You might feel like you’re cheating the system, or taking the easy way out. But when the question is, “Can I republish old blogs?” When done correctly, the answer to that question is “Yes!” You should not be afraid to repost old content on your blog, especially if it is one of your top performing posts. Here our my steps to republishing an old blog:
Step 1: Identify your hottest posts
Take time to sift through all of your posts, and highlight the ones that have earned the most traffic to your site. Usually, you will have a couple posts that are your big hits. Let the analytics and numbers direct you to the posts that are worthy of republishing. Even though you might have your favorites, if they didn’t get much traction on the web, it’s probably best that they don’t get reposted.
Along with traffic, look at how many inbound links the post contains. The more links you have, the stronger your SEO authority will be. Also, be sure to give your keywords a look. If the post you want to republish is old, your keywords could use some updating. Make sure you use a keyword tool like Hubspot keywords or Google analytics to identify keywords that you could easily rank for.
When deciding what post to use, you should also examine if it got people talking. How many shares did it have on social media? Were there a lot of comments? If your blog created a hot talking point, maybe you should consider posting it again.
Step 2: Is it relevant?
You might’ve posted a blog that rode the wave of a trend. If your blog was centered around an event or topic that has an expiration date, it might not be relevant to repost. It may have been a great traffic earning post at the time it was relevant, but now it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to post.
If you think your post isn’t tied to a timely event, it’s time to just spruce it up a little. Consider making edits to the content, and updating the image. Test all of the links you embedded to see if they are still active and routing readers to the right place. If you decide the title needs a change, make sure you keep the keywords. Speaking of things to keep, be sure you keep the URL the same, even if you do decide to change the title.
Step 3: Post that baby!
Be sure you are only making updates and edits to the existing post. You don’t want to lose the authority it has already built, so replace the old content with the new and drive on! You will also want to change the publish date and time so that it is refreshed. Check into the blogging software that you use to see if it only triggers email notifications once for a blog post. If it does, it’s a good idea to manually send the email out to subscribers that the blog has been posted.
Those dusty old blogs that you’ve got on the shelf can still earn you a lot of visits today.
Those are my three steps to republishing old blogs. Remember, some of those dusty old blogs that you’ve got up on the shelf can still earn you a lot of visits today if you follow these simple steps. My last word of advice? Don’t get too crazy and republish a ton of old blogs. Republish them sparingly as needed.
