Why (and when) you should review and re-edit your old blog posts

The first blog post is always a huge leap of faith. Are my ideas good enough to show to the world? Am I doing this right? Am I conveying my message? Is anyone actually going to read my posts and follow my blog?

After a while, it gets easier, you start to get a feel of what your readers prefer to see - and what you prefer to write and share, what images work best and what kind of common structure you want for your posts. You add buttons, a signature, change the colors and the layout - and your first blog posts, no matter how good they were, are probably outdated by now. 

Should you revamp them? The answer is yes. You should even re-write them if you feel the need to do so. This is something I have been doing for a while (slowly, because my time is limited) and I found that it has improved the overall quality of my blog. 

In this post I'll discuss the main reasons why you should review and re-edit your posts, when is the best time to do it and what you can do afterwards to promote them again. 

So here's the why - and the when - you should review your older posts: 

1. First impressions count and you want a consistent image

Even though you wrote those blog posts a long time ago, if you've done things right people can still find them through search engines. If those posts are poorly formatted, have bad images or are difficult to share in social media, those visitors will probably not return to your blog or even read the posts until the end. They will not follow you and click on your links.

Also, if you've changed the format and layout of your posts along the way, it may be useful to re-edit those older posts to make them consistent with your new image.

2. Links sometimes stop working and images are lost

If you use external links on your posts, remember that those links sometimes don't link forever. They can be deleted by their original owner or even by the web hosts. Some blogs die out because their owners no longer want to write on them or stop paying the hosting fees. 

Same as with the images, and even with the links you share to documents that your readers can download from your blog. 

And since there's nothing more frustrating than trying to read a post where all the images don't load anymore or you try to download a printable and the link is broken, it's good to go back once in a while and check if everything is working properly. 

3. Correcting spelling errors that have escaped your proofing

It has happened to me. No matter how careful I think I am when writing a post, some little detail sometimes escapes detection. So, whenever I'm creating a link to an older post, I like to re-read it and see if everything is OK - and obviously (immediately) correct any mistakes.

4. Using reader comments as a useful tool to help you improve

I have had readers point out that they couldn't find a link to download a pattern - and while it was there, it was not very easy to discover in between all the text so I created a download button instead. I've also had people point out that the images were small, that a certain link didn't work or that part of a tutorial wasn't all that clear.

All easy things to fix that overall improve the quality of your blog. Of course I would have preferred to correct them before anyone noticed, but better late than never, right?

So check out the comments your readers leave you (I'm terrible at replying to all comments, but I always go through them) and see if there's anything that should be changed in any of your older posts. 

5. Adding more content to older posts

Sometimes I re-read older posts and see that it would be good to add more images to break the monotony of rows and rows of text. Other times I notice that I could have provided easier options to my readers. An example? I don't post a lot of recipes on the blog, but when I do I like to describe ingredients and instructions in detail. Putting myself in the shoes of a reader who wants to try one of my recipes made me realize that it would be a lot better if I added the possibility to download an easily printable version of the recipe. This is something that I have been slowly working on and while I'm not sure when I will get round to update all the recipes I have posted over the years, but it's definitely going forward. 

Also, as time goes by it's natural that you write more blog posts with interconnected content, so make sure you add those relevant links to your older posts. You want to keep readers on your blog for the longest time possible, so providing them with more related content is always useful.

Old posts will live in your blog forever (unless, of course, you delete them) but they don't necessarily have to become outdated. Revisiting and re-editing them once in a while gives you the opportunity to correct past mistakes, improve the quality of your blog and attract even more readers. 

And, of course, gives you the perfect excuse to re-share the revamped posts on social media and on link parties all over again, increasing your exposure.

How about you? Did you ever think about re-editing those older posts? Do you have any other tips and suggestions? Let us know in the comments!

Have a wonderful week, 

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