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Old posts: 10 Fantastic reasons to update them

Updating old posts in your blog is just wonderful

If you have been blogging for sometime, it is a given that there are more than fifty or even a hundred posts in your blog. Some of the old posts must have been written way back when you were learning how to get things done. We all evolve with time.

But those posts often hurt. Or at least create hurdles that can be overcome with little effort.

With time you have grown, known how to write well, correct simple errors and in general focus on the topic at hand. Plus, there may be updates to certain tricks that you may wish to include. Older methods may not be applicable any further, many tips may simply not work anymore.

update old posts

It is necessary to update them

Your blog is written by you. But it is driven by the people who read it. Or at least that is how it should be. So, it helps if you focus on the single biggest parameter when you are blogging.

And that is quality.

Quality content is what makes your blog better. It makes you stand out from the rest of the crowd. You may be a good blogger now, today, but a couple of years back when you started you may have been an amateur. And there is nothing wrong with that. Learning is a process and not one of us were born with everything.

But it important to rectify mistakes, or include updates, or remove tips and tricks that don’t work in posts that were written back in time. Guess what, they are still there in your blog. The search engines still track them and new users will continue to be attracted by them.

It is your responsibility to make sure they get the best possible experience. Blogging itself is basically a service job. So, connecting and writing well always helps. So here are the top ten reasons why you should actually love updating old posts and that too quickly.

  1. Trim the old posts – This is useful as you may have gone way above 3000 words in some of your initial posts. Of course, that is not a problem in itself. But the human attention span is small. Though Google may do a good job pointing your readers there, they may not stay there long enough. It works if the posts are short and still delivers the message. This itself should not take much time.
  2. Grammar and formattingA regular novice mistake. A rigorous spell check and read through should get you in this in no time. You may even chuckle a few times at the follies you made. Being a teacher to one’s self is a new experience to many.
  3. Remove things that don’t work – Softwares update. Tools that worked before, cease to work later. New methods take their place. There actually is nothing permanent but change. You should adopt this as well. There will be giveaways, tips and tricks on stuff that just don’t work anymore. A simple strikethrough may be put in place. But also ensure that you have some content to replace those you remove or strikethrough. The users will enjoy your attention to detail. Reading stuff that just does not work anymore will show you in bad light.
  4. Check and put in new links – Older hyperlinks will often not work. There is nothing you can do. Checking them regularly is a good option. There are tools to help you in this case. But searching for similar or better content is a rewarding exercise as well. So put them in in your old posts too.
  5. Insert new pictures – This may seem to be a marketing gimmick, but it sure says that a picture is worth a thousand words. In today’s multi million megapixel world, it may well be worth even a hundred thousand words! When you republish your old but still relevant posts on social media, you need to ensure that the images show your new iPad Air and not the iPad 1.
  6. Republishing works – When you started, some of your olders posts may have been marvels of their own. But your blog had few readers and they never got the love they deserved. You can share them again, after you update it of course. For some your older readers it may even trigger nostalgia – not a bad thing at all.
  7. Affiliate links and business – Business or affiliate sales may take a hit with time. Every new year, or just before the festive seasons, some of your posts associated with gift deliveries or something similar may work wonders. You stand to get a lot even by putting in very little effort, year after year after year.
  8. User appreciationUsers will often post details in the comments sections. You can ignore them at your own peril. They often will point out any technical errors or may even have effective suggestions or positive criticism. You may take them on board, make the updates and mail or reply them back. A personal communication of this manner helps a lot. Of course, it is not feasible on a one to one basis. But even one counts.
  9. Cleaning upSome of the posts may just simply be unnecessary that no amount of cleaning or editing can salvage. It may be time to just simply trash them. Some of your links may become spammy (this may be the linked sites’ fault and not yours), some of the main topics may simply become irrelevant. For example a post on how ‘MySpace is the best social network’ will be considered trolling today. You don’t want that as a serious post. For humor, may be.
  10. Attention to detail – Your readers will know that you can be trusted. They will know that you have the intention, the patience and the perseverance to dig through the archives of old posts to correct things for them. Such recognition does not go to waste. They will be more likely to share your content. Consider them your angels, if you like.

These powerful techniques can truly help you improve your reach over a period of time. This is no quick fix, but it does have massive benefits that are cumulative in nature. So it is a good time to put them into practice and keep looking back from time to time.

By Sarthak Ganguly

A programming aficionado, Sarthak spends most of his time programming or computing. He has been programming since his sixth grade. Now he has two websites in his name and is busy writing two books. Apart from programming, he likes reading books, hanging out with friends, watching movies and planning wartime strategies.

One reply on “Old posts: 10 Fantastic reasons to update them”

This is a great idea to rewrite your old posts ,as a result it will make your posts SEO friendly and will keep your blog/domain away from Google Panda update Penalty. I do this once in awhile, I thought about going through some of the older ones that I believe would be helpful and plan to reschedule them or post them as newer blog entries. You should change the date to latest date..but don’t dig and bring the oldest article because the user may think you are lagging behind better to update the previous date…

Also, Interlinking old posts within the new articles will play a major role in proper indexing of those articles. It works most of the time. These old posts have good page rank, so we can share the page rank to other new posts. This will increase the SERP ranking also. I think Related posts and putting them on the sidebar is the best option to get them noticed.

Really this post will be of great help to make the blog look and behave like a website so that the good content remained evergreen. Thanks!

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