How you can update old content marketing and make SEO improvements

Author: Ryan Walsh

Date: 12/03/2025

Out with the old, in with the new?

Well, has it got to be this way?

Scroll down your “blog roll”, as it’s called, and you will see that you have spent considerable time writing countless blogs posts, we call this “content marketing”. You could have been down the pub, on holiday, or enjoying a beach run- but no, you were writing blog posts-until you so tired you fell of your chain in exhaustion.

Content marketing has helped to get your business where it is today; if it’s done right, it’s a digital asset. So, don’t worry about putting all that hard work into writing your blog posts, its worth it, when the work is done right.

However, you’ve poured time, effort, and sweat into this work, so why are you letting it all get outdated and a little bit tired?

 

Breath live back into the work

For new content marketing, if it has to have a super high “Google EEAT score”, well, that’s always good to slap content marketing that’s super high quality on your website. If its well written, useful and just quality, you can move up the SERP’s.

Yet, old, past blog posts they could be a diamond in the rough and should be let to get outdated, and here’s why:

• Could have gained high-quality backlinks- you need to capitalise on this
• Could have demonstrated that the page has a high dwell time
• Could be a page that, with a few tweaks, bounces onto page one of Google

So don’t let old blog posts get tired, and ignored, breath some life into them, improve them, and they could improve your search engine optimisation.

It’s a bit like giving yourself, a nice haircut, you will feel better for it and look better. So do the same for your content marketing, give it a bit of a spruce up.

 

 

Step 1) Are there good quality links connecting the site? (backlinks)

Good quality links are like gold; they are precious, must be looked after, and are valuable.

Backlinks are, therefore like fine gold. However, there’s fool’s gold, then there’s 24k gold, and this is the same with backlinks for your business.

Some backlinks can send link equity and link juice, helping drive your page up the SERPs. Then, there are low-quality links, which are a one-way street to gaining a Google penalty (read about Google Penguin penalties).

So, first things first, don’t listen to rubbish advice that deleting old blog posts is a good idea because trust us when we say that sometimes it is not. These pages, these blog posts, could have valuable links (backlinks) pointing to them. The page may not be converting because the advice might need updating.

So don’t delete, just sometimes work on improving the page.

So, invest in a quality backlink-checking tool. We love using Moz Pro, and in our humble opinion, it is the best money can buy.

Then, check the quality of the links incoming to that page.

If quality backlinks lead to the page, you most definitely should not delete that page. You need to use that “link juice” and then work on improving on-page SEO, so the two work together, and your business starts to up the SERP’s.

Step 2) Give the content marketing a spruce-up

Imagine going on a night out, yet you have been in a deep freeze for a long time, and you are emerging from the 1970s into a bar now its 2025- well, you’re going like Austin Powers on a night out! Outdated, out of place, in need of getting with the time, right?

Your content marketing might be the same, outdated, and not up to date for 2025. This means that the organic search engine optimisation will be damaged, and the bounce rate is likely to be higher, (check in Google Analytics) as the information might clearly be redundant and outdated.

Just as Austin Powers would need a spruce up to look more modern in 2025- so might your content marketing.
Therefore think about the following:

• Add more up-to-date statistics
• Rewrite all or some of the work
• Don’t change the URL extension or will lose the SEO value to the page

 

Improve the on-page SEO

Think about ways to improve the U.X., such as embedding YouTube videos and splitting up large blocks of text to make reading more manageable.

 

Search intent

Have you heard about the Google Helpful Content Update?

Well, you should have.

It’s essential that your content marketing is written with us humans in mind; make it helpful.

Don’t just try to improve your SEO; and concentrate solely on this, as often this comes at the sacrifice of making the content more valuable.

If our leading SEO agency were to give you one nugget of advice, if you’re thinking about having a bash at improving your business’s SEO,- make your content marketing super helpful. Make it so the reader walks away feeling their question has been answered in a comprehensive way. This way, the dwell time will be high, improving your SEO.

Here’s how you can make your content marketing more helpful:

Write the titles as if you’re a customer

So, write titles a bit like this:

– How can I stop my tap from leaking? Another example is which electric car has the best range?

Search intent

SEO agencies call this “search intent,” meaning what question the customer is thinking of. How can I best address this question and offer an answer? You’re answering that question to show Google’s algorithms, including the exact question in content marketing.

This shows you’re making your business content marketing as helpful as possible. Yes, my friends, this will mean Google’s algorithm will know that you are writing and publishing useful content marketing, so the page should rank higher.

Keywords are important

Rubbish SEO consultants cram everything with SEO keywords or follow silly marketing tools until everything turns into a tick on the tool or has a green light. This is like telling a world-class artist like Van Gogh he should have been using paint-by-numbers then!

No, it’s too simplistic.
So, don’t follow silly SEO reports or tools too much; a good consultant will naturally know how to write the keywords into the work. Again, don’t aim for a percentage; this is like paint by numbers.

Instead, if you are in doubt, think of your content marketing as cooking a dish, say, curry. Don’t overpower it with one ingredient; it will ruin it. SEO is like that; it’s a delicate balance of everything coming together to make the perfect dish.

Make sure the on-page SEO is good. Meta descriptions, titles, alt text, all that stuff.

Spread the link juice

So you identified pages on your website that are not ranking that well, yet pages with good quality links.

Now you’ve enjoyed a nice espresso and revamped the page. Well done to you.

Now it’s time for the easy part: slap some internal links in there so the link juice can trickle down to the other pages. Then take a break, my friend; you’ve done enough.

 

Don’t forget to tell Google you have been working hard

This part is crucial, and it’s super important, as a lot of people miss it. You’ve modified and improved the page, so you must ask Google to send Googlebot your way to recrawl and reindex the page.

This is just like a business’s saying: we have made some improvements, come and reindex the work, and change where the page ranks to Google’s SERP’s.

If Google likes the work, you move up Google’s SERPs; it’s as simple as that.

Has this work helped you?

We hope so.

Who are we:

Ryan Walsh owns this company; not to blow my trumpet too loudly, but one of the best SEO experts in sunny Cardiff.
We work with the cream of the crop, solicitors, dentists and e-commerce businesses. With over 10 years of SEO knowledge, it’s safe to say we know the difference between our anchor texts and meta descriptions- come to the best, come to Walsh and Partners.