A 6-Step Checklist for Improving Old Content on Your Blog
As you move forward in your blogging journey, you will grow in your expertise and knowledge. You should be a better writer, communicator, and teacher than you were a year ago. If your ultimate goal is to add value in the lives of others, then you will want to be constantly asking yourself this one question:
How can I improve my old content in an effort to add more value to others?
If you have over 100+ posts or more, this might seem like a daunting task. It will take time for you to run through this checklist, but the effort will be worth it.
What is great about the internet is that your old content can still receive a ton of views. My most read blog post on my career coaching blog was an article I wrote almost 3 years ago. It is still the most visited blog post every single month.
I have tweaked and edited that article 4 or 5 times in an effort to:
- Better answer the question
- Add more resources
- Display a video for clarification
- Try to add the most value possible
Maybe you should consider using the following checklist with your top 20 posts? Maybe you should have a goal of improving 5 posts a week? Either way, you can’t go wrong by spending a little bit of time each week at improving the work you have done in the past.
My Checklist for Improving Old Content [Podcast]
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Below is my personal checklist for improving old content. I wrote this simple checklist down on a 3×5 card. I use this process on one of my old posts when I have a few extra minutes. My goal is to slowly improve all of my content over time.
Step #1: Check Grammar and Spelling
You may not need to do this step if you did it right the first time. Not until recent months have I started to use Grammarly.com. Now I use the tool before I publish any of my posts. I do still believe that a blog post doesn’t need the same level of editorial critique as a published book, but using the Grammarly software allows me to have a balance.
Step #2: Add Internal Links
Only in the past year have I been more disciplined to add internal links. Internal links can improve your blog in so many ways. It can keep readers on your site longer. It can improve rankings in the search engines.
Step #3: Add Picture If Needed
Again, I went through a period of time when I did not add pictures to every post. I now see the value in doing so. Now, I quickly add an image to my blog post and create an ALT text for the image. I believe images can improve the reader’s experience and boost your blog in the search engines.
Step #4: Check the Title Tag & Meta Description
Here is another area I have been guilty of being lazy. I have often come across old posts where I left this area blank by accident. If you had a particular keyword you were wanting to target, it is often helpful to add it in the Title Tag & meta description area. You can easily do this with the Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin. It is one of the free plugins we install for our free blog setup service.
Step #5: Check the Categories
A great way to organize all of your content is by using the default categories feature in WordPress. Many bloggers do not even bother with the categories feature. Take a moment and check the category and see if you have it labelled correctly.
Step #6: How Can I Improve This Post?
In the final step, I take a few moments and ask myself the above question. Some possible answers might be:
- Add more content
- Add a relevant affiliate link
- Point the reader to a product
- Create a video that explains the post
- Get the reader to opt-in to my mailing list
I could write an entire blog post on why the above ideas are good for you to do. You may even have some additional ideas on how you can improve your posts. These are mine for now.
Questions: Have you ever thought about improving your old content? If so, how could you add more value? Take a moment and answer the questions below.
