Nothing could suck more than finding out that your content isn’t relevant anymore—on Google, that is. You’ve spent hours researching about it and making sure it hits the right notes. After some time, the fuel and hype die down and you’re left with content that’s not even seen by anyone unless you tell them to go straight to it.
That’s not cool.
Luckily, though, there are a few ways that you can do to bring your old content back to life. One of the most effective tactics you can use is re-optimization. Content Marketing Institue came up with three tools that you can use to resuscitate your old content.
But before we jump into a rundown of these tools, it’s important to note the reasons why one should re-optimize their content. For one thing, the backlinks that you’ve collected throughout the content’s run will make benefitting from it faster and easier. For two, you’ll be able to update that old piece of content with new data and remove irrelevant points too.
Here are the tools that can help bring new life to your old content.
One of the best ways for you to know what you need to work on in terms of keywords is Text Optimizer. Google’s algorithms are always changing with the intention to make search queries easier to answer and more human. Because of this, the tags and descriptions that Google shows in every result page have to try its best to answer a query.
Using Text Optimizer can help you analyze these snippets on Google, Yahoo, or Bing. It enables you to filter out the keywords you need to make your specific content relevant again. It shows a massive list of related keywords to your website and content, helping you choose what’s best and more relevant to updating that old piece.
Competitor keyword research is a common SEO strategy, but there’s something new you might want to try out—keyword gap research. This technique allows you to figure out which keywords your competitors are ranking on that you’re also absent in.
Serpstat puts two URLs side by side (ideally yours and your competitor’s) and analyzes the keywords that they have in common and those that intersect. It creates a Venn diagram of the keywords for all URLs, including one that doesn’t appear on yours. Using Serpstat, you’ll be able to refresh your old content with new keywords that are sure to bring in the rankings.
Another practical way to find out what your old content is missing is to take a closer look at all the results on a search engine results page. If you’d notice, there’s a section that says “searches related to” at the very bottom of the page. These are the keywords of search terms that are related to your query but not necessarily an SEO ranking factor. These keywords are based on user behavior, so it’s also a useful way to look at fresh ones you can add to your content.
Keep in mind though, that some of these keywords won’t necessarily relate to the entered search term entirely. It’s not exactly the keywords you need, but they also play a big part for your re-optimization strategy. Enter the Featured Snippet Tool. This tool “culls and organizes the featured snippet data for your target keyword phrases to make it easier for you to optimize your site to grab your competitors’ snippets.”
All you have to do is to input your content’s URL to see featured snippets, what people also ask, and the searches related to your input content. It’s another effective way to enrich your content with new keywords.
According to the Content Marketing Institute, the ideal way to re-optimize is to organize each by doing the following:
Again, it would suck if what you’ve put into the content would be overshadowed by new information. That’s why you should take advantage of this by using these three tools to revitalize your old content.