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 I don't feel that the current blog posts are outdated as of yet and in need of a re-written post, they just aren't up to "snuff" for potential readers and visitors.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
-
What is the best backlink? Homepage or specific post?
I am working hard to get backlinks from other blogs by submitting deal tips. I am a deal blog so I am wondering - is it better to get a backlink to a specific post that will expire because it is a time sensitive deal or sale? Or is it better to get a backlink to my homepage? I focus on the best blog with PR of 7 and DA of 72 as well as others that are high up there. In case I am not being clear, which backlink is better? A. www.mysite.com B. www.mysite.com/awesome-sale-of-the-day Sometimes I won't have a choice but just wondering what I should focus on or if it even matters. Thanks!
Link Building | | dealblogger0 -
Does posting on blogs with anchored backlinks do you any good?
My current strategy: I am ranking for keyword and site: Immigration Consultant I access the Fresh Web Explorer and search my keyword, then find the blogposts with High Authority where I can post using HTML and include my link in my signature, or sometimes the post has a link associated with the username. Now my question is this, does this count? will google even crawl the comments? can I aid the crawling process somehow? Any advice on creating relavent back-links is much appreciated. Thank you
Link Building | | thealika
Nikita0 -
Should I use RSS Feeds for SEO Purposes?
Hello... I am wondering if RSS feeds are good for SEO purposes... If i have a blog on my e-commerce site that links back into my site, should i then submit my feed to a bunch of RSS feed sites? Please tell me if i should be submitting my feed to all the RSS Feed Blog directories i can find or if that will appear as though i'm trying to gain links in the wrong way, from Google's perspective. For example: http://www.feedage.com/ http://www.feedlisting.com/ .... just to name a few of the directories i've found Thanks
Link Building | | Prime850 -
How important are directory submissions to my off-page SEO?
Hi Guys, One area of my link building that I carry out is looking for online directories and social bookmarking websites to submit my website to. I do this in order to gain some backlinks to my website. What I want to know is are they really worth my time, and if so, which types would you say are the most important? I have obviously been through many directory lists, both on SEOmoz and on other websites, and also performed various searches to find relevant directories to my website. I just feel that posting up a link that lies deep in a directory online that, more often than not, have very low PA and lots of outbound links will offer very little in terms of SEO. If anything, this could really bring down the quality of my links and be detrimental to my website, right? This is a subject that I have been thinking about for a while and especially with the recent algorithm update from Google and the attack on many web directories that are, lets say, 'not playing by the rules', I'm worried that this will have a negative impact for my website. Let me know your thoughts guys and if you have any tips on how to get higher quality links from these kind of submission then I'm all ears! Matt.
Link Building | | MatthewBarby0 -
Blog Comments
We all get them ... spam blog comments. People do it to get link value back to their site. Recently, someone approached me to do this for our site but on niche sites that are related to our content and to provide good valueable comments within a blog post of about 100 words each, and genuinely try to engage.They also were talking about finding blogs that have "follow" links in their comments space, since most do not. I still declined it because it is somewhat 'grey-hat' rather than 'white-hat' linking, and we want to be above-board on everything. Although we personally declined this approach, I'm curious your thoughts though on whether gaining links from blog comments from related, niche sites is a good idea. Like this question? Give us a Big Thumbs Up! Thank you!
Link Building | | applesofgold0 -
How to SEO how-to website?
I've launched the website www.ComoFazer.com.br, which is a Brazilian how-to website (the domain is literally how to in Portuguese). How can I get to the top rankings? My strategy so far: made all the on-page SEO stuff put 4 sidebar links in family websites bought the $90 package in GetLinksPro for 100 dofollow links spent about $100 in Facebook Ads to get 2k followers there I want help regarding SEO and strategy for this kind of sites.
Link Building | | kikocherman0 -
Social Bookmarking as part of an SEO strategy?
Hi all, I was wondering on my commute to work this morning the effectiveness of Social Bookmarking as part of a SEO campaign. The sites I work on generally have the social bookmarking widgets and they do get used by website visitors. In addition to this we also bookmark our sites, new articles and other new content within the top 5 social bookmarking sites. This is all done as part of a wider social strategy. But could I be spending my time better else where? Whats everyones thoughts on Social Bookmarking and do you incorporate it in your SEO campaigns? Cheers Aran UPDATE: I note that SEOmoz Q&A only have Tweet, Like and Stumble...
Link Building | | Entrusteddev0 -
Pay Per Post Blog Reviews - Does It Work?
I have come to realize that several SEO companies are basing their entire link strategy on paying bloggers to write a review about their client's website that also includes a link back to their website. I am thinking about adding this as part of my link building campaign. I am thinking about acquiring approximately 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs that pertain to my industry and target audience. I am thinking of using the network payperpost.com to find good blogs. First question: Does this type of link building work well? Second question: Is 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs (writing on my subject matter) enough to help out?
Link Building | | MyNet0