Editing your published blog posts is probably the best advice you will read this month, yet very few of you will do it. Here are 10 reasons why you should. If you have others that make more sense to you, why not add them in the Comments.
1. To Correct Typos
Perhaps a no-brainer to start with. Leaving typos there will turn off a good portion of your audience and you will lose credibility with the ones who stay, which is even more important.
2. Because You Can And It Is Easier Than Writing New Blog Posts
This is almost two reasons in one. However if you think through why you are blogging, then a polished version of a previous post may well achieve your goals better than a new blog post that you are struggling to write.
3. To Optimize Search Engine Visibility
If you want more traffic through search engines then this reason alone justifies your editing. Through your analytics, you know why people visited this blog post. If it was a keyword search where your blog post was #6, then a little thought can probably get you to #1. This will increase your visitor traffic enormously.
4. To Add More Images
It is sometimes a struggle to find exactly the right image at the time. Images contribute little to search engine traffic so they can be left to a subsequent re-edit. Images do help greatly in making blog posts attractive to their human readers so it is worth adding them, even if it takes a second go-around.
5. Because You Should Better Serve Your Readers
Wait twenty four hours and re-read your blog post. Is it the best you could have done for your readers? If not tweak it.
6. To Allow You To Blog Fast
This is one of the most powerful reasons. If there is some news item or other blog post you would like to comment on, then do so even if your initial attempt is a fairly short post. Further reflection may allow you to develop the post in a very effective way.
7. To Allow You To Blog More Often
Reason 6 almost forces you to accept reason 7. Once your short placeholder blog post is up there, then you are committed. You will find that you are inevitably writing more blog posts this way. Through the blog site architecture, this will improve your search engine visibility and increase your visitor traffic.
8. To Incorporate Feedback From Your Visitors
If your blog posts are interesting and written fast, inevitably some of your visitors who comment may have important additions that could be included. In some cases this can spawn a new blog post. In other cases you may wish to amend the original post.
9. To Include Related Developments
With a fast developing subject, sometimes there are interesting items that arise that could usefully be added to the original post. In other cases you may become aware of other information that you missed in your first research. In either case these additions can enrich the original blog post.
10. To Create Everlasting Value
This is perhaps the most powerful reason of all. A printed page once printed is unchangeable. An online web page can be refined continually since potentially it will be there for ever for those who visit. Getting visitors to your web page is the most difficult part of the process, so why not make sure their visit is as perfect as it can be. Even a subsequent related blog post may not be the one the search engine suggests for a keyword query so make sure that the visitor sees relevant content if they are directed to an older post.
Conclusion
If this is not enough to get you to re-edit old blog posts, then perhaps you will let us know why that would be. Alternatively if you do re-edit for a reason that was not mentioned, then that too would be of interest. After all, unless you let us know, we will not know how best to re-edit this when the time comes.
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*Lead image adapted from Swiv
11. Updated content keeps the post current for the search engines, too.
I often check my analytics and find new terms that I rank for and then go back to a blog post to optimize that page better for the new term I just discovered. I sometimes even go add a very specific affiliate ad that matches this keywords to make some money. Another thing that I’m working on is going through and interlinking all my blog posts the same way the wikipedia does. This is a very good list.
Good idea on the affiliate link. Think that’s a tip many money bloggers will appreciate.
Yeah, correcting typos is fine, but when correcting true mistakes, I prefer to do that with a comment. Sometimes, if it’s particularly important that people not be misled, I will make that an in-line comment or if it’s really critical I might use strikethrough on the original text and then add my new text in bold.
The only time I’ll actually edit is when the mistake was a mistake of communication – where I didn’t express myself clearly and therefor apparently gave wrong information. Even then I hesitate because I just don’t feel right “rewriting history”. Annotating, fine, but rewriting makes me uncomfortable.
That’s an interesting viewpoint, Tony. I do not feel I am creating history. Rather I’m creating something that should be the best it can be for future visitors. Some even suggest that blog posts should not carry dates since they should be, in a sense, timeless.
I tried to edit to incorporate feedback from my comments all the time. I also make sure I always comment back to my readers to make them feel like it’s an interactive experience to visit my blog.
Great post man.
Dan
Great write up. I have always avoided making changes to my blog posts once published but I have never had a good reason for belief. I appreciate you taking the time to give me a reason to change my ways.
Great tips! Thanks this will definitely help me as a blogger to keep my blog shining! 🙂
Your advice is really great Barry.
I have noticed many times that comments on posts have something that might be added to the post content but seriously I have never thought of re editing it.
Now I have taken your words will do when ever I will find any valued additions. I am sure search engine bots will also love it.
The blog editing is needed. Of course, this is related to the readers. They will continue visiting the blog with regular editions. I hope I can continually implement the blog editing.
I feel like Tony that we are “Writing history” Sometimes it is not in the best interest of the user to have corrcted information, since this may confuse (if I have read the “old” blog post first) In that case I would prefer to be able to see the corrections made.
On the other hand I have deleted a blog post once, because I had written it while being very angry, and after cooling down could see that I was doing both me and my target a disfavor.
Thanks for a great topic.
I think it’s also good to go back and edit your older posts. You might find many of them are still very relevant. You may just need to update a few things or give a new example.
Your blog was the first place that told me the answer for what I was looking for. Thanks.