic from users who are searching for the target keyword or phrase that you are optimizing for.

An example of how you can do this is by updating an old review about SEO tools with more product reviews of modern-day SEO tools.

If you want to learn more about SEO Techniques, then check out this guide.

SEO Case Study Of How We Generated More Search Traffic From Old Content

Now that you know the importance of updating your old content, let's move over to our case study. This is how we used to increase the search traffic for our local SEO clients.

Step 1: Find Old Content To Update Using Content Decay Tool By ClickFlow

The first step we did was to find old content that we could update. For this, we use ClickFlow's Content Decay tool that connects to Google Analytics to find pages on our client site that have been declining in search traffic.

Here are a live example of the ClickFlow Content Decay report:

Content Decay Report

The reports above show us pages with high search traffic that has been declining over time. We use this report as our foundation to update the old content.

Step 2: Updating The Decaying Pages

Once we find the decaying pages that need to be updated, we then proceed with updating them. These are the few steps we did to update a decaying post:

a) Add Relevant Content to the Decaying Pages

We first start with making sure that the content we're adding on decaying pages is relevant.

This doesn't mean that it has to be completely relevant. It should only be enough to satisfy the users' search query.

b) Add Images and Visuals Citing Content

We then add more visuals to the decaying pages so that they can look attractive enough to users.

This way, we're making the page more interesting and engaging for our readers than before.

c) Add Fresh Content With More Keywords and Phrases

We then proceed to include more keywords and phrases such as LSI keywords, long-tail keywords, and more in the main body of the content.

We do this to optimize the content for more keywords and phrases so that we can get more search traffic from users who are searching for these keywords.

Step 3: Add Internal links

To further optimize the decaying page, we then add internal links to existing content.

The goal here is to make the content more valuable so that it can rank higher in search results.

The Results: A Closer Look

Content Decay Revival Result

In the last three months, the result of our efforts to update the old content is significant.

We have been able to help our clients regain their search traffic from Google and other search engines, which in turn helped them grow their business.

Key Takeaways From Our Case Study

The techniques that we used in updating old content are very useful especially if you have a site with old content. The following are the most important things that you should keep in mind:

a) Updating Old Content Is A Continuous Process

Results

Updating and optimizing your decaying pages is not just one-time thing. It's a continuous process where you will be updating content every few weeks or months to make sure that you are on top of updates and changes in the industry.

b) It's Important To Know Which Pages To Update

It's very important to know which content that you should update. You can use ClickFlow's Content Decay Tool for this.

It will give you a report of pages with declining traffic so that you can make more decisions about the content that needs updating.

c) Update The Old Content With Relevant Content

Aside from the keywords and phrases, you should make sure that your content is relevant to users.

This will help give more value to your readers and it can also help you rank higher in search results which is what we're all aiming for.

Wrapping it up

To sum it all up, updating old content is a very important part of your SEO strategy. You can make a SEO checklist for all the things you will need to do to improve your website’s SEO.

You should always remember that Google likes fresh and unique content, so it's best to keep this as one of the priorities in your marketing plan.

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