With the time, a webpage gets old, and its value and demand also decreases. Though an older content may still rank at some positions for one or two keywords, but it is not easy for it to rank on the top as search engines like fresh and updated content and do not prefer old content. For example, you wrote an informative article on Penguin update in April 2012, and the article gets good visits, and demand is also very high at that time.
You cannot expect the same amount of traffic after one year. You also cannot expect your article to rank on the top of the search engines after one year as there are regularly new and fresh articles on the topic and they will definitely win the competition even if the later ones are not much informative. So, the conclusion is that it is not easy to get ranks for an older content, but it is not impossible though. In this article, we will discuss some tactics to achieve this target.
Build More Links: Link building is the method to tell search engines about the importance of a webpage. Though search engines prefer fresh and updated content, but they cannot completely ignore a webpage that is getting a lot of links from highly reputed and trustworthy websites. So, go ahead and make some good links for your existing content.
Content Promotion: Promote your old content through the means available. Tell people about your old content by making some new updates. You can take the help of Press releases, testimonials and reviews to promote the content.
Use local directories and other lists: Register your content to a list of the similar products or services. You can go with local directories, but do not go with those spam directories. Use only authentic websites for the purpose.
Social Media and Blogs: If you want people to know about your old content, you may need to create some new content. You can use your personal blog to republish or refresh your old webpage. You can use your social media accounts to promote the old webpage. Social media influence is always new even if it is on an old page.
Broke Links: You can request a link back from the pages that used to link to you, but doesn’t anymore. These authentic links can do a great job in your link profile.
Increase the click-through rate: Click-through rate is the number of clicks you get on your webpage link as compare to the total traffic. If people are clicking more on your webpage link than your competitor’s link, you will automatically get more traffic.
Update and improve the page content itself: Now, as we know that Google likes fresh and new content, it is always good to keep updating your old content regularly by adding something new to it.
Google is always looking for fresh content, but that doesn’t mean that it will ignore the quality. If your content provides high quality and information to users, it cannot hide itself from Google’s eyes.
Hi Prashant,
You certainly mentioned some nice points for getting higher benefits from old content. I think 2 points are really essential, One is to build quality links and Another to update your existing content so that it always remains relevant and have lower bounce rate.
Hi Aasma,
Yes High quality content and relevant backlinks are two essential part of SEO.If a user finds content that he is looking for then definitely that content reduce bounce rate.