How to Update Website Content for SEO – Step-by-Step Instructions with Tips & More

Have you updated your course content recently? If not, it might be a good time to update your website’s SEO parameters. 

We have compiled a list of things that you can use to add quality course content to your website and increase the organic inflow of traffic.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Instructions to Update Content for SEO

There are multiple ways to keep your blog posts up to date with the current meta descriptions. Even though it might look difficult at first, you can easily master it with some practice.

Research

As it is with any task, research is quite important. By research, we mean that you surf the web to determine the current meta description of a particular topic.

It includes current trends, hot topics, relevant keywords, visual elements, and keyword rankings. 

You can do this by comparing results from different search engines and blog posts. Another tool for such a purpose is Google Analytics.

You can check what new blog posts are gaining traction and which content isn’t attracting much traffic. It can help you separate the content that you need to update.

How detailed are the search results?

The search results of this tool are quite elaborate. You can separate content based on earning, reach, traffic, and demographics.

Besides that, it also lets you keep track of your figures in real-time. You can check the rise or decline of organic traffic as you update your content.

Google Analytics is an essential tool to keep track of your inbound links as well as outbound links.

It helps you keep track of which links are working well and those that aren’t working as they should.

Separate the Content

After you have done your research, it is time to mark the content from the old blog posts/courses. This way you can easily keep track of the old content that you need to update.

Now, how you separate your content depends on multiple things. These things are stated below:

• High Traffic Content
• Low Traffic Content
• Formerly Popular Content

High Traffic Content

This is the type of content that is popular on your website and pulls a considerable amount of traffic. Your first and foremost priority should be to update the content quality of these posts.

Low Traffic Content

The low traffic content is basically the Old Post section of your website. It contains topics that are no longer in the market trend.

Content Decay is a concept related to old posts. It basically means the slow decrease in traffic over a period of time. 

This is due to the slow fall in the Google rankings as the SEO parameters are updated.

However, you can change this by adding new keywords and more backlinks to your original post.

You can choose to remove the outdated content on your website. Find the detailed guide on how to do it HERE.

Formerly Popular Content

These posts also fall in the Old Post section but were highly popular in the past. You can use a different SEO strategy to change the meta descriptions of your blog post.

This will give your old blog posts a new look and also make them presentable for a newer audience.

Detailed research from Vox indicates that your formerly popular content can be a way to reduce workload and increase the traffic inflow.

What does this research show?

This research suggests that you can refresh your old content by numerous methods and re-publish it on your website.

It also mentions how the current important topics aren’t new at all. They are just long patterns that have been developing over the past years.

This provides you with an opportunity to give your readers a backstory to your new content. All you have to do is update the SEO parameters of your old blog post.

Keyword Optimization

An important part of optimization is to keep track of the keyword trends. The keywords your SEO tool suggested three months ago may not fit the meta descriptions of the current time.

There are two ways you can check the current search results to evaluate which keywords are currently trending:

• Google Search Console
• Your SEO tool

Google Search Console

You can log in to the Google Search Console and check which keywords are trending. It has an elaborate graph that can tell you the performance of particular keywords over time.

SEO Tool

Your SEO tool can also provide you with new search results for keywords. You can also update the keyword sheet for every blog post.

This way you can remove old keywords and add new ones.

Most people prefer the Google Search Console method because it is reliable and free of cost.
On the other hand, your SEO tool might charge you extra money for new SEO queries.

You can even research keywords before you start to separate content to have a better and clear idea about the things you want to replace.

Although it seems like a simple task, you need to be patient and take your time to figure out all the keywords that are associated with your website.

Learn Search Intent of your Audience

As an online course creator, you might know that Search Intent is an important part of creating content.

It helps you to reach different audiences with the same content. How do you do that? You simply use keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your blog post.

When creating content related to any subject, there are two main audiences you want to target:

• People who want to buy
• People who just want information

Keyword research plays an important part in this process. Since both of these approaches have different Search Intent and thus, they require different types of keywords.

Once you understand the difference between your main audience then you can create and update content that is relevant to them.

The four main types of Search Intent are Commercial, Informational, Navigational, and Transactional.

Headlines

As a cover is important for a good book, a good headline is crucial to a blog post’s success. In the modern era, people don’t click on posts they don’t find interesting.

It is only natural that your headlines will get stale after some time. Even though they attracted a lot of traffic in the past, they might not be just as good now.

Important Fact:

According to multiple studies, it has been noticed that only 75% of the people read the headline without actually reading the content.

From a digital marketing perspective, this is the most important part of your blog post. Since it will determine whether your site gets traffic inflow or not.

How can I increase traffic inflow?

The best way to make sure that your blog post gets the appropriate amount of traffic is to use catchy words.

Furthermore, you need to keep it concise. Nobody wants to read long headlines and Google doesn’t show full headlines either. 

So, you will have to use it to your own advantage. Your keyword research can play a huge part in this. 

One of the best tools you can use for this purpose is OptinMonster. 

It is an elaborate tool that can help you with multiple things. It uses a variety of search results and optimizes your headlines for better digital marketing.

Now that we have the areas you can touch on to optimize your blog posts. Let’s get into the actual content update part. 

Following are some of the things you should absolutely keep an eye out for:

Accuracy

The credibility of information is necessary. It is also vital that you cross-check any statistics you use in your courses. 

You should also revisit the numbers used in your old blog posts and see if they have been updated recently. 

The accuracy of data will determine between a one-time viewer and a regular viewer.

If people find your posts trustworthy, they will return to your website over and over again.

Other than that, if you update your content with new statistics, it will give your posts a rather detailed look.

In some cases, you might have to delete your post as well. But it is only used when your old post no longer has any sense of relevancy.

Links

Some content creators like to add outbound links in their posts as a way to support other businesses.

If you are one of these people then it might be a good time to check the links in your older articles.

Some of them might contain broken links or links that no longer exist. This can decrease your audience’s interest rapidly.

But what are broken links? 

Broken links are web addresses that have been updated or moved to another domain.

Even though the web address is the same but since it has been moved to another domain it needs to be updated.

And for the links that no longer exist, you can just simply remove them. You can also replace it with a link that contains similar information.

Make sure to not add too many links or hide information behind links. People often don’t like to leave the main page to read 1 or 2 lines for a minor thing.

Another thing you can do to reform your old articles is through internal links. 

Internal links are basically links that redirect the reader to further content on your website.

You can add links to your new content to your old posts but keep in mind to not duplicate content. This can negatively affect the outlook of your posts.

Quality of Language

As the research of keywords is important, the tone of your article and the language you use are also important. 

Some topics need to be addressed in a different fashion after some time. It might need a firm or authoritative tone.

Furthermore, you should also check Google Analytics to check the demographics of your audience. 

Why is demographic information important?

It will help you to determine what kind of language your blog posts should have. This works for old and fresh content alike.

Quality of language also includes grammatical correctness. 

You should revisit your old posts to ensure that there are no grammar or spelling mistakes. This can greatly impact how your audience perceives your content.

Optimize your SEO

We have emphasized numerous times why SEO is important and how it impacts the traffic on your site.

Another SEO strategy that a lot of people implement to update the content of their website is to divide the pages into individual parts for SEO.

How does SEO help me?

This will help you to optimize every single page of your posts. You can also do narrow and more focused keyword research.

Additionally, you need to pay attention to your headings and other minor things in your posts. 

These things are:

• Your main keyword/main heading.

• Your meta description.

• Your SEO title.

• Your secondary headings (H2 and H3).

• All inbound and outbound links.

• Relevant images to the main heading.

Even though these things are minor, if you update them, they can impact the traffic on your page positively.

Images

You might have noticed that every single successful online course on the internet has multiple images in it.

Why is that?

The answer is simple, people love visuals. Besides that, images provide a way to keep your audiences engaged.

If you don’t have images in your old articles, you need to add them immediately. You are missing out on potential viewers due to the lack of visuals in your posts.

Although visuals are important, don’t overdo them. Your posts should have an even balance between text and images.

Calls to Action

It is a common misconception that Calls to Action aren’t necessary for an online course. But a lot of studies have shown that CTAs are just as important as any other aspect of a blog post.

The main reason for this is Audience Engagement. They keep the focus of your audience in one place and provide convenience if they want to further check something out on the website.

You should review your old posts and check if they have enough CTAs in them. Following are some tips to improve your old CTAs:

• Start your CTAs with a strong verb.

• Provoke your audience’s emotions, and connect to them.

• Provide a valid reason for your CTAs.

• Target the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO).

• Design your CTAs for multiple devices.

• Be creative with your CTAs.

CTAs are always linked with inbound/outbound links. This is why it is vital that you pay close attention to their language and layout.

Always use warm and eye-pleasing colors to highlight your CTAs. This will help you to catch the audience’s attention in a blink.

This will help you to gain extra traffic on other posts on your website as well.

All the things we have covered so far are of the essence when it comes to keeping your website up to date for SEO parameters.

It isn’t a difficult task but it takes a lot of time to get done.

Guide to Update Selective Content

Following is a step-by-step guide for you to update/edit content on your WordPress website.

Step 1

The first thing you need to do is Log In to the WordPress page of your website.

Step 2

After that, you need to select the Posts option from the left-hand side menu.

Step 3

Once you click on the Posts option, a second menu will open. You need to select the All Posts option from it.

Step 4

When you select this option, you will be redirected to the page with all your website posts from Newest to the Oldest.

Here you can see the tags, the published date, the Meta description, and the comments made on your posts as well.

Step 5

You can sort the posts from Oldest to the Most Recent to have a better idea about your website.

You can then select your desired post and click on the Edit option. 

It will then take you to the content page of your blog post.

Step 6 

Here you can also check an analysis made by WordPress on the areas you need to improve.

WordPress has an AutoSave feature. You can just close your page once all the editing is done. 

Just to be on the safe side, open your recently edited blog post and check if all the work is successfully saved.

Also, make sure to click and check the validity of the links in your blog post.

As you have noticed, it doesn’t take much to edit your blog posts. The only hard part is to determine what to edit and how to maximize its reach.

You can learn how to update your WordPress theme without losing content in our guide by clicking HERE.

Importance of Search Engine Optimization

As a website owner, you might know some ways to bring the inflow of traffic to your website. You can advertise, optimize content, and work with other reputable blogs.

One of the easiest ways is to optimize the course content of your website. It brings in organic traffic and hence, increases your website’s rank in Google Analytics.

Following are some of the benefits you can get if you stay up to date with the SEO trends in the market.

Fresh Content

It goes without saying that Google loves fresh content. The back-end algorithm of the Google Search Engine is designed to show you the most recent content.

It works in multiple ways. The Google search console ranks your website’s content based on new keywords, new links, and new search queries.

Is it based on relevancy?

It is pretty easy to fall behind on Google rankings if you don’t pay attention to the relevant content of your website.

The course content you added six months ago might not be relevant to the search results of the current standards. This can put you behind your competitors and the search engine rankings.

Besides that, fresh content will enhance the site quality as a whole. A few regular updates can add a new flair to your website.

Increase in Traffic

When you replace the outdated course content or make any sort of edits to your website, it changes the date under the title tag.

The Title Tag or the Meta Title is the main heading you see in search engine results. You might not have noticed but it has a date as well. 

What does it mean?

This represents the last time the course content was updated. It adds authentication and gives you an edge in your digital marketing.

Many pieces of research have shown that people are more likely to click on a link that is close to their current date.  

It is an essential SEO strategy to keep your blog posts updated with the current meta descriptions.

It will update your old blog posts with new content and save your costs to advertise for more traffic.

Up to Date SEO

Another key benefit of an SEO tool is the ability to target a specific demographic. 

You can use a single course to target multiple audiences if you know exactly what type of keywords are currently relevant.

If you have your own website, you can make multiple SEO efforts to remove low-quality content from your old blog posts. Some of them are given below:

• Change your target keyword according to Google search results.

• Update the Keyword rankings in your SEO tool.

• Add more keywords to your course content.

• Update the word count to match the meta description.

• Keep your keyword research up to date.

70% of online activities start with a search engine.

Another benefit of fresh/relevant keywords is that you can use them to re-promote your content posts to new clients. It removes the hassle to create new posts every 2 months or so.

Besides that, a few updates will take less time compared to create a new course entirely. You can edit multiple pages of your course in little to no time.

Link Updates

A lot of people don’t know this but every time you update the site content, the external links of your blog posts are also updated.

They aren’t entirely changed but edited in one way or another.

 You might be thinking, why does it matter?

It matters for a very important reason and that is Google’s Index. It scans your website for new target keywords every time your web link is updated. 

So, if you use the same URL for your website for a long time, the Google Crawler won’t visit your website. 

Google Crawler is an online bot that scans multiple posts all over the internet to separate new content from outdated content.

Plus, another benefit is that you can get rid of any broken links in your blog posts. They can be internal links or outbound links that might not be working.

Important Tips to Enhance the Outlook of your Website

We have explained everything there is to know in terms of SEO updates and their importance. 

Although there are some general tips you can implement to further enhance the outlook of your blog:

• Always do your research before you decide to update and edit your content.

• Note down all the important things from your research. This includes the market trends, keywords, headlines, SEO meta descriptions, and image tags.

• Check the links in your blog posts on a regular basis. Links can stop working and you won’t even know about it.

• A good interval between updates is 2-4 months. It also depends on the field you are working in, the interval might even be shorter than this.

• Keep your language clean and simple. People often like blog posts that are friendly yet formal at the same time.

• Learn to use your tools efficiently. The current state of SEO tools enables you to do more with fewer resources. You can use this to your advantage.

• Pay close attention to the results from search engines. They are your best guide when it comes to content trends.

• Keep a Search Engine Journal with yourself. You can select your best search engines and take valuable information from them.

• Always keep your search volume relevant to your blog’s title. It is quite easy to get lost in the sea of information.

• Always create a clone of your blog post and edit it first. This will help you keep your original post from any sort of unwanted damage.

• Use title-relevant images. It is very crucial to keep your audience focused on the main topic and it also adds credibility to your posts.

• From a digital marketing perspective, it is important that you keep your meta descriptions in check with the market trends.

Conclusion

As a course content creator, you always strive to create and explore new areas. Although you should also pay close attention to your old content.

Some of these posts still might be able to pull huge numbers in traffic for your website or they might become relevant again in the near future. 

Consistency and accuracy of your blog posts will go a long way to help you build your brand image.

We hope that this guide helps you to update and edit your website content in an efficient manner.

Do let us know what you think is the best way to update the website content.

Interested in finding out how to manage your online courses easily, take a look at Online Course Management on our website