Sometimes, the content on your website goes out of fashion. And the content in question may be something that is no longer relevant, doesn’t drive a high amount of traffic, and cannot be repurposed. So, what do you do with it? Well, there are two routes you can take. And in this blog post, we will go through both of them.
Updating old content that is still valid: The first thing you could do is update it. This is helpful for content that still sees traffic and can be repurposed into something even better. You will not be the first person to do this. For years, marketers have repurposed old content into new and value-driven content. Since research and data never go out of fashion, you can extract infographics from old content and create one-off posts based on them. This will not only drive traffic to your website but also establish you as a business that has been around for a long time.
Advantages of updating old content
Old content can be updated to include your latest expertise. As you update older posts, it will give an impression that there is new content on your blog, attracting more readers. If someone finds an outdated post with wrong or incomplete information, that person might lose trust in you and your brand.
Even last year’s posts can be updated with fresh content, offering new perspectives and ideas unavailable when the blog was first published. For example, if your company is now open on Sundays or Mondays, keep this in mind as you write about how busy workdays are. The trick is to take old stories and update them, so they seem fresh. This will help readers feel like they’re not behind the times every time they visit your site. Besides updating current written works, look out for broken links within them; check whether they work correctly or not.
Disadvantages of updating old content
Sometimes it takes a lot more time than one thinks to make changes and improve an already existing post. This is especially true if you’ve written tens, hundreds, or thousands of blog posts that span multiple years across numerous sites and platforms. It’s much easier to start over from scratch rather than incorporate everything into another article/post/site just for continuity’s sake. It better reflects your brand if all your work is ‘fresh’ in terms of when it was produced because you want visitors viewing any given page to feel like they are reading something current.
You run the risk of alienating visitors by changing too much, especially if they’ve read your old posts before and are accustomed to them being there in their original form. When you revise or update content featured on a previous blog post, it can be disruptive for readers who have bookmarked, linked to, or shared that particular page previously.
Delete Old Content: The second thing you could do with out-of-fashion content is delete it. This will free up some space on your site and help you remove an element that isn’t adding value anymore. You can replace this by creating new, relevant content or repurposing the old one into something more valuable for your business goals.
Deleting old blog posts may not be a bad idea if they don’t serve SEO purposes. For example, older articles from months ago have been updated many times over different periods; search engines might have trouble crawling them properly. In cases like these, it’s best to delete older blog posts and write new ones that will bring the same information but with a cleaner layout.
Advantages of deleting old content:
Deleting old blog posts can free up some space on your site and help you remove an element that isn’t adding value anymore. You might not want to delete all of them, but when it comes down to the ones which are less relevant or add no value in terms of SEO, it is better to delete such content.
You could either replace this by creating new content or repurposing existing content into something more valuable for your business goals. This will reflect well on your brand because visitors viewing any given page won’t feel like they’re reading something outdated every time they visit your site. It’s a good idea if there’s duplicate information across different pages and platforms that only wastes time and resources; instead, pick one version (usually latest) to feature prominently.
Disadvantages of deleting old content:
It will not only have dire consequences for web admins but also on their visitors. You can lose a lot of quality traffic from search engines if you delete your blog posts without valid reasons. If the contents are unique and resourceful, then it’s better to keep them even after they become outdated rather than getting rid of them altogether. Think about what would happen if someone found that same information through another website or social media platform? Would that person still find value in knowing more about this topic? Even though an article may be old, there is no guarantee people visiting your site won’t care. Some readers enjoy seeing how far back they go on various websites/blogs because it allows them to see how much has changed.
Old content can be beneficial for your website if you know how to use them right. If they’re too old and haven’t been updated in months or years, then deleting them might serve more purpose than leaving them up on your site as-is. However, this is not always the case; search engines may have trouble crawling your website correctly, leading to penalties from Google over time. So again – keeping outdated articles around won’t hurt anything as long as you make sure to update those pieces of content every few weeks (or even every day) so their status remains current at all times!
