Last Updated on March 12, 2022 by ThoughtsStained
I’m back this Friday* participating in another Let’s Talk Bookish post, as always hosted by the amazing Rukky @ Eternity Books and awesome Dani @ The Literary Lion! For this week, our topic is: Updating Old Content, recommended by yours truly!
Let’s discuss!
(*Pretend this post went live on Friday and not Saturday.)
Updating Old Content
Once again, anytime I pitch an idea for Let’s Talk Bookish, it’s always because I’m wanting to big other blogger’s brains. In terms of updating old content, I’m very curious about the what, the how and the why. Questions like: Do you ever go back and update older content on your blog? For instance, after getting new graphics or going self-hosted? Why or why not? Do you sometimes curate/clear out old posts that you no longer want published, or rewrite/update them? Do you think people should periodically clean up their old content and update/delete things that don’t align with their current positions/beliefs?
So, let’s dive a bit into updating old content by looking at: my own reasons for what and why, the maintenance updating old content requires and if I think it’s worth it.
The What and Why
It’s probably not that hard to figure out what updating old content means. This could be as simple as reediting older posts after you’ve leveled up your writing skills; to as complex a mission of needing (or wanting) to revamp older posts’ SEO, imaging, writing style and more. For me, it’s the latter.
Why do I want to do it? Well, it all started after I went self-hosted. Through doing so, I not only gained the freedom to customize my blog more, through the implementation of widgets and plugins. But I also made it more accessible and customizable, especially with creating a brand.
That, of course, only applied to new posts. All of my older posts–seven years of them–remained.
Now, I feel the need to update that older content. Why? For a few reasons:
- Making my entire site look cohesive
- Curating older content, rather than completely dismissing it (i.e., checking each post will allow me to chose if it’s worth keeping, deleting or updating)
- Making everything more accessible
- This looks like updating my media with alternate text, for example
- Also, I can double check all of my reviews are cross-posted on Goodreads, StoryGraph and Am*zon
The How
The how, however, is where the elbow grease is required. I actually talked a little bit about the maintenance updating old content requires in a previous post, where I announced my intention to start updating old posts. But, laying it all out made me realize this is not a small project. It’s going to take a lot of work. And, considering I wrote out my updating plan last August and have only updated one post (last week)…
Well, you can see, it’s been hard to start. Especially when you consider balancing continuing to create new content and life commitments.
Yet, I’m going to actively work on it this year. I’m not giving up this project.
Is Updating Old Content Worth It?
Despite the work it’s going to take, I believe updating old content is worth it. It gives me for flexibility as a creator, to choose what I keep and what I delete. It’s a great trip down memory lane. Plus, completing this project allows me to meet the goals of my site that I established by going self-hosted in the first plus. And, I’ll have the chance to reshare and rehighlight some older posts I’m proud of.
In Sum
What about you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on updating old content, especially if you’ve also ever gone self-hosted before. Is this a project you’ve undertaken (or want to)? Any tips and tricks you’d recommend? Important areas for accessibility I need to make sure not to miss? Let me know in the comments and thank you so much for reading!
This is an interesting and worthwhile topic. I’ve been blogging since the late 1990s (before it was even called blogging), and there’s no way I’m ever going to go back and rework all the images, etc. I’ve chosen to spend my time writing new content instead, but I can understand why others may take the updating approach.
Oh gosh, I don’t blame you. I thought blogging since 2012 was a daunting tasks. That’s incredible you’ve been able to do it for so long!
It’s one of the perks of getting old.
A great idea for a topic, Nicole! I’m not self hosted so I must admit that I rarely edit or update my old posts. I suppose time is a factor in that, but I also like to have that record of how my writing/blogging has progressed over time. If I ever went self-hosted I would definitely look at updating at least the graphics. Really interesting to get your thoughts on this!
Thank you so much, Stephen, for both your comment and taking the time to check it out! Time is a HUGE factor and one of the main reasons I’ve made hardly any progress on this project.
I started out with a self hosted blog and it’s been almost 2 years…and I’m terrible at updating content! It’s always on the to do list at the back of my mind because I want to update old reviews to look the same my reviews do now and just in general implement what I’ve learned…but actually doing it? That’s a whole other story! As someone who struggles with creating routine and keeping on top of tasks regularly, updating my old content definitely doesn’t come naturally to me. But I do think it’s worth it! every time I see that old posts get traffic I’m like “oh no, you had to see the old version of that, I can do better now!” 😂
Oh gosh yes. I think I’ve written more about wanting to update old content at this point than I have actually worked on this project. 🙄 Right!? I’m definitely reminded when someone finds an older posts, too. One day, may we find a way to update what we want!
I started over when I went self-hosted. One of the reasons was because I didn’t want to deal with updating and deleting old posts. I tried but it was too much. 5 years of work is hard to update. Now, I make an effort to update old posts here and there and have a growing list of posts I need to update, but getting to them is hard haha. I believe that it’s worth it too, especially if old posts are receiving traffic.
I don’t blame you at all. I’ve definitely already deleted a fair number of posts and feel like I’ll probably delete more, as I finally work on this! But I agree, if older posts are getting traffic, definitely worthwhile to do!
I haven’t updated old content in ages. I whenever I think about it, it feels time consuming. There is already so much to do with reading and blogging. But I guess I have to make it habit or try updating once a week.
It is definitely time consuming. I think it’s just determining whether it’s worth it or not to actually do that work, because of that time consuming piece!
Thank you so much for suggesting, Nicole! Your topics are always awesome ❤
I haven’t been blogging for all that long compared to you, but I’ve gone through roughly three major redesigns since I’ve started (and I’m not self-hosted). So I’ve had that experience with trying to decide if I should go back and update all my old content to match the new redesign each time. I remember trying to do it once, and it was such a tedious task. I wasn’t even updating the text content itself, just the graphics in the posts, and it was just so much work and I got really tired of it pretty quickly.
Currently, I kind of want to update all my posts again, mostly for the reasons you listed: making my blog cohesive (some posts still have graphics from my first blog design lol), curating the content and only keeping the ones that don’t make me cringe into oblivion, and also adding alt text to all the images since that’s the closest to accessibility that I can get with free WordPress (I think; if you know how I can make my blog more accessible with free WP, I’d love your tips!). It’ll definitely be quite a bit of work though, so I don’t know if I’ll ever actually start.
But good luck, I hope you’re able to finish doing so with all your content!
Aww, thank you so much, Rukky!!
Oh gosh, I can’t imagine trying to go through and updating after three different redesigns (which, before I went self-hosted, I can’t even remember how many times I tried to change things up). Because you’re right, it is so tedious!
I hope we’re both able to hit our blogging goals, including any potential archival content we’d like to complete!
(I need to do more research on making blogs more accessible, but once I do, I’ll let you know!)
I’m not into updating old content because of the work it takes, and I’m on my second blog now because my first got so cluttered and messy that I couldn’t work with it anymore. I will go back and change links to things if they’ve changed, but I’m not likely to do big overhauls of posts.
That’s totally fair!
I’m impressed that you have such a comprehensive plan to update things. I did a bit of that when I switched from Blogspot to WordPress as well, but I don’t think I had such an elaborate plan. The biggest overhaul to my content was probably when I hid a lot of my adult and negative reviews after I got my agent and went on submission with my first middle grade book. It was a pretty big undertaking!
Oh, don’t be too impressed–I’ve hardly implemented it at all. *facepalm* But I imagine that would be a huge undertaking!