Content maintenance: Keep your old blog posts evergreen

We are living in an era where content is indeed a king. The internet has opened up unprecedented avenues for brands. Online content helps them share their stories and reach out to audiences. Good and original content that has relevant information and carries a cohesive message is an excellent way to connect with existing customers. And, it also helps businesses reach out to potential market segments.

Drafting one good piece of content has a host of different elements- from ideating to writing and making the post SEO compliant to meticulously drafting the right headings. All aspects of content development take time and efforts.

Now, there are two types of content on the basis of timeliness. First, there are the news-based articles or blogs that might remain relevant only for a certain period of time. Then, there are the timeless posts like informative and academic pieces that can remain relevant for longer periods of time. Content maintenance comes into play for timeless articles and blogs.

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We invest time and resources on each piece of content. Wouldn’t it be great if our older posts become evergreen and help us generate organic traffic? Some companies have seen astronomical success with traffic growth increasing by as much as 1,800% once they started focusing more on maintaining their old content.

How to get organic traffic through old blog posts?

By applying the right strategies and following some tested and tried marketing methods, the shelf life of old content pieces can be improved.

Use backlinks to generate organic traffic

Posts that were posted years ago can remain alive and continue to generate organic traffic through backlinking. A backlink is almost like a citation. It can be defined as a link from some other website to a particular web resource that can be a website, web page or a web directory.

Backlinking allows you to create continuity in your content over time, which helpful for establishing authority with Google. Hence, evergreen content can help boost your search position as well.

Make the best of social media

Social media is one of the best platforms to revive old content and ensure that it remains evergreen. The key is to remain proactive and updated. Keep an eye on “what is trending”. For example, a certain topic picks up on social media and you have an old post related to it. Draft a strategic social media copy, giving people context and share your old post on relevant channels. Your post is bound to gain some traction since the topic is already trending.

Make sure you use the currently trending hashtags in your social media copy, especially when sharing posts on Twitter. So, when someone looks up for relevant stories posted under that hashtag, your content will pop up getting you organic traffic redirected from social media.

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In addition to helping gain more traction and organic traffic, constantly-maintained evergreen content pieces can act as central nodes on your website and help establish your authority on a certain key subject.

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However, content maintenance lacks the urgency that ideation and creation exhibit. Hence, it is almost the most unloved stage of content development. But, if you aim to have a sustainable relationship with your readers while making the best of available resources, content maintennace is the key.

If you’re curious to learn more about content marketing and PR or want to speak to a SYNC consultant about starting your brand’s PR journey, contact us at hello@syncpr.co

This article has been updated on 10 June 2020