How to update your blog

If you are responsible for maintaining the company's blog, this is for you!

Many people find it simple to update a blog because, in fact, these people do not have a real understanding of what it means and what it involves to update a blog.

Our proposal with this article is to open your eyes to the extent of the work it represents and what benefits it can bring you, as well as what the criteria that guide the updates should be.

Let’s go to what matters!

What is the content update?

Right off the bat, if you think about the depth of that subtitle, it's likely that you've already figured out a good part of the way.

When you seek to understand the term updating, you find that updating something consists of making it conform to now, to the present, to today. More than that, it is walking in the opposite direction to the old, to the outdated.

The other keyword that interests us, is content.

Well, content is what brings people to your blog. If it is outdated, old, people tend not to be interested. In fact, most should not even “land” on it.

Therefore, the intention is to keep the content you produce always up-to-date, always able to generate interest and bring new people.

Consequently, when it comes to updating a blog - or any type of website - it is working to keep it current in its most important aspect and that is it's the main reason, after all, you do not work as much for a blog of your own. It should attract all internet users as much as possible.

Of course, within Digital Marketing strategies, there must also be space (time and work) for other types of updates (updates), which many people think of when they hear the word.

Keeping the application core up to date, the plugins, the theme, including new features, is also part of it. But Google doesn't bring in more people just because you're using a brand new theme in your WordPress, or because you're using the latest version of the comment plugin.

This just ensures that things work as expected for the visitor and that everything is visually ok.

Why update?

Even if you are part of the group of nostalgic, it is unlikely that there will be interest in reading in 2020, that Windows 10 will be released! Sometime in 2015, all the tech sites talked about it. But passed.

At the time, several of them certainly received many visits and if your blog was one of the ones that dealt with this or another related subject, you will see that this page does not receive any more visits.

Themes like this, generate momentary interest. There is not much to do with this type of content.

You will not delete your post, because of that. He is there, he fulfilled his role at the time and maybe someone can still fall for him, in search of some relevant information of the time.

On the other hand, there are themes that are timeless. It remains interesting for months and maybe years.

Want an example? SEO!

We can bet, with little chance of making a mistake, that you for reading this article are interested and know the importance of SEO. As a blog administrator, if you are not interested and don't know at least something about SEO, you are just taking the first steps, or you want to change what you didn't know you needed to change.

There is no chance in the short to medium term that the arsenal of information that encompasses SEO work will fail to generate interest.

On the contrary, as new technologies emerge, Google and other mechanisms evolve, such as the BERT update, for example, the trend is that the theme will become broader and more interesting.

And this is where you come in and updates become even more vital. Everything that happened since the preparation of the original article, which represented a change or incorporation of new information, must be part of the update, to maintain people's interest.

How to update a blog?

There are roughly two paths.

The first is to abandon the old content and create an entirely new one.

The second is to update the original one.

Which one is the best? There is no single, absolute answer for all cases. This is where your critical sense, your knowledge of your audience and the subjects you deal within each article, the approaches you used at the time, comes in.

In a very general way, we can say that it is worthwhile to carry out a legitimate content update - and not to create a new article - for many cases, when:

• When evaluating content from today's perspective, the amount of additional information is not significant. And what is significant in terms of volume? When the new by itself does not yield another article;
• When updating means placing updated statistical data, surveys, images and links;
• If the same subject does not represent trends that have changed radically or even significantly. For example, an article that in 2018 talked about the hegemonic leadership of Google Chrome, today needs to include the New Edge, since it has been growing in market share, but still does not represent a threat to the leadership of the Google browser;
• Whenever the essence - the main information and characteristics - of the main theme, remains unchanged, it is enough to include a few information.
• The page rank is good. Rewriting an entire page that has good organic positioning can ruin the work done;
• Pages that still bring many visitors. Be very careful here! It takes caution and knowledge to update content that attracts;
• High conversion rates and engagement. This is not easy to achieve and for that reason, giving up content with positive metrics can be disastrous.

It should be clear from looking at the topics above, that updating does not mean changing everything. Not everything is out of date, not everything needs to be improved. There are subtle things and some less.

Updating does not mean changing everything. On the other hand, there are situations that require more radical approaches, when the necessary changes to make the content current are many:

• The content is very outdated due to time. If a good part of what was written no longer corresponds to reality and/or the situations have changed significantly, new content should be considered in place of the original, provided that the following conditions permit:
  1. Low - or none - conversion and engagement;
  2. Few or no visitors;
  3. Bad ranking.
• If the trends in the subject were reversed. If, for example, you were talking about an “X” service, which was a leader in its segment and today there is a new player “Y”, which has displaced it, the previous approach no longer makes sense. However, one must assess whether to change the focus to the new leader, it is relevant content, converts, attracts, engages;
• When the evaluation of the content leads to the conclusion that it was poorly written, that the information is very incomplete or that there are errors that cannot be corrected by changing just a few words and that maintaining it can damage the image that the audience has of brand, concept and content itself;

What to update on the blog?

The simple and direct answer is all content that is timeless.

In other words, subjects that have a long life cycle, such as the aforementioned SEO, which has to do with Content Marketing and which in turn, with Digital Marketing.

These are three examples of subjects that do not die overnight.

But not only that. Also, consider the following aspects to know what to update.

Visitors

If your audience is participatory, whether in the comments you make on your blog or on social networks, it will give you important clues to update.

The best indicators are the questions they ask about the topics contained in each article. If the post was not able to answer and resolve such doubts, it is because the post was not clear enough or did not even address the subject being asked.

The communication

Ask for opinions, encourage communication, learn to listen and interpret. What others have to say is worth a lot more than you think about your content.

Also having a variety of communication channels, encouraging your audience to use it, constitutes an important arsenal of relevant information to update the content that is relevant, as well as produce new ones.

But remember that communication is a two-way street. Your visitors - especially the faithful and regulars - will stay active, if they are sure they are heard. So, just as you ask for feedback, give yours to him.

Finally, accept criticism! Don't take it personally. Knowing how to deal with criticism helps to develop a heightened sense of evaluation and recognition of errors, opening the door for improvement.

Social media

Look at social networks. Both what was very liked, shared and commented, as well as what was little.

What was successful, has a chance to do it again, if it is expanded, improved. What was not, is your second chance to do it again, seeing the mistakes and correcting them.

Watch the competition

Not to do the same! But to do what you are not yet doing or forgot to do and, in this case, to say.

But also to offer alternatives. In the case of news, it is objective and as long as you have not left anything important out, both will say the same thing. But in subjective cases, it is relevant to offer your vision or even your presentation of the concept.

What converts

Obvious, isn't it?

It may seem so, but not so much.

There are issues that generate interest but do not convert. In other words, people come, consume the content, but there are no consequences, such as clicks. This can be seen, for example, by a page with a high bounce rate.

It is first to identify the reason for this and that may be for example, because you do not have CTA's (Call To Action). Anyway, there is something in the structure of your content or how it was formulated and that does not encourage the visitor to proceed.

Pages that have this type of feature are serious candidates for updates.

And don't forget that if you use publication date information, you have to update it when you republish the posts, as well as publicize it on social media, in your news feed and in the newsletter, if you have it.

Conclusion

Updating a blog is as important a job as creating content. Knowing why to update, what to update and how to update, is to ensure that content maintains its role of attracting visitors and converting.