Classic. Nostalgic. Timeless. Whatever word you choose to describe them, it𒁃’s not uncommon for people to romanticize and think fondly of things from bygone eras. 

Old is gold, as the adage goes, and in my nearly ten years in digital marketing, I can safely say the same reigns true for content marketing. 

While content creation should never stop, it’s common for businesses (IMPACT included) to find that it’s actually content published months or even years prior that delivers the most organic traffic and often even leaওds and ultimately sales.

Noting this trend, it's only wise that teaไms invest in historic optimization or , “optimizing your ‘old’ blog content so it's fresh, up-to-date, and has the ability to generate even more traffic and conversions than it already does.”  

Why should you historically optimize articles?

First off, if you’re following 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:They Ask, You Answer (which you should🐼), you likely have published a lot of content t🥂hat is evergreen. 

In other words, many of the articles you have written are timeless topics (such as 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:The Big 5 — cost and pricing, problems, comparisons, best-of lists, reviews) that potential buyers are consistently searching and you want toꦬ be there with the answers they’re looking for. 

Rather than being repeatedly publishing the same informatܫion in a slightly different shell, historically optimizing existing content will give you one high-quality resource for 🅷prospects to discover in search engines and for you to share rather than having them click around to a bunch of different sites and pages.

Older articles also typically perform well (rank higher in search engines and drive traffic) because they are already indexed and have existing authority and backlinks. 

With so much on a modern digital marketer’s to-do list, historic optimization can be a quick win to boosting or maintaining search rank for popular keywords, driving more traffic, and increasing conversions. So🐻, use the work you’ve already do☂ne to your advantage. 

But first, determine what articles you should be historically optimizing

Before you get to work, you need to determine which articles ꦆyou should be focusing on. While, in a perfect world, all of our content would be constantly current and r𒁏elevant, that’s not realistic for most businesses, so we have to be strategic.

Identify you𒀰🏅r blog articles with the highest traffic, rank, and conversion rates and optimize them to see even better results.

In the six years that IMPACT has been historically optimizing articles, this has typically meant pi𒁃eces falling into three main buckets:

• High traffic articles (which we want to optimize for conversions) 
• High conversion articles (we want to drive more traffic to by improving their search rank)
• High ranking articles (we want to maintain or even boost in search rank)

There are several tools available o♓nline to help you find these articles. , , and , for instance, can easily show your highest viewed and converting pieceꦑs, while can show those with the most shares.

Note: My IMPACT colleague Justine Timoteo Thomas details how to do this in HubSpot in this article, while I did . 

Once you have your list of articles to be optimized in hand, what exactly should you update? Follow𝔉 the checklist below to getಌ your article into ship shape. 

The ultimate content historic optimization checklist for digital marketers

I think it’s important to say what many of you may not want to hear — sometimes you do need to burn an article to the ground and start from scratch.

When IMPACT first started hi💝storically optimizing content, we had pieces that ranked #1 ꧟for popular keywords, drove tens of thousands of views a month, but were completely inaccurate and horribly written. So, we started with a blank page. 

Those instances are rare now that historic optimization is a staple of our strategy, but if you’re just getting started, be warned, you may come face-to-fa𓄧ce with those ugly ghosts of content past.

In the lis🔴t below, I have assumed that your articles are in fairly decent shape and just need some cleaning up, but even if you are starting fresh, read on. These tips can still improve the quality of a new piece.

1. Refresh the title

Are you optimizing your article for a new keyword? Are you making a listicle longer? Making a process shorter? 

When historically optimizing your article, revisit your titl🐽e t🌱o make sure that it reflects the updates you are making as well as appeals to your audience. This is one of the quickest and most visually effective ways to refresh your article. 

🔎 Related: 7 secrets for🐻 writing your bဣest blog headlines ever

2. Optimize your article for a featured snippet

If you’re even remotely familiar wit🍨h search engine optimization, you know the goal is usually to rank #1 on the SERP for a particular term. Howe💜ver, in recent years, an even more coveted position has emerged referred to as the “featured snippet.” 

🔎 Related: What Are Featured Snippets? (Definition)

澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:A featured snippet or “rank zero” as we commonly call it, is, simply put, “...the short piece of content that Google pulls from web pages and puts into a box abꦬove the ranked web pages (but below the ads) in order to help answer thꦫe searcher’s query faster and more effectively.”

Example of a featured snippet IMPACT owns for “what is a revenue team?”

Appearing here p🍒uts y꧙ou front-and-center of a search query, best positioning you to earn clicks and, in turn, traffic. 

In fact, , a top-r✱anking article in Google will on average get a 26% click-through rate, but when a featured snippet is present, that number drops to 19.6% with the featured snippet stealing around 8.6% of user clicᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚks. So, if you can grab this piece of real estate, you should!

While the selection process for appearing in a featured snippet sometimes may seem random, there are ways to increase your odds of appearing here using schema markup and strategic formatting. 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:This article from Ahrefs breaks down some essential tips and tricks.

Example of how IMPACT optimized our article for the featured snippet of “what is a revenue team?”

Bonus tip: As you’re optimizing, look into other types of schema markup🍷 and how they can help improve your♑ article and its search rank as well. 

3. Change your featured image

Much like your title, ch꧒anging your featured image is a quick and easy way to give your article an immediate visual makeover and catch user eyes.

On the subject of user eyes...

4. Make it more visual overall

Imagery, whether it be a photograph, GIF, chart, or graph, can not only help ai𝔉d your messaging🌱, but increase on-page time as they grab your reader’s attention, and also present more opportunities to get found (i.e. image searches). 

Furthermore,♕ in 2017, OkDork found that the average #1 article so as you’re updating your article, look for opportunities to add a visual aid. 

Even more specifically...

5. Look for opportunities to add a video

Take a quick glance at any Instagram or Facebook feed and you’ll see just how much the world craves visual content, but this behavior doeꦆsn’t stop at social ❀media. 

Buyers crave visual content from business blogs as well🥀, especially video, so seek out these opportunities. Adding video to your articles will not only drive home your messages with a medium audiences demand, but to get organic page ranks in Google than plain text results. 

Here’s an example of how IMPACT adde♒d a relevant video to the “Wha🦋t is a revenue team?” article we introduced you to earlier: 

6. Revisit your structure

As you’re giving your content a refresh, also ask yourself how you may be able to i🎀mprove the structure to make it ea🤪sier to digest or even skim. Adding headers, bulleted lists, bolding, etc. can really help guide a reader’s eye and make the reading experience more enjoyable.

Furthermore, headers🤡 are one of the factors Google looks at when determining featured snippet content, while studies have shown that #1 ranking content has bullete❀d lists .

7. Revisit statistics

Great content is always supported by data or research, but in fast-changing industries (such as digital marketing), this inꩵfo🌱rmation can change just as quickly.

When historically optimizing your content, review your statistical su🎉pport to ensure that it is still accurate. If it’s not, seek out the most up-to-date information. 

On a related note…

8. Make sure your sources and links are still live

A powerful stat is only as good as its source. As you’re updating your content, check your data sources and links to make sure thဣey are still live. If they aren’t, you’ll want to 🎃find another trustworthy resource to cite these findings. 

You’ll al🍸so want to make sure your links in general are still working. stop your buyer’s journey with your content in its tracks and can also signal to Goo༒gle that your content is of lower quality, ultimately hurting your rank. 

9. Add new relevant links

Dependin🤡g on how old the article you’re updating is, you may have brand-spanking new related articles that you could link to. 

Read with a critical eye and look for opportunities to sprinkle൩ in new links, especially to your internal content. This will not only help give those pages some “linꦡk juice,” 

10. Update any examples

If you’ve written an article that involves a lot of examples from outside sources (i.e. our articles on 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:landing page examples), t♋ake a look at them to see if they are still relevant.&🌸nbsp;

Ask yourself: Do these look dated? Are these still an accurate representation of what we want to illustrate? Are any images or examples broken?

If any are broken or no longer current, replace them. If some examples are no l✱onger in use, but stღill valid, adjust the copy to reflect that.  

11. Revisit your call-to-action

If the call-to-action attached to your article still the best next step for a reader to take? If not, slap a new one on there and make sure to sprinkle ꦉlinks to it higher up in the article as well. 

Traffic is valuable, but traffic t𝔍hat converts is even more so, and making sure that the call-to-action on your content is as relevant as possible, is a quick way to optimize it for conversions.

12. Consider changing the publish date

If you end up ൩making significant changes to your articღle, consider publishing it as new.

Doing this, once again, piques reader interests as a rele𒁏vant and timely piece and,  while , when paired with new content, it can h💦elp give you a boost. 

13. Add an editor’s note

At IMPACT, we believe all businesses are in 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:the business of trust, and a lot of that comes back 澳洲幸运5开奖官网在线查询开奖结果:to transparency. 

You never want your audience to think you’re trying to trick or mislead them, even if that is simply thinking a blog article is new, so we always suggest leaving an editor’s note disclosing the fact that changes have been made to this article since it was originally published and perhaps even offering a brief description of what and why.

This note is especially ap🍰preciated if others linked to your original article as a resource.

Here is an example of an editor’s note from a recent article IMPACT historically optimized

Everything old is new again 

It may be a bit cliche to say the꧂se days, but don’t work harder, work smarte꧅r. 

Historic optimization can be one of the easiest ways to get even more traffic, leads, and sales out of your existing content, and if you make a habit out of it, it won’t be much heavy lifting come time for the next update. Use these tips above to get started and breathe new life into yo✤ur content in 2021.