Each piece of custom content offers an ability to reach audiences and persuade them in various ways. Whether it be through entertainment, information or commerce, being able to harness this marketing power provides brands with a pathway to not only convince people who see the content, but formulate a passive strategy for attracting new audiences in the future.

Yet every piece of content has a natural lifespan. In some cases, that lifespan is quite short: news articles and late-breaking content may only serve a purpose for a few days. More robust forms of evergreen content may be able to resonate with audiences for months or even years. Regardless of the initial longevity, though, all forms of content ultimately become outdated in some way.

To help with addressing this problem, we’ll examine some options for giving older forms of written content new life.

Analyze Your Current Content

The first major step anyone should take in reviving aging content is to conduct a site-wide analysis of content offerings. Perhaps you were inspired by one previously viral or well-performing post that has since lost its traffic-driving luster, but there may be other equally prominent opportunities for content revision.

Through such an extensive audit, you can determine which content offerings are losing their appeal, and subsequently determine which ones are ripe for revision. By pinging search engines with updated versions of these posts, you’ll help breathe new life into their appeal (both in the eyes of readers and search engines).

Factors to consider when prioritizing which content offerings should be revived first include decreasing traffic stats and subscriptions, fewer social signals and/or other indicators of declining engagement rates. Each piece of content may have different metrics to measure, so consider a broad swath of measurements.

Look for Missed Opportunities

Creating great content often isn’t just a one-step process. Even your best-performing content likely missed some opportunities to cover unique angles or focuses that could be added at a later date. After inspecting all of your content that is losing its appeal, ask yourself which pieces can reasonably be expanded upon or otherwise improved to draw a new round of attention.

There may be new factors to cover in the piece that did not exist at the time of its original creation, or you may simply have a chance to elaborate further on individual aspects of the piece. Whatever the option, seek out places where you can add new content to your existing pieces.

Look for Inaccuracies

If you find any specific pieces of content that suddenly experienced a massive drop-off in views or engagement, then one big reason may be that the content is no longer accurate. Various events and trends can ultimately render even some evergreen content solutions inaccurate: those who find this content via search will often quickly backtrack and go elsewhere, indicating to search engines that the content is no longer relevant.

By digging through these pieces, you can verify whether or not one of the biggest reasons for a sudden drop-off in engagement is a factor, and subsequently revive the content accordingly.

Ensuring that you are pinging search engines and users with ample content offerings is only half the battle. By making sure content is up-to-date, refreshed and relevant, you can breathe new life into aging content and ensure its long-term value.