You wrote a masterpiece that you thought would go viral on Google and social media. But nothing happens even after weeks of publishing it. You decide to write another epic blog post by spending a ton of time. Again, the same result (no buzz, no incoming links and no traffic). What’s happening? What’s going wrong? Have you ever thought why some of your best blog posts don’t get any traffic? I’ve asked myself this question a thousand times. And I also thought that this is a huge problem faced by thousands of bloggers around the globe. Then, I decided to find a solution to it. The solution is? Re-optimizing your old blog posts.
What is re-optimizing blog content?
Optimizing your existing content (blog posts or pages) for both readers and search engines is known as re-optimized content. It is widely used by majority of the bloggers and SEO’s to increase their search traffic without creating more content.
What is re-optimizing blog content?How to re-optimize existing blog content to boost search traffic: Step by step tutorialStep 1: Find out your underperforming blog postsStep 2: Come up with potential keyword ideas to use (within your old content)Step 3: Do on page optimization for your old blog postsStep 4: Linking plays a vital role while re-optimizing contentFinal Thoughts
How re-optimizing your existing content helps? Generally, most of the people think that optimizing content means using relevant keywords and SEO practices. Yes, but in addition to it’s also about building up trust, authority and brand.
It increases search traffic to your old content really quickly It increases your overall website’s content quality It increases your blog’s authority and helps you get more backlinks
In a nutshell, re-optimizing your underperforming content can skyrocket your search engine traffic and sales. In this post, we’ll talk about how you can improve your traffic from Google by re-optimizing your existing blog content.
How to re-optimize existing blog content to boost search traffic: Step by step tutorial
Step 1: Find out your underperforming blog posts
Go to Google analytics and find out the traffic of your blog posts. There may be a lot of articles that failed to get more traffic (even after creating valuable content). Quick Tip: Create a list of all the posts or pages that are generating traffic below 50 visits a month. Make sure to start working only on those posts that you think are really good fit for your target audience. Now, ask these questions:
Why did this blog post fail to get traffic? What’s the motive behind this article? Can I add more information that’s fresh, unique and authoritative?
Once you’ve answers for the above important questions, you can start working on them by doing the following things.
Add more valuable information Remove all the information (that’s not useful anymore) Add or remove images for better visibility Do keyword research and Make sure to reoptimize your underperforming content
Step 2: Come up with potential keyword ideas to use (within your old content)
If your old content is not generating any search traffic, that means, you might have missed keyword research or targeted really competitive keywords. So you can boost traffic to your old posts by finding and using potential keywords. You might be hearing about keyword research often. Whenever, this topic comes the one thing almost every blogger says about is long tail keywords. If you want to rank your blog as well as your article then long tail keywords plays an important role. How this helps? Short keywords like “marketing”, “seo”, “blogging” has huge competition. But if you go for something like “marketing tips to follow in 2023”, “seo strategies that worked for me to boost rankings”, “tips to make money from blogging” etc..has very less competition and moreover these are more specific that solves the reader’s’ problem. Using long tail keywords doesn’t mean that your article will rank for that keyword. It also depends on how much quality and useful content you are producing for that specific keyword. Here’s a simple image that explains why long tail keywords are really important (they contribute to 70% of Google’s overall traffic!).
Here are the several ways you can use to find long tail keywords.
You can find long tail keywords using Google keyword planner. Just enter your seed keyword and it will return vast number of different search queries. Based on monthly search volume and the competition, you can select that keyword. Make the best use of Google search to find long tail keywords. When you type for generic keyword, Google automatically shows results based on country or region. For example, you have typed something like “healthy recipe” as a search query, it will show, “healthy recipe for lunch”, “healthy recipe for breakfast”. These are the long tail keywords. Spy on your competitors for keyword ideas. If you are not able to get generic keywords for your niche then observe your competitors’ website. Make a list of top blogs in your niche and check each URL in Semrush. You will get complete details about for what keyword site is ranking. Use LSI keywords. LSI means Latent Semantic Indexing which are nothing but synonyms. For example, you typed “Android rooting apps” in Google search query ad you will see results like “software apps”, “Android root tools” these are all same which are LSI keywords. That means related keywords to your main keyword. There are several tools which helps in collecting more long tail keywords for any niche. Some of the best tools you can use are Ubersuggest and Semrush. With these tools, you can get lot many keyword ideas too.
Now, write content for your target users after doing effective keyword research and use those filtered long tail keywords within your old blog posts. This step is important before doing any optimization to your existing blog content.
Step 3: Do on page optimization for your old blog posts
A simple quick tip to boost your search traffic to your existing content is to this: do proper on-page optimization (by keeping your primary and secondary keywords in mind). Want to drive more traffic to your existing blog content? Well, are your articles SEO optimized? Did you make it easier for search engine to understand? You’ve probably missed doing on-page SEO for some of your posts. That might be the biggest reason for not getting any traffic from Google. There are two main factors to fulfil these purpose. One is on-page optimization and another one is off-page optimization. Here we discuss about on-page optimization. It is nothing but optimizing your article content for a specific keyword. Here are few techniques of on-page optimization that you can use while re-optimizing your old blog posts to get more search traffic.
Write attractive blog post title. Keep the title length to under 65 characters (or they get truncated in search results which is not good for SEO). Use h2 and h3 tags for headings and subheadings (by keeping your targeted keywords in mind). Use your primary keyword in the first paragraph, in the content where it is needed and in the last paragraph. Don’t stuff keywords unnecessarily. Add relevant meta description for each blog post. Use keywords in “image title” and in “alt text”. Image optimization drives traffic from image searches. You can compress image using compressor.io or kraken.io. Write long form of content at least 1000 words. Link to your new posts or some other informative links while updating your old content. Interlinking not only increases your SEO rankings but also encourages readers to spend more time on your blog. Write really engaging, interesting and useful content. You can’t miss this one while updating content. It has to be a masterpiece, otherwise there’s no point in re-optimizing your content.
It is not easy to fool search engine. Implement every technique mentioned above and optimize blog posts for SEO wherever possible.
Step 4: Linking plays a vital role while re-optimizing content
When you’re updating your old and underperforming content, you have a BIG advantage i.e you can link to your fresh articles (that are already ranking well). You can also link to the following pages while re-optimizing existing content.
Link to your top performing posts Link to your fresh articles Link to other blogs (that are relevant and highly informative) and make sure to reach out to them after linking asking for a tweet, share or a link
Also, make sure to build quality links from various sites to your existing blog posts to get higher rankings. Get links to your blog from genuine, trusted and high authority sites and your website will be rewarded for better ranking by Google. Here are a few ways to attract quality links to old blog posts:
Make a list of influential bloggers in your niche and request them to link back to your sites. It works great if you’re already linking to their stuff frequently (and also your content has to be really informative and unique to get links from influencers). Submit your blog to various forums. Submit your site under the correct category. Some of these forums give you dofollow backlinks whenever you submit new content (or old blog posts). So it’s really helpful for you to increase exposure to your existing content. Analyze the backlink sources of your competitors. You can check it using Semrush as well. With this, you will have all the details about high authority sources of backlinks. With that information, you can figure out various ways to attract those links (either by reaching out to the people who linked to your competitors sites or by using broken link building strategy). If you want to get better search rankings, you need more backlinks. There’s no other way! No doubt, guest blogging is one of the effective ways to get backlinks.What happens when you write a guest post is, you will develop good relationship with blog owner and they in turn help your blog in gaining authority. Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites. It is one of the pretty easiest ways to get good links to your site. Sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit are really great. Visuals speaks louder than content. By creating visual content like infographics, presentations, videos, quotes images; your blog attracts audience and most likely it will be shared by them. It helps to generate new leads to your blog
Link building takes a pretty good amount of time. It doesn’t happen in overnight. Put your best efforts consistently to get good results. Browse more Blogging Resources:
How to Start a Blog in 2023 [Step by Step Process] How to Get Your Blog Noticed in 2023 A Powerful Blog Setup Checklist How to Promote Your Blog for Free in 2023 What is Personal Branding with Personal Brand Examples in 2023 Top Ways to Interlink Your Blog Posts Like a PRO Best Blogging Tips That Work Like a Charm Best Blog Examples of 2023 for Your Inspiration
Final Thoughts
I’ve been re-optimizing my old blog posts (aka underperforming content) for a long time now. And I’m doing it because everytime I update my old content, I notice a jump in my search traffic. It REALLY works. Just make sure to add as much as valuable information to your existing content. Be smart while interlinking to your old content also make sure to get as many links as possible as it can help your content to rank well on Google. So what are your thoughts? Did you like it? Do you have any more tips to reoptimize old blog content to get better rankings on Google? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
