Is it worth editing older blog posts for SEO purposes?
-
The title of the question asks it all.
One site I currently work on has a handful of blog posts that rank really well in the SERPS for certain "long-tail" searches. Would it be worth the time to, when I have it, to go back and edit the blogs little by little to help with SEO and building some links throughout the site to get people where we need them to go?
Basically "sprucing" up the blog posts to make them more readable, more engaging and help some link building efforts within the domain.
Thoughts?
-
If its the improvement of user experience - then the addition of relevant links is worth doing definitely, with respect to changing the content itself, I would be inclined to only make very minor edits and not disturb any of the long tail phrases you are ranking for.
-
Love this idea!
Thank you for sharing Geoff.
-
You could update the older posts (making sure the new internal links are not overly SEO'd) and then ask your programmer to turn off date display on all posts more than 3 months old. Users then arriving on the posts will not be bouncing because they see it as an "old" post and will benefit from your updated content.
-
"time and progression are always excellent reasons for new posts and new content"
Great point. I don't feel that the current blog posts are outdated as of yet and in need of a re-written post, they just aren't up to "snuff" for potential readers and visitors.
The main goal I have for editing these older posts is strictly for current user-experience. That is why I am battling the idea of going back to them, re-reading and making the minor edits needed to help or just leave it and write a new article, as you have mentioned.
-
Blog posts tend to be timely and topical and can date with time, (whereas articles (IMO) should be as timeless as possible and state fact). With blogging, situations change over time and so something written 6 months ago could be seen and viewed in a very different light - if that's the case, time for a new post, citing the changes and differences - resulting in both new (more well written) post, and a shiny new piece of content with links to the old post.
I find I might cover the exact same subject 3 or 4 times a year, writing a new post and citing the older ones shows consistency and awareness on your part for users, increases internal linking and subsequently increases the stickiness of your site.
Obviously if you have any glaring SEO errors or holes in your older posts it wouldn't hurt to patch them up - but time and progression are always excellent reasons for new posts and new content.
-
Thanks for the reply.
Our blog is only about 6 months old. The first 3 months or so of posts were really poorly written and I did not have the time to really "fine-tune" like I normally would. That job was left to someone doing the initial editing... Needless to say, looking back at them, they are really, really bad.
I'm not really interested in stuffing these older blogs with additional keywords or adding keyword rich anchor text in the posts.
The content was poorly written. We are getting a lot of traffic to our blog through some of these posts, but the bounce rate remains extremely high. The entry keyphrases seem to be "dead-on" for the content itself, at least for the most part. I won't lie, I would like to put a few links within some edited posts that would take someone to another page on the site that would be helpful or another blog.
Still not really sure what to...
-
I guess it really depends how old the "old posts" are.
If the posts are relatively recent, "sprucing" up the blog posts to make them more readable and more engaging is a possibility (and maybe a good idea if the original was not well written).
It might be better and more natural to write new posts on the topic which add value to the original butink back to the older posts as a point of reference. This should improve the positioning for the long tail on the old posts and is
I would not recommend transparent activity like going back to the old posts stuffing them full of keywords and a couple of keyword rich links to other parts of the site - Google will see you are trying to game the system and most likely discount any potential benefit.
-
Would it be worth the time to go back and edit the blogs little by little to help with SEO...
Sure, some people pay SEOs to do this very thing!
...and building some links throughout the site to get people where we need them to go? Basically "sprucing" up the blog posts to make them more readable, more engaging...
This is a great idea... that's the sign of a good webmaster.
....and help some link building efforts within the domain.
Yes, it will help. Great ideas. Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Will these pages harm the SEO of my blog?
Hi there, If I put download pages and thank you pages on my blog, will it harm the SEO rankings? As these pages will be pretty thin and will have no links to them internally for obvious reasons, it has me concerned about the effect it could have on my blog. I want to build my blog up to drive traffic, so it's not just a case of throwing the pages up. What is the best solution? No index the pages -- will that be enough? Warm regards Colin
Link Building | | username670 -
New to SEO, looking for advice.
Good day. I am fairy new to SEO and a lot of things about how google ranking works is very confusing to me. For example i do not understand why websites that are not optimized score 1st positions. Currently i am working on optimizing http://logiunvarti.lv/ for google.lv. I would like to ask if i am going in the right direction as far as on-page optimization and any kind of suggestion would be very welcome. Another roadblock i have reached is link building. Latvia is not a big country and most of the websites on similar topic as my are either competitors and are have low domain authority, dead for years, or simply ignore emails. Would social media be a decent alternative? I feel like i am missing a crucial point on SEO in for my country. I would be extremely grateful for any advice or if possible to contact me on skype for a better explanation on my problem.
Link Building | | AlexElks0 -
Need help for SEO
After Penguin 5 what are the major changes in onpage that is necessary and what are the best techniques for link building?
Link Building | | Chirag7530 -
Recommended Guest Blogging Platforms
Hello all, Other than My Blog Guest, what are the currently recommended platforms for submitting quality content for guest blogging opportunities? Thanks! Guy
Link Building | | ciznerguy0 -
Value of IMG links for SEO
Hello, I'm looking for some new ways to build links (IE, letitimate not spam), and I know sites featuring a site that I created would be an interesting way to do so. My question is this, the StudioPress Showcase pages http://www.studiopress.com/showcase/baltimore-print-studios link back to your site with an image, with some "Almost URL Alt text". How valuable would this link be, given that the DA is 97 and the PA is in the upper 40s Thanks Zach
Link Building | | Zachary_Russell0 -
SEO Drop rename pages
Some of key product pages have dropped due to what I think is overused anchor text. Can we rename them, and start again?
Link Building | | jj34340 -
Guest Blog Posting : Is that all it is made out to be?
Experts frequently mention that one of the best way to build the link is to guest blog with some authoritative blogs in your niche after Penguin, Panda and other animals invaded SEO landscape. At the same time everyone agrees that "Content is the king" and if you have unique and useful content, people would link to you without any extra efforts on your part. Do you see any contradiction in those statements? I spent my time, my resource, my genius writing up very good posts. As a matter of fact all my post are good (IMHO), but I can churn out only 2 or 3 masterpieces per month. Should I share my content willingly as a guest post to other websites who are not my local direct competitor of course, but nonetheless are in my niche, thus adding to their authority on the subject? I will get a link out of it. Would I get a significant traffic? I doubt that. At least from my limited experience. Or should I strengthen my own site striving to be such authority in my niche? But without strong external link profile Google shall frown upon me and my site. Personally I inclined more to save most of the content for my own blog. What do you gals and guys think?
Link Building | | SirMax0 -
Guest Blogging
I am looking to get into guest blogging for our retail brick-and-mortar store to increase more local search traffic. 1. Any local SEO recommendations/tips you have? 2. Can you post the same article in multiple places? Or is this a huge no-no? 3. For local search, should we focus on article directories or guest blogs? Thanks in advance for your feedback, and sorry that it's a three-parter! 🙂
Link Building | | jpretz0