Creating new content isn’t always the answer. Sometimes, your biggest SEO wins come from updating what you already have.
Your existing content carries SEO authority and audience trust – but it needs regular maintenance to keep performing.
To learn how best to refresh content, I interviewed senior SEOs and content marketers to uncover their most effective strategies.
In this guide, I combine their expert insights with my own proven methods to show you exactly how to refresh content while protecting (and improving) your SEO rankings. Let’s get started!
A Quick Step-by-Step Checklist
- Recognize the Need for Content Refresh
- Set Clear Goals and Understand Your Audience
- Conduct a Comprehensive Content Audit
- Analyze User Intent and Search Behavior
- Perform Competitor Analysis
- Update and Optimize Your Content
- Enhance User Experience and Readability
- Incorporate E-E-A-T Principles
- Optimize Technical SEO and Internal Linking
- Repurpose and Diversify Content
- Monitor Results and Continuously Improve
1. Recognize the Need for Content Refresh
The hard truth? Your content’s performance has an expiration date. Even your most successful pieces can slip in rankings and relevance without regular maintenance.
Let’s break down exactly what causes this decline and how to spot it before it impacts your SEO.
Why Does Content Decay?
Content decay is when your content loses relevance and effectiveness over time. Here’s what triggers it:
- Facts, statistics, or references that are no longer current.
- Changes in industry practices or consumer interests.
- Search engines modify their ranking algorithms.
Expert Insight:
SEO and content marketers should avoid over-indexing on content volume and instead place a greater emphasis on quality while watching out for content decay.
What is the Impact on SEO?
Neglecting to update your content can lead to:
- Search engines may lower your content’s ranking due to reduced relevance.
- Lower rankings mean fewer visitors find your site organically.
- Outdated content can harm your credibility and reduce your authority.
Expert Insight:
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Schedule regular audits to assess the relevance and accuracy of your content.
- Use content analytics tools to track performance metrics like traffic and engagement.
- Keep up with industry trends and changes to ensure your content remains current.
- Listen to feedback and questions from your audience that may indicate areas needing updates.
2. Set Clear Goals and Understand Your Audience
Every content refresh needs a purpose. Without clear goals and a deep understanding of your audience, you’re just making random updates. Here’s how to make your content work harder for your strategy.
Start with your objectives:
- What specific metrics need improvement?
- Which parts of your funnel need strengthening?
- What actions do you want readers to take?
Expert Insight:
Your audience is your compass. Their needs, challenges, and preferences should guide every update you make. Skip the guesswork – use your analytics, comments, and customer feedback to understand what resonates with them.
Expert Insight:
Just simplify your information, be direct, precise, and know your niche market.
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Define measurable targets for traffic, engagement, or conversions.
- Analyze user behavior data to understand content performance.
- Create audience personas that dig into your audience’s needs and pain points.
- Survey your audience to gather direct feedback about what they want to learn
- Identify gaps in your content compared to competitors.
3. Conduct a Comprehensive Content Audit
Don’t refresh your content blindly. A thorough content audit reveals exactly which pieces need attention and why.
Here’s your roadmap to a data-driven content refresh strategy:
Inventory Your Existing Content
Begin by cataloging all your content assets, including blog posts, articles, landing pages, and other materials on your site.
Then, follow these simple steps:
- Use Tools To Gather Data:
- Screaming Frog crawls your website to list all URLs, titles, meta descriptions, headings, and more.
- Google Analytics provides data on page views, bounce rates, and user behavior.
- Google Search Console offers insights into how your content appears in search results and identifies any issues.
- Use Tools To Gather Data:
- Create a Spreadsheet:
- List each piece of content with key details such as URL, title, publish date, and last update.
- Include performance metrics for easy reference.
Expert Insight:
Assess Performance Metrics
Let your data tell the story of your content’s performance. Track these metrics over time to spot patterns and opportunities – graphs and charts can help you spot trends such as declining traffic or seasonal fluctuations.
Focus on these critical metrics:
- Page Views: How often a page is visited.
- Bounce Rate: Percentage of visitors who leave after viewing one page.
- Average Time on Page: Indicates how engaging your content is.
- Conversion Rate: Measures how effectively content drives desired actions.
- Organic Keywords: Keywords your content currently ranks for.
- Clicks: Number of times users click through to your content from search results.
- Impressions: Number of times your content appears in search results.
- Positions: Your content’s average ranking position for targeted keywords.
Expert Insight:
Visualise page-level performance over time. It’s an excellent way to identify clear patterns in content performance. One of my favourite ways to do this is to build a grid of weekly clicks per URL over time. I focus initial efforts on content which has seen a steady decline in performance over time or a sudden drop off after relatively strong performance.
Identify Content for Refreshing
Based on your analysis, sort your content into clear action categories:
- Keep As-Is: High-performing content that’s still relevant.
- Update: Content is performing well but could benefit from minor updates.
- Revamp: Underperforming content that needs significant improvements.
- Remove or Consolidate: Outdated or irrelevant content that no longer serves a purpose.
Expert Insight:
I begin by conducting a content audit using Search Console to identify underperforming pages.
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Set up Your Audit Infrastructure:
- Install necessary analytics tools.
- Create your content inventory spreadsheet.
- Set up tracking for key metrics.
- Gather and Analyze Data:
- Run comprehensive site crawls.
- Export analytics data.
- Document current performance metrics.
- Prioritize Content Updates:
- Label content by required action.
- Create a content update schedule based on resources and strategic importance.
- Allocate resources based on priority – tackle pages that have the potential to drive significant traffic or conversions first.
4. Perform Competitor Analysis
Your competitors’ content strategies are an open playbook – if you know how to read them. By analyzing their tactics, you can identify opportunities to improve your content and gain a competitive edge. Here’s how to turn their moves into your advantage when refreshing content:Map the Competitive Landscape
Start by identifying who’s dominating your target keywords. Examine their content to see:- What topics are they covering that you aren’t?
- How in-depth and valuable is their content?
- Which keywords are they ranking for?
- How do they structure their content?
- Do they use images, videos, or infographics to enhance engagement?
Expert Insight:
Don’t just copy what works for your competitors – find opportunities to do it better. Look for gaps where you can provide unique value that sets your content apart.
Tools for Competitor Analysis
These tools will give you the intel you need into your competitors’ content strategies:
- SEMrush or Ahrefs: Discover which keywords your competitors rank for, their top-performing content, and traffic estimates.
- Surfer SEO: Analyze the content of top-ranking pages for specific keywords, providing recommendations on content optimization.
- Rankalyzer: An SEO competitor monitoring tool that tracks changes in your competitors’ content. It alerts you when they update titles, meta descriptions, headings, and on-page elements. This helps you stay informed about industry trends and refresh your content accordingly.
When analyzing your competitors, you want to focus on more than the content itself. Use tools like Rankalyzer to monitor how they are updating and optimizing their content over time.
This can reveal important insights into their evolving SEO strategies that you can then apply to your own content refresh efforts.
Delve deeper into how to monitor competitor website changes here.
Expert Insight:
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Identify Your Competitors
- Search your target keywords and note the top-ranking sites.
- Include both direct competitors and authoritative industry sites.
- Analyze Their Content
- Use the tools mentioned to gather data on competitors’ content.
- Examine the topics they cover, the depth of their content, and how they structure it.
- Find Content Gaps
- Identify subjects your competitors cover that you haven’t.
- List ways to improve on competitor content.
- Plan unique angles for your updates.
- Adapt Your Content
- Incorporate your findings into your content refresh plan.
- Focus on adding value beyond what competitors offer.
- Update your strategy based on any key findings.
5. Analyze User Intent and Search Behavior
Don’t forget: Your content isn’t just competing for rankings – it’s competing for attention. Understanding why people search and what they expect to find is the key to delivering content that ranks and converts.
What are the different search intents?
Search intent is defined as the reason behind a user’s query. Every search query has a purpose.
Here are the core search intents:
- Informational: Seeking knowledge or answers.
- Navigational: Looking for a specific website or page.
- Transactional: Ready to make a purchase or complete an action.
- Commercial Investigation: Comparing options before making a decision.
Expert Insight:
Match Your Format to User Intent
Sometimes, a content refresh means rethinking your entire approach and completely overhauling your content. The right format can make the difference between bounces and engagement.
Expert Insight:
Find & Optimize for Hidden Keyword Opportunities
Optimizing for the right keywords bridges the gap between your content and your audience’s needs. By identifying and targeting high-potential keywords, you can significantly boost your content’s visibility and engagement.
But the best opportunities often lie in plain sight.
Expert Insight:
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Identify User Intent for Your Keywords
- Use tools like Google Search Console to see what users are searching for when they find your content.
- Determine the primary intent behind your target keywords.
- Review How to Align Your Content with User Intent
- Review your content to see if it answers the questions users are asking and fulfills their needs.
- Assess if the the content’s structure and format match user intent (e.g., use how-to guides for informational intent).
- Identify Keywords Opportunities
- Use tools like Google Search Console to find any ‘quick win’ – relevant keywords you are gaining traction for but are not currently optimized for. These can be identified by keywords with high impressions but low clicks.
- Plan to incorporate keywords naturally in titles, headings, and throughout the content.
6. Update and Optimize Your Content
Refreshing your content isn’t just about fixing what’s broken – it’s about enhancing the value you provide. Here’s how to give your content a meaningful upgrade:
Refreshing Outdated Information
Start by auditing your content for any inaccuracies or outdated information:
- Check facts and update any outdated statistics, dates, and factual data to ensure accuracy.
- Ensure all internal and external links are working and lead to relevant resources.
Expert Insight:
Run a site search to find references like ‘2022’ or ‘2023’ in titles or body text. Simply input ‘site:[domain] 2022’ into your search bar to highlight areas needing updates. This is an easy but effective way to ensure your content remains accurate and relevant.
Enhancing Content Depth and Value
Once you’ve updated any outdated information, it’s time to make your content truly valuable. Here’s how:
- Add new sections or insights, for example, touch upon any recent developments, add case studies, or incorporate expert opinions.
- Expand on the existing points in your content with detailed explanations or examples.
Expert Insight:
Optimizing for Keywords
Keywords are the bridge between your content and your audience. Using the right keywords helps your content reach the intended audience more effectively.With the right keyword strategy, you can boost your content’s visibility in the SERP.
Follow these steps:
- Analyze which keywords are performing well and identify opportunities for improvement.
- Update your content to include target keywords that align with user intent.
Expert Insight:
Utilizing Tools Effectively
There are plenty of tools out there to help you enhance your content and provide you with a fresh perspective.
- Consult Google’s helpful content guidelines to make sure you’re aligning with best practices.
- Consider using AI tools, such as Claude, to analyze and assist you with content improvements quickly.
- Use tools like Rankalyzer to monitor how competitors are updating their content, providing insights for your own optimizations.
Expert Insight:
I create PDFs of Google’s helpful content guidelines and the top three ranking competitor articles for my target keyword… Then I provide these documents to Claude and ask it to review and make suggestions for how to improve my own content.
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Verify statistics, dates, and references are up to date.
- Fix any broken links or outdated resources.
- Add new sections or insights that will add value and help you stand out.
- Expand on any content that seems too thin, using examples.
- Review the performance of the current keywords you are targeting to identify any areas for improvement.
- Include relevant keywords that align with the search intent.
7. Enhance User Experience and Readability
Your content may be accurate and informative, but if it’s a chore to read, you’re losing valuable attention. Here’s how to craft a user experience that keeps your audience hooked and on your site for longer.
Improving Readability
Clear formatting is the foundation of an engaging read:
- Break up large blocks of text with headings and subheadings.
- Use bullet points and numbered lists to organize information.
- Write short paragraphs and sentences for easier comprehension.
Expert Insight:
Incorporating Visual Elements
Visuals bring your content to life, make it more memorable and help you to illustrate your points. Here are some tips on how to do this:
- Use high-quality images that complement your content.
- Include infographics to present data visually.
- Embed videos where appropriate to enhance understanding.
- Consider interactive elements like quizzes or polls.
Check on your Competitor:
- Use Rankalyzer’s visual comparison feature to see how competitors’ visual elements change over time and how it impacts rankings.
- Analyze competitors’ page layouts and design changes to inspire enhancements in your own content.
Expert Insight:
Enhancing Engagement
You want to keep visitors on your site longer and encourage them to explore more of your content. Your content should always guide readers towards their next step. Here’s how:
- Include clear calls to action (CTAs) to point them in the right direction, for example, reading another article, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.
- Where appropriate, explore tactics like sticky sidebar banners and in-content callouts to maximize engagement and conversions.
- Link to related content on your site to provide additional value and keep readers engaged.
Expert Insight:
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Break up text with headings and formatting.
- Write in a clear, concise style.
- Use bullet points and lists effectively.
- Select high-quality, relevant images.
- Create informative infographics.
- Embed videos and interactive content.
- Add clear calls-to-action.
- Link to related content on your site.
8. Incorporate E-E-A-T Principles
In modern SEO, content must do more than just rank – it must establish trust. That’s where the E-E-A-T framework comes in, helping you create high-quality, high-performing content.
What is E-E-A-T in a Nusthell?
E-E-A-T is the criteria Google uses to assess if content is good quality. Here it is broken down:
- Experience: Demonstrating firsthand experience with the topic.
- Expertise: Showing deep knowledge or skill in the subject matter.
- Authoritativeness: Being recognized as a reliable and leading source of information.
- Trustworthiness: Establishing credibility and reliability with your audience.
Expert Insight:
Building Trust Through Personal Experience
By sharing personal stories and insights, you make your content more relatable and engaging, enhancing its credibility. Your unique perspective is your superpower.
To strengthen the Experience and Trust aspects, try the following:
- Share anecdotes, including personal stories that illustrate your points.
- Express genuine opinions to provide a thoughtful perspective based on your experience.
- Write in a tone that reflects your genuine voice.
Ensuring Expertise and Authority
Your content must prove its worth – both to readers and search engines. Before updating your content, assess whether it demonstrates expertise and authority.
To strengthen the Expertise and Authority aspects, try the following:
- Ensure your content covers the topic comprehensively.
- Add detailed explanations and advanced insights where appropriate.
- Include recent research, data, or industry developments.
- Remove or revise outdated references.
9. Optimize Technical SEO and Internal Linking
When refreshing content, optimizing technical SEO is crucial to ensure updates are effectively indexed, visible to search engines and provide an optimal user experience.
Here’s how to cover your bases and keep search engines happy.
Technical SEO Actions
- Broken Links: Check for broken links when updating content to ensure seamless navigation for both users and search engines.
- Redirects: Use 301 redirects for removed or consolidated pages to retain SEO value and direct users to the most relevant content.
- Meta Data & Headings: Update meta titles, descriptions, and headings to align with refreshed content, improving search engine understanding and click-through rates.
- Schema Markup: Add or update schema to reflect changes, helping search engines better understand and index the content.
- Page Speed & Core Web Vitals (CWV): Optimize new elements for speed to meet CWV benchmarks, maintaining good rankings and user experience.
- Mobile-Friendliness: Ensure refreshed content is optimized for mobile devices, providing a consistent experience across platforms.
- Internal Linking: Strategically add internal links with optimized anchor text to guide users to your most relevant content, distribute link equity, and boost SEO.
Expert Insight:
Tools for Technical SEO
The following tools can help you monitor and optimize your technical SEO elements:
- Rankalyzer helps you keep track of changes in meta tags, schema markup, and page speed among top competitors. Understanding their technical optimizations can help you refine your own strategies.
- Google Search Console helps you to identify and fix crawl errors, monitor site performance, and understand how Google views your site.
- Screaming Frog crawls your website to uncover technical issues like broken links, duplicate content, and missing tags.
Expert Insight:
10. Repurpose and Diversify Content
As well as refreshing a piece of content, you can go further and consider how you can repurpose it for another channel or use. This way, you’re creating less content but maximizing its value without having to start from scratch.
Ways to Repurpose Content
- Turn Blog Posts into Videos: Convert popular blog posts into video summaries or tutorials. This can help engage visual learners and perform well on platforms like YouTube.
- Create Infographics: Summarize key points from articles or reports in infographic form. Visual content is often more shareable and can attract more backlinks.
- Develop Podcasts or Audio Content: Take the core ideas from your written content and discuss them in podcast episodes, adding a personal touch.
- Slide Decks and Presentations: Convert long-form guides into slide presentations to share on platforms like LinkedIn or SlideShare.
- Social Media Posts: Break down content into bite-sized snippets or quotes for social media, driving traffic back to the original piece.
Expert Insight:
Diversifying Distribution Channels
It’s also good practice to consider how you can distribute your different content formats to reach different audience segments. Here are some tips:- Share repurposed infographics, short videos, or snippets across relevant social media platforms to increase visibility.
- Feature repurposed content in newsletters to engage subscribers and drive traffic back to your website.
- Host a live Q&A or webinar based on your refreshed content to engage with your audience in real-time.
Expert Insight:
Consider strategic actions like adding fresh data, improving readability, and adding visuals, and then distributing the content across different channels.
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Identify high-performing content that can be reused in new formats.
- Choose formats based on your audience’s preferences (e.g., video, audio, visual).
- Distribute repurposed content across multiple channels to expand its reach.
11. Monitor Results and Continuously Improve
It’s not enough to refresh content just the once. Content refreshing should be an ongoing part of your content marketing strategy. To maximize your content’s ROI, it’s important to regularly monitor performance and make improvements based on data insights.
What performance metrics you should track:
- Google Analytics: Monitor page views, bounce rates, average session duration, and conversions to evaluate how well the refreshed content performs.
- Google Search Console: Track keyword rankings and impressions to see how the refreshed content impacts search visibility.
- Google Looker Studio: Create a custom reporting dashboard to monitor the performance of the refreshed content in one place.
- Rankalyzer: Use Rankalyzer to track competitor updates and see how changes to similar content are performing, giving you insights into how to keep your own content competitive.
Expert Insight:
Adjusting Strategies Based on Data
Once you’ve given your content time to perform (at least three months, if not six), it’s important to revisit it, assess its performance and schedule in any refreshed required.
Here are some tips:
- Determine which pieces of content are performing well after the refresh and which need further adjustment. Focus on metrics such as engagement rates, search traffic, and conversions.
- Make small incremental improvements to optimize for ongoing trends, such as updating keywords or adding relevant internal links.
- Analyze which techniques were most effective for specific pieces of content and apply those methods to other pieces in your content portfolio.
Expert Insight:
Adjusting Strategies Based on Data
Once you’ve given your content time to perform (at least three months, if not six), it’s important to revisit it, assess its performance and schedule in any refreshed required.
Here are some tips:
- Determine which pieces of content are performing well after the refresh and which need further adjustment. Focus on metrics such as engagement rates, search traffic, and conversions.
- Make small incremental improvements to optimize for ongoing trends, such as updating keywords or adding relevant internal links.
- Analyze which techniques were most effective for specific pieces of content and apply those methods to other pieces in your content portfolio.
Continuous Content Maintenance
To help you stay on top of your content maintenance tasks, I suggest the following:
- Set reminders to audit your refreshed content every few months to ensure it remains relevant and high-performing.
- Keep an eye on developments in your industry and update your content to reflect any new insights or changes.
Read our recent article to learn how often you should update your content.
Expert Insight:
Accuracy, engagement, and relevance are key. Firstly, look at content accuracy. If there are legislative changes or documentation changes, update those elements quickly. Content calendars can help with planning. Tools like Monday can assist. Finally, look at the SERP to see how frequently articles related to your topic have been published.
How to Put These Insights into Action:
- Track content performance using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Rankalyzer.
- Regularly analyze the data and identify areas for further updates or optimizations.
- Replicate effective strategies across similar content pieces.
Monitor Competitor SEO Updates With Rankalyzer
Refreshing your content can make a significant impact on your site’s SEO performance. But staying ahead of the competition involves tracking what others are doing and continuously adjusting your strategy.
Rankalyzer is the perfect tool for this. With Rankalyzer, you can:
- Track Competitor Changes: Monitor how your competitors are updating their content, including changes to meta data, headings, content, images, and backlinks.
- Monitor Technical SEO: Keep track of competitors’ technical aspects such as page speed, schema changes, and Core Web Vitals to ensure you stay ahead.
- Receive Alerts: Get weekly reports showing competitors making changes that could impact their SEO performance, so you can respond quickly.
- Visual Comparison: Use Rankalyzer’s visual comparison feature to understand content and design changes and their impact on rankings.
Take the next step in your SEO journey and make data-driven decisions with confidence.
Try Rankalyzer Today and take control of your SEO performance.
