Updating Old Content Helps Increase Rank
Recently I've been working on updating old posts across all of my websites. Though I've been learning affiliate marketing for almost 10 years now, surprisingly, I find mistakes and problems from things I wrote just a year or two ago.
(I guess the good news is that it's a clear sign that I'm always improving!)
Throughout all this updating, I've seen a LOT of my rankings improve, even in some unlikely areas.
Two-Word Keywords RANKED
One of my best examples of how updating content helped me increase rank was a two-word keyword phrase for a "review" post.
Usually, when you try to rank, it's important to pick out 3-5 words for your phrase AKA "long tail keywords". They are more specific topics, therefore less competitive, and easier to rank for.
There's nothing wrong with going a Hail Mary every once in a while though!
You can see from this image that I wrote this review back in Summer 2017. The rankings dipped as low as 69th position, but now I'm ranked #1. What's even more interesting is that I have a general domain name (not keyword optimized), and the other #2 position is a very optimized domain (EMD).
Wow. What an improvement!
Here's another example, and I'll even show you the keyword!
This is a post I wrote several years ago as well. It sat is position 5 or 6 for many years, until I decided to go back and update it. Aside from the two paid ads above me, I'm now ranked #1 for the review keyword.
What Did I Update?
I didn't do anythign crazy to these posts. I went though Jay's SEO Checklist. I made sure to use my keyword in the title, URL, and some h-tags.
I added some new images, and created a section for the 2019 update. I spell-checked, added content, and added new images.
I also updated the "published on" date, but my suggestion is to NOT try to game the system and just change this date to try to game the system. I suspect that search engines are, or will become savvy to this trick.
I also went back to some older posts, and added some relevant internal links. In some cases, I removed internal/external links from those posts. The idea behind this was to "plug up" holes in a leaky bucket, and focus any traffic into the post I was trying to rank.
Other than those things, I also just did a general quality check. I looked for images where I didn't SEO them very well, for example I left the file name stockphoto12345.jpg instead of what-the-image-is.jpg, or I made the alt-tag and the image title the same instead of having the alt tag actually be descriptive for the seeing-impaired.
NOTE: They do have plugins that can automatically update your post dates to try to game the system. My advice is to follow Kyle's advice, and don't automate stuff which is not supposed to be automated.
Ranking #1 Isn't Easy Money
The biggest surprise to me is that ranking #1 for these keywords has not been lifechanging. I wracked my brain for years, desperately wanting those top positions for product reviews. I thought for sure if I could just get to #1, my income would double overnight.
Well, that didn't happen.
I have seen an uptick in Amazon revenue since doing these updates, but it wasn't very related to the exact product names I was ranking for. I'm selling more products - just not the exact ones I'm linking to.
I suspect this means I'm getting more clicks due to the high rankings, but my review still has issues that can be fixed to try to convert visitors to buyers better. For the non-Amazon stuff, I really haven't seen the needle move.
All of that is to say that if you are not ranking #1 for your desired review keywords, it's not a big deal. You can still make great money by ranking for other phrases, then linking back to your product review. (This is exactly what the WA training teaches!).
Final Thoughts
I wrote last time about how running a single website is a full time job. Keeping your content up to date is one reason for that. If you are updating 200 blog posts yearly, that's a lot of work!
Keeping your content up to date is worth it. I recommend taking the "long view", and making an effort to update even just one old blog post per week. That'll be 50 updated blog posts per year, and your rankings should really improve in that time.
Recent Comments
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Yeah you have said this before to me and I agree that it will help to update the content that matters. Not much point however to update content that is totally not going for a keyword that can rank I suppose.
I was wondering, what about installing a plugin to show the Last updated date of the post? Is that an okay thing to do? It gets displayed below the h1, but before the text.
I recently added that plugin to my blogs, to better reflect the updates.
Steven
For the "recent" updated plugin, I think that sounds fine. The good thing about the post date change though is that Google picks up that meta data. Is there any schema markup for "last updated"?
Plugin Name: WP Last Modified Info
Description:
This plugin automatically inserts last modified or updated info on your WordPress posts (including custom post types) and pages. It is possible to use shortcode [lmt-post-modified-info] for posts and [lmt-page-modified-info] for pages for manual insert.
Here is the part you are referring to:
This plugin also adds ‘dateModified’ schema markup in WordPress posts automatically and it is used to tell the last modified date & time of a post or a page to various search engines like Google, Bing etc.
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-last-modified-info/
Steven
I used this plugin, modified the text and nothing happened, the date in SERP did not change, I did try fetching but no effect. Even the date in the post remained the same. Can you list the exact steps you do with this plugin? Any idea why I did not have results?
I always like your posts.Great read, makes absolute sense as always! Thanks Nathaniell.
Cheers, Dunc.
Awesome post! I have always wondered if I should update the publish date whenever I go back and update old posts. Thanks for the info!
I do it, and it's been working. I can't say it's a hard-fast rule, but can just say I've been seeing results.
Great tips Nathaniell.
I do this in between my full on posting days!
This way, I'm actively working on my site 24/7.
Thanks once again!
Thanks, Nathaniel. Your suggestion to update one post per week is a good one. Very doable and, as you said, that's 50 over the course of a year.
Colette and Philip
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Every time I do this exact thing: freshen up posts with extra content, new images and links, change the publish date, and then fetch using Google's inspect feature - Google punishes my site and traffic dips for 24 - 48 hours. Also, the posts rankings don't improve by much either.
I'm kinda getting tired of the situation TBH lol.
I've heard other people say this Neil and I was reluctant to make any changes to my post.
If you're already ranked highly for a keyword or there is a lot of competition for that keyword, then this can possibly be why your ranking doesn't improve (at a guess). Google probably sees it as you being ranked at #2 and want to be ranked in position #1.
So, what I do is to check the position of the post I plan to update in Google console, and if it's lower than a certain number in relation to my other posts, I will update the content.
I don't update posts that are already appearing on page 1of the SERP.
NB Google does seem to suggest a reindex when a page changes as they have a re-index option.
Hope all is well otherwise.
It's frustrating to say the least, Jackie.
Some 2017/2018 posts I update are either hovering at the bottom of page 1 or near the top of page 2. So I try to be tactical.
But when I update, the posts then slide down the rankings for a day or two and either revert to the old position or a ranking improvement of one or two places.
Google's just a massive pain in the butt and really shouldn't provide a fetch option if it's gonna punish folks for doing "the right" thing every time.
I think the best way we can go about it is to update reviews and not bother informing Google - letting it get around to crawling the updated posts itself naturally.
Yeah, things are well thanks. Hope you are too :-)
Don't change the Publish date. See my respond above
Cheers, I'll look into it.
Punishes? That's unexpeted!
How much do you you update? I only freshen stuff up. I don't overhaul.
I only freshened up two posts over the weekend with a day in between each one. It seems Google can't handle it.