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Content Rejuvenation: How to Introduce New Topics and Ideas to existing content.

Everything grows old. It’s the way of life. And that means your content too. Despite what artisans like to quote, writing is not evergreen. It grows stale with time, and every now and then, you need to breathe life into it. But how do you go about updating your content?

It is almost too easy to jump into editing mode and start operating on your current content. And while this will help to freshen up the content, it’s much better to first assess the situation before you unleash the keyboard warrior in you. Here are ten steps to guide you along the way of content rejuvenation.

Assess the situation. Do you need a complete re-write or just a minor update?: The first thing you should do with any old content is understood whether you need to completely rewrite the content or just add tidbits of helpful information. You should never forget that a re-write will help your search rankings more than just adding content because you can add keywords from the start.

Know what kind of research you need to do: It is much easier to freshen up old topics when newer information is introduced. Researching for new details and updating an article with only one or two tidbits might be harder, especially if there are no recent studies on the subject matter. However, this doesn’t mean researching every single topic before writing something fresh. You should select which ones need researching and which don’t and proceed accordingly.

Select older posts for rejuvenation: If you have several blog posts that are older than a year or two, you should consider re-writing the top-performing ones. It will help your search rankings and give it an improved look of freshness (even though most of them are not).

Start with the topics that need freshening up: Once you have a list ready about which posts need to be rejuvenated first, start by updating those only. If there’s too much work involved in just one post, break it into smaller parts. You can gradually finish all these tasks as they become available for editing instead of trying to do everything at once and failing miserably because you lack focus on each task.

Be mindful about what type of information is being added: Adding new information from scratch for a topic is much better than adding it in the form of quotes, paraphrasing, or linking to other articles. It’s also beneficial to add personal insights and experiences on top of re-hashed content from reliable sources because this will give it an added touch of reliability and trustworthiness. 

Create an editorial calendar: It’s much easier to rejuvenate content if you do so according to a planned schedule, rather than jumping around all over the place without any direction. Create an editorial calendar where you list each blog post that needs updating and link back to its original version or page number to avoid missing essential details while writing fresh content. You can also include priority levels (high vs. low) based on how long ago they were published and their current ranking compared against other articles of the same topic. This way, you can focus on fresh content more often than older ones and avoid writing too much about issues that already have a lot of high-quality posts to compete with your own in search rankings.

Add related information from other sources: When updating an existing blog post, use this opportunity to create links back to relevant articles or pages that are highly likely to be read by your target audience (provide added value). It’s good practice for SEO because it adds additional keywords while keeping the original keyword density consistent. Just make sure not to share spinners who overdo linking out since it will look unnatural, which might harm your rankings rather than help you rank better.

Avoid publishing thin content: Although it’s not a big deal if you add some extra words to an existing blog post, do so only when needed and avoid doing this just for the sake of having more posts on your site. This means that adding paragraphs or sentences that don’t benefit readers is something you should avoid at all costs because Google will penalize such behavior. Your goal as a writer should be to provide value with every content, which can help rank better compared to sites that have similar topics but less helpful information within their articles.

Add internal links: Internal linking lets search engines know about other related pages on your website while also spelling out what type of topic each article belongs to using anchor text. It’s also great for improving user experience since it lets people jump around your site while reading articles without having to leave the page they’re currently on (reduces bounce rate). Although you can add links within any text, breaking up paragraphs into smaller pieces will make them look more natural and less like “anchor spam,” which is something that search engines frown upon.

By now, you should be well aware of how to rejuvenate your existing blog posts to increase the overall quality and value offered within each post. Just keep in mind that even though it’s okay if some older content needs updating, avoid content spinning or keyword stuffing. You can refresh your content by adding new material on top of old articles but make sure not to take things too far with this approach because search engines are already quite good at spotting thin / low-quality pages. It also doesn’t hurt when you link back relevant articles from other sources while providing more insights.