‍Historical Optimization: How to Generate Continued Traffic from Old Blog Posts

Did you know that creating content is the most effective SEO technique? According to Tech Client, business websites that blog consistently have 434% more pages indexed by search engines and experience 6x higher conversion rates compared to those that don’t publish at all.  

Given the overwhelming number of unused blogs circulating the web, it no longer makes sense to just increase your content production relative to the growth goals you need to reach.

You should also optimize your old blog content, using historical optimization as a part of your overall content strategy.  

What Is Historical Optimization?

According to HubSpot, historical optimization is the process of updating your old blogs and optimizing them for local SEO in Miami so they’re relevant and capable of generating even more traffic and conversions than they already do.  

“Old blogs” refer to posts that you’ve published in the past – whether you wrote them last month or years ago.

Why Is Historical Optimization Important?

Historical optimization works because older content that generates traffic has already been indexed. It’s had time to establish authority, which means it’s easier to optimize for local SEO in Miami.

Taking the time to optimize your older blog posts that already generate leads and conversions for your business so that they can gain even more traction is the smart thing to do.  

Aside from the fact that historical blog optimization is a way to get more out of your existing content, it’s also a way for your business to stay on top of the competition by keeping your blogs fresh and providing even more value to those who are reading them.  

Which Blogs Should You Optimize?

Any article that is outdated and no longer correct needs to be rewritten. But, when it comes to prioritizing which of your past articles you should update first, we recommend focusing on the following:

• Low-converting articles – These are blogs that have high views but low conversion rates. One way you can fix this is to analyze if the offer in the article is still relevant. It’s most likely not converting well because there’s no CTA or because the offer wasn’t that compelling.  

• High bounce rate articles – People tend to leave a site right after they get the information they’re looking for. You want to urge users to click through to another page, so they stay on your site longer and lower your bounce rate.  
• Highly-indexed, low-clicked articles from the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) - These are the articles that appear in the search results but don’t entice people to click onto your site. A great way to get them to click through your search results is to optimize your article titles and meta descriptions.  
• Articles that are close to page one - These are blogs that are currently on the second or third page of Google’s search results. There’s a huge possibility of getting them to rank on page one. What you need to do is make sure that they’re optimized for high search volume local keywords in Miami, update title and description to match search intent, and request indexing so Google can re-crawl and index your updated articles.  

How to Optimize Old Blog Posts

1. Examine the search results of the keyword you want your articles to rank for.

You want your old blogs to remain fresh and relevant to your audience even if you published them three years ago. So, make sure that the information they contain is still true today.

To do this, you want to check if your old blogs still match with your target audience’s search intent by examining the search results and doing the following:

• Analyze the top 3 results of the keyword or topic you want an article to rank for, and then identify what search engines think a searcher is really looking for. If your article isn’t addressing that need, edit it so that it does!
• Format your content for the featured snippet to boost its chances of ranking higher in the search results.  
• Head to the bottom of the search results and check the “searches related to...” section. Incorporate some of the keywords here into your content because search engines believe that they’re relevant to your target keyword.  

2. Review on-page elements and find areas of improvement.

Once you’ve read through your blog and double-checked on the facts, it’s time to optimize your on-page SEO elements.  

On-page SEO elements are specific factors that help search engines better understand what your content is all about. Here are the 10 most important elements you should optimize:

• E-A-T: Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. You want to convince Google that the information on your blog is high-quality and reliable. Make sure you don't have any broken links, and that all your sources are credible.  
• Title tag: A title tag is a clickable link in the search results. You want to make sure that it contains the main keyword the page is meant to rank for. It shouldn’t be too short or too long. If you’re trying to appeal to the locals in your area, it should also include your location.

• Meta description: This is the text that appears below the title tag. It aims to elaborate on what your page is about and why users should click on your search results. Optimize your meta description for local SEO in Miami.
• URL structure: Your articles’ HTML should make sense to users and bots. If your old blogs have an HTML like this “www.example.com/services/construction/6584hjg.html”, you should change it to “www.example.com/services/construction-services-types/.”
• Heading tags: Make sure you’re using proper heading tags to structure your blogs. This will help make your blogs more readable.  
• Images: You want to make sure that the images on your older blogs don’t look outdated. If they do, consider updating them for newer photos. While updating your images, you may also want to update their alt tags.
• Keywords: Check the keywords of your older blog posts. They may need to be replaced with another term that generates better traffic and something that’s more relevant to your current audience.

• Content quality: You want your blogs to discuss topics thoroughly and to really provide value to their readers. If your older blog posts aren’t written to your current standards, rewrite them.
• Internal linking: Check your internal links. If you linked to a page that no longer exists, then update it with a link to other relevant content.  
• Page speed: Your old blogs should load just fine. If they take longer than 3 seconds to load, work on optimizing them for faster page speed.  

You can use tools to check which elements of your older blog posts need to be optimized.  

3. Add engaging and interactive elements to your old blogs.

It’s important that your articles engage users because this helps keep them on your page longer.

There are many ways you can engage users through your content, including the following:

• Add mini quizzes to your blogposts.  
• Embed a video in your articles.  
• Use slideshows to reduce long paragraphs of text into digestible slides.  

• Use animated GIFs.
• Create interactive charts to graphically represent numbers and statistics.  
• Add interactive infographics to improve your piece’s reading comprehension.  
• Add tweetable quotes.  
• Enable social sharing.  

• Add a custom calculator.
• Use an interactive chatbot.  
• Add interactive maps.  
• Share a virtual tour of your office, local store in Miami, or anything relevant to your content.

4. Promote your content.

Now that you’ve updated your old blogs, it’s time to update their publishing dates. You want to add a note at the bottom saying when the content was originally published and when it was updated.  

After that, you need to submit each of their URLs to Google Search Console so the crawlers can index the changes as quickly as possible.  

After this, it’s time to share your updated posts on social media!

Have You Updated Your Old Blogs?

Updating your old blogs and optimizing them for SEO in Miami is the key to getting more out of your content that is already generating leads and conversions for your small business.

Historical optimization should be an integral part of your overall content marketing strategy. If you need help updating your old blogs, we can help!

At Digital Resource, our SEO experts and content marketing specialists will work together to create a custom content marketing strategy that will help you achieve business goals.  

Contact us today to start getting the leads you need to grow your small business in Miami!

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