When To Update Blog Content and How (A Complete Guide)

Keeping your blog content fresh is key to maintaining relevance and staying competitive in search engine rankings.

It is generally recommended to update blog posts anywhere between once a month to once a year, depending on the topic. This will ensure content is fresh and signal to search engines that the blog post is relevant.

Updating your articles is an essential part of effective, SEO-driven content marketing as it helps maintain your rankings and keeps your site in the good graces of search engines, like Google.

Why Updating Blog Content Matters

Bloggers often overlook the crucial element of keeping their older articles fresh. But why is updating blog posts important?

SEO is an ongoing process and it should be done on every page and piece of content on a website. Updating blog content isn’t a trick to magically improve SEO and get better rankings but rather a necessity to keep content useful and valuable for those who come across it — which is what ultimately improves blog traffic.

For articles covering dynamic, constantly evolving topics, the occasional content refresh can do wonders, simply by making what’s been written relevant and accurate, once more. So, if you’re blog isn’t getting traffic, a content update may be in order.

Why Search Engines Like Up-to-Date Content

Google and other search engines aim to provide users with the most relevant content to any given query. If your blog is not getting traffic, it could be due to a lack of proper maintenance and outdated information.

For example, if you're searching for how the latest iPhone compares to competitors, you wouldn't want to sort through outdated articles on older models. To improve blog traffic and maintain rankings, it's essential to update content with the latest available information on a given topic.

Refreshing Blog Posts is Simple And Cost-Effective SEO

With SEO, everything from hiring an expert to getting the necessary tools can often come at a big cost. That’s in equal parts because quality SEO work can be difficult but also extremely effective!

Maintaining old blog posts through thoughtful and valuable updates is a cost-effective SEO technique that is also one of the simplest. 

To put things into perspective, think about all the effort that goes into writing a new article: it needs to align with a broader content strategy, the topic must be thoroughly researched, the right keywords have to be included, and it requires careful proofreading and editing.

Creating a simple blog post can take hours, even days, with costs often reaching hundreds of dollars. In contrast, updating a piece that originally took two days to write might take as little as 15-20 minutes. 

Wouldn’t you invest a fraction of your time to ensure your hard work doesn’t become outdated?

Which Blog Posts Should Be Updated?

Ideally, every blog post should get an update from time to time. This is because most topics covered in blogs change over time. Even seemingly timeless articles (e.g., book reviews) can be updated periodically to improve SEO. 

You may be thinking, “What would a book review need updating for? It’s talking about the qualities of a book — characters, story, structure, print quality, etc. Surely those aren’t subject to change!” 

On the surface, it would seem so, but public opinions and requirements are constantly evolving. People’s attitudes toward characters, storylines, writing styles, distribution formats, and pretty much everything else can shift significantly with time. Even the contents of the book may change with new editions.

For example, some remarks in Mark Twain’s works, now widely viewed as racist, were considered much more normal in his time. A modern book reviewer might need to acknowledge that. Similarly, many books stop being published in physical form after a while, remaining available only as eBooks — something that could be important to mention in an updated review.

As a rule of thumb, no matter how unchanging the subject seems, there’s always room to refresh a blog post — whether it’s adding clarity or expanding to cover newer user queries (which we’ll dive into later).

How Often Should You Update Old Blog Posts?

Knowing when to update blog content is essential. 

On average, most blog articles should get an update every 3-6 months. This reflects the average rate of content decay for blogs (i.e., the rate at which content becomes outdated due to subject matter and search intent shifts). 

Content decay rate varies by content type. For example, news articles reporting on rapidly evolving situations can see their content become outdated within hours, even minutes. Conversely, online course materials may require updating only once a year.

The key takeaway is that the content type and topic should dictate how often you update, not industry averages.

Update Articles Before They Lose Traffic

It's important to update blog posts before their performance starts to decline. If it's been a few months and your posts are gaining traction, don't hesitate to enhance them with simple additions or edits for clarity, accuracy, and factual updates. As long as you maintain your high-performing keywords and avoid lowering the article's overall quality, these updates will only boost its SEO, not harm it.

And, of course, if your articles are seeing their traffic and rankings drop, you know what to do: Update, update update!

How To Update Blogs the Right Way

Blog updates should be thoughtful and meaningful, focused on improving the article itself rather than seeking quick SEO rewards. Better content is what drives lasting SEO success, so that should always be the priority. 

Aside from technical reasons like broken backlinks and poor site performance, old blogs primarily see their traffic drop due to a loss of interest from users. This can happen because what users are searching for has changed (outdated keywords), their search intent has evolved (still relevant but poorly targeted keywords), better content has been produced elsewhere (improved competition), etc.

All these issues can be addressed with relatively simple updates. Here’s how: 

What Goes Into a Blog Article Update?

Your first job when updating any article is the same as when writing any article — to ask yourself “What is the user searching for right now?” What does the target audience want to know? 

Updating content is all about realigning what’s on the page with what people need. 

Step 1: Analyze the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

Just like when preparing to write a brand new article, you should start by looking at the search results for your most important keywords. 

Has anyone outranked you? If so, who, and what are they saying that you aren’t? Sometimes it’s simply the case that a higher authority site has written on the same topic.

But often, a close competitor has done a more thorough update. If it happens to outrank you, carefully review their article and assess what it does better and where it might be lacking compared to yours.

Questions to ask yourself include:

• Does the top-ranking article cover the topic more comprehensively?
• Is it more concise or to the point?
• Is the tone friendlier or more professional?
• Does it engage readers with a catchy intro?
• How many keywords is it ranking for, and are there any overlaps or gaps compared to your own?
• Who is the article speaking to?

Hey, you said updates are supposed to be simple!

Yes, I did! But I’m attempting to highlight how many avenues of improvement exist. You don’t need to tackle them all. Take the time to identify the most significant differences between your article and theirs, and prioritize addressing those.

Do this for the top 2-3 search results (excluding your article) for your primary keyword and then if you want to be really thorough, you can also research SERPs for auxiliary keywords and see the best results there.

Step 2: Redo Keyword Research

Even if you’re still holding the top spot for your most important keywords, there’s always room for improvement! And if your ranking has slipped, it’s crucial to determine if keyword relevance or targeting is the cause.

Start by redoing keyword research for your article. If you’ve kept your previous keyword list and performance stats, this will allow you to easily compare how your keywords are performing now versus when the article was first published. Most SEO tools, like Ahrefs and SEMrush, offer keyword traffic trend indicators, saving you time.

Next, consider adding any missing keywords that your competitors are targeting to the list. This can help you close keyword gaps and boost your ranking potential.

But don’t stop there! Look beyond competitor keywords and explore new, untapped subtopics that could increase your article’s value. A helpful trick is to look for keyword traffic outliers — when search queries spike for certain terms, it indicates rising interest. This can lead to diverse, related questions and opportunities to expand your content into unexplored directions.

Step 3: Redo Topic Research

After re-evaluating your users’ needs, analyzing competitor content, and updating your keyword list, it’s time to look into how potential shifts in the topic may have impacted search intent.

If you’ve been outranked, view it as a positive! Someone else has done some of the research for you. Now, you can take it a step further by leveraging their insights alongside your own. Compiling new insights from multiple authoritative sources — like studies, science journals, and credible outlets — will help you gain deeper insight into the topic and outshine your competitors.

Step 4: Rewrite Content and Make Additions

Now, take everything you’ve learned and carefully revise your original article. Correct outdated information, add new sections addressing recent developments, update links and sources, refresh images, and restructure the content if necessary.

Note: Avoid making too many drastic changes, especially for well-performing pages. Small, incremental SEO improvements tend to yield better results.

Finally, don’t forget to update the blog post title, SEO title, meta description, image alt-text, and internal links, to reflect the changes you’ve made.

Blog Content Update (Quick Tips & Tricks)

There are countless ways to update and improve an old blog post. Here are some of the most popular: 

• Add “in [current year]” to your title and body: Where relevant, update your title and content to mention the current year. This can signal freshens and relevance to readers and search engines.
• Use updated numbers in the title: If your post includes a list (e.g., “Top 10”), adjust the number to reflect any new additions or insights (e.g., “Top 15”).
• Insert a “last updated” note: Include a note at the start or end of the article timestamping the most recent update, letting readers know the content is up-to-date.
• Update statistics and data: Replace outdated stats or figures with the latest information to ensure accuracy and relevance.
• Refresh internal links: Explore better and newer external linking options to strengthen SEO.
• Check for broken links: Remove or update any broken external links to improve user experience and maintain the credibility of your article.
• Revise your meta description: If your most important keywords have changed, include them in your meta description.
• Optimize for featured snippets: Improve the updated version of your article by reformatting key sections as lists, and providing direct answers to questions.
• Revise calls-to-action (CTA): Ensure your CTAs are current, relevant, and optimized to encourage conversions and engagement.
• Create an FAQ section: Add a section for common and trending questions related to the topic to boost engagement and keyword coverage.

How Often Should You Add New Content to Your Blog?

While updating old blog posts is important, consistently adding fresh content is key to expanding your reach and staying relevant within your content niche. Although blog updates are typically done every 3-6 months, research suggests that adding new content frequently — sometimes even daily — can significantly boost success.

For many bloggers and small businesses, posting every day can be overwhelming. The reality is that the success of high-traffic blogs correlates with how often they post, creating a virtuous cycle: more content leads to more traffic, which generates more revenue, allowing for even more content creation.

That said, quality is far more important than sheer volume. My advice: post as frequently as you can without sacrificing the quality of your content. All SEO ultimately comes down to aligning your page performance and content with your audience’s needs, with search engine algorithms serving as a litmus test for that alignment. These algorithms prioritize user satisfaction, rewarding content that effectively meets the intent of search queries.

If your target audience values 10 posts a day and you can deliver high-quality content consistently, go for it. But if the content doesn’t engage readers, search engines will notice, and your rankings will likely drop.

In my experience, posting once a week is a good rule of thumb, provided the content is high-quality and well-targeted.

Updating Blog Content: What We’ve Learned

For best results, updates should be done often enough to keep article content relevant and up-to-date, and for most blog posts that’s every 3-6 months. Edits and updates can range from simple to complex, depending on how much the topic has changed since you last published.

Article updates are a cost-effective and prudent SEO practice that will go a long way toward keeping your blog healthy and bringing in traffic for years to come.