How you can 10X your SEO traffic and leads by updating your old content?

Let’s say you wrote a blog - “Top digital marketing tools in 2023” in 2023.

(I know it’s 2024! I have added 2023 above for a reason. Hold tight!)

You hit publish. 

You shared it on social media. 

You also featured it in your newsletter.

You also did invest in SEO and built backlinks to get it on top of Google Search.

And then, in a matter of days, you started to see it ranking on the first page of Google.

You got decent traffic from that blog.

Then you saw it rank in top 3, getting you mounting traffic and leads. 

It was all going so well.

What next?

As you moved into 2024, you noticed rankings of your blog starting to go down.

You saw the number of clicks and leads from this blog going down every day. 

And just in a few weeks, you saw that you have lost 80% or more traffic from that top-performing blog.

The blog that once was your top lead and revenue driver is now barely getting you any leads.

That happens to like 99% of the once top-performing blogs on the internet!

“Why so?”

Simple - after publishing a new blog, many folks forget about it. No matter if ranks go up or down. No update. Nothing!

That's why.

You see, publishing a new blog is not the end of the life cycle of it. In fact, it is just the beginning.

When you make new content, you include all the “latest” and “up-to-date” information your audience and customers wanna know.

And if it is better than all other blogs on the internet and follows SEO standards, it also gets ranked on top in Google, getting you organic traffic and leads.

However, as time goes on, it becomes outdated. 

It loses the substance. 

It starts to lose the latest information your audience needs about the topic. 

If not updated timely, it becomes obsolete and loses its entire value.

And that’s how it ends up losing rankings and traffic as well because other brands and creators must have published better content on the same topic since the last time you published and updated your content.

That’s why I say publishing a new blog or page is like planting a new tree! To grow it on search, your content needs regular nourishment!

Just like plants need air, water, nutrients, sunshine, and space to grow, all your blogs need regular updates to grow and “maintain” their rankings and traffic. 

“What sort of updates?”

Well, these sorts of 👇

→ Latest data & stats: You need to use the latest data and stats in your content.

For example, if your blog is about “2024 sales statistics” but talks about stats from 2023 or older years, it will be treated as outdated and will lose on rankings. Ensure to add data on 2024.

→ New information: New changes are happening in every industry every day. And you need to ensure that your content has up-to-date information. 

For example, if your blog is about “top trends in technology you should be aware of” and it doesn’t include AI in the list, it’s hardly gonna make it to the first page on Google. 

And you know why? Because AI is THE MOST talked about technology now, and if your blog about “top technologies” doesn’t include info on that, it’s lacking in quality.

See 👆, when I Googled “top trends in technology you should be aware of” query, Google even displayed the 9 technologies in snippets view. 

And if you wanna make your blog in top 3, you better include all these technologies in your list.

→ New backlinks: Backlinks are like votes of confidence for your content. That’s why you must keep building backlinks to your top-performing content and pages you wanna rank higher. Backlinks are not a once-done-for-all thing.

→ Filling the content gap: If you lose rankings for any top-performing keyword, see what brands beat you in search, go through their content, and analyze what your content is missing in comparison to their content.

Update your content to make up for that gap, and add even more insights to make it ‘much’ better than all those pieces ranking above you.

You keep doing these updates to your old content, and you will be able to grow and maintain 👇

→ Rankings and organic traffic

→ Inbound leads and sales pipeline

Also, while deciding which blogs and pages to update first, keep these factors in mind:

→ Pages driving top leads and revenue: These should always be your P1. Keep an eye on each of these pages and update as soon as you notice any dip in rankings. 

→ Top traffic-generating pages: There are a few pages on each site that don’t drive top leads and revenue but are damn good at generating traffic because of their high-volume keywords. These pages get you many backlinks for free and also enhance the rankings of your top revenue pages. Do maintain their rankings and updates on P2. 

→ Underperforming pages: These are pages that have the potential to generate massive traffic and leads for you but are not ranking on page one yet. Make a list of these and get a content update action plan ready to boost them with SEO. These ones are your P3.

To do it all, you can use this tech stack 👇

→ Google Search Console

→ Google Analytics

→ Ahrefs & Rank Tracking Notifications (Preferred) or SEMrush

→ Looker Studio 

→ Microsoft Excel (Preferred) or Google Sheets

Do update your content like that, and believe me, you can like 10X your SEO traffic and leads just from your old content by updating it well.