It is quite normal to lose organic search traffic on certain posts after some time. This can be because you have not updated anything in them, resulting in lower ranking and user engagements. Search engines like Google like updated content.
This is why, they reward the most recently updated posts with higher search rankings.

So, in order to retain organic traffic, you need to regularly keep updating or upgrading the existing article with the latest trends. Doing this will only help in retaining traffic, but also keep you competitive in the field.
You can easily find a lot of guides on the internet discussing how to update or upgrade existing article. But did know, there are useful tips and tricks available as well that you can try in order to get the most out of the updating or upgrading process.
In this article, I am going to discuss some of those tips and tricks in detail. It will be quite worth reading this blog post for you.
Updating or Upgrading the Existing Article – Tips & Tricks
Below are some tips and tricks that you can consider adopting in order to efficiently update and upgrade the existing article. You can consider the below-mentioned points either as tips or tricks.
1. Confirm the article still matches the required search intent
The very first tip is to make sure whether the existing article is still matching the search engine intent or not. Search intent is basically a specific type of search query that a user types into the search engine in order to find the required output results.
Some common type of search intent are, informational, commercial, navigational, and transactional.
To confirm whether your content matches the search intent or not, you need to search for the main keyword of the content in the search engine. After searching, you need to analyze the top search results against it.
You need to determine what type of search intent most results have, whether they have information intent (how, what, why, who, etc.), commercial intent (best, top, versus, etc.), etc. Let’s say, you have found the appeared search results mostly have commercial intent, but your existing article has information intent.
This means you need to change the article intent to again appear in top search results. So, this is the first tip that you can consider in order to upgrade or update the existing article.
2. Add new keywords to the content
Keywords are basically words or phrases that a user searches online to find out the required information. For example, if you are looking for a “Gaming motherboard” then there is a strong chance that you may search for things like “best gaming motherboards” or “top gaming motherboards in 2023”. These phrases are counted as keywords.
Adding new keywords to the existing articles is a useful trick to update and upgrade it. Let us explain how.
For instance, if your content is two months old, this means it contains keywords that people were searching for two months ago. In the span of two months, there is a strong chance that users are now searching for the same information with kind of words and phrases.
So, by loading your content with the latest keywords, you efficiently update, and increase its chances of gaining more visibility in the SERPs. In order to latest keywords about your existing article, you can make use of tools like Moz, or Semrush.
However, do not just add too many keywords (no matter how much latest they are) in the content. This will be counted as keyword stuffing by search engines and may damage the ranking performance.
3. Consider Adding significant information (new heading, stats, links)
Adding new information is another highly useful tip for updating existing articles. You can consider adding a new heading, more recent, or fresh statistics in the content.
For instance, if your existing article is about a product review, then you can consider adding information about its new features, benefits, pricing, etc. On the other hand, if your current article is about a general topic, then you can add new headings to cover the topic more comprehensively.
Talking about statistics, you can consider replacing old statistics with more latest ones. Because both readers and search engines like updated information.
However, while adding statistics be sure they are credible and from trusted sources. Providing inaccurate information in the content can greatly damage both your credibility and search rankings.
Moreover, you can also consider adding more internet and external links to your current article. Be sure to check your older links as well, whether they are all active and working properly.
4. Rewrite sentences for maximum clarity
Sometimes complexity of the content is the reason why it starts losing its search rankings and traffic.
Because when the visitors are not able to understand what you are trying to say, they will quickly move on to another webpage. This gives a negative single about your content to the search engines, resulting in a lower ranking.
So, this is why restructuring or rewriting sentences is considered a useful tip to update or upgrade existing article. You can rewrite sentences by changing their tone from either passive to active or vice versa. Not just this, replacing complex words and phrases that were previously used in the content with their simpler yet appropriate synonyms.
If you’re facing manually taking care of both these things, then don’t worry, you can help from a rewriter tool. This tool quickly rewrites the given text by changing words with their synonyms and restructuring sentences to bring clarity to the text.
Overall, rewriting sentences is an excellent tip for updating the existing articles efficiently.
5. Look for opportunities (like images, Q&As, CTAs, etc.) to give content new look
You also need to look for different opportunities that you can add to the content in order to give it an updated look.
For instance, you can consider new images in the sections that previously did not have any images. Doing this will better guide the readers about the information you have provided in the article.
Not just this, you can also consider adding a new Q&As section that will provide quick answers to the most asked questions about the existing topic. However, if your existing article already contains a Q&As section, then you can new questions into it.
Finally, you can consider CTAs in the content that will encourage the readers to take some kind of specific action. The actions can be sharing content on social media, commenting, etc.
6. Republish content to a new date
This is another trick to update or upgrade the existing article. However, we will not recommend to follow this trick. According to Google, republishing content to a new date without updating anything is against their policy.
However, there is no doubt that republishing content to a new date does help in improving search snippet ranking.
Wrapping up
Updating or upgrading your existing article is an excellent way to retain your search rankings and organic traffic. There are numerous guides available on the internet that guide users about how to update content. But there are numerous tips and tricks also available that will allow them to get the most out of this process. This article has explained some of those tips in detail.