How often should you update your content to keep it fresh and relevant?

I think the most important thing to stay relevant with your content is to keep updating yourself about what is happening around you - read more and stay tuned to the latest events of the genres that are your expertise.

Your content frequency depends on what type of content you choose to develop and publish for your audiences. As too much of anything is bad for business - even good content. - I've had good results from blog articles when they are published fortnightly. Since blog articles tend to be content-heavy and dense when it comes to dissecting a topic, it's best to space them out evenly. - You cannot go wrong with 2-3 weekly social media posts on any given platform to engage with your active audience groups and gather feedback using different content formats. - From a business standpoint, developing a strong content asset (whitepaper, ebook, case study) once a quarter is imperative to keeping your existing customers engaged and staying top of mind.

One thing I find helpful is the fact that the article points out that contents like how-to guides and case studies are evergreen as long as they are accurate and useful. The need for accuracy is very important for any content to maintain its relevance. However, I want to add that some statistics tend to have longer usage, sometimes as case studies, as long as they remain useful, they are part of evergreen content.

Each type of content should have its own lifecycle. A lifecycle includes a regular cadence of reviewing, editing, or unpublishing content. Even content that's considered evergreen may need touchups to maintain consistency and relevancy.

All content types become obsolete, but not all content deserves a refresh. Here are a few factors to consider when auditing your content to decide which content needs a refresh: - Traffic is declining - Drop in keyword rankings - Keyword ranking drops - Decrease in conversion rates - The piece is outdated in terms of relevance, factual accuracy, or how it showcases your product/service /offerings

Avoid using bounce rate and time on page as metrics for content. If someone enters your site on a page and leaves on the same page, it could indicate they've gotten what they came for and left. It does not always indicate poor content. It could, however, indicate other UX issues because they may have been no other actions people were interested in taking.

One thing I found useful about this is how it indicates that updating your content can affect the overall performance of the content. I know of a blog that tried updating its content. The result of the update was that the blog lost the keywords they were ranking for on the search engine. These losses really affect the blog's traffic and within a month the blog went from 20k traffic to 5k traffic monthly. Yes, updating your content is good. But, if that content is bringing you good traffic and boosting the overall performance of your blog, I will suggest you leave it and create a whole new content featuring the update.

One thing I've found useful is to check in on your content and marketing strategy, quarterly. You should do the same for your channels. You may find that one channel isn't meeting your goals as much as the other. Ensure that you're doing what you set out to do. If your results aren't hitting your quota, it's time to do some testing and find out what works. You can generate leads by coloring outside the lines. The key is to find what works for you and then adjust as you go along. But make sure every content you release has a purpose according to your strategy. Remember to constantly adjust according to your analytics.

I'd recommend rolling audits to keep auditing more manageable, especially for large sites. This is a continual process of inventorying and auditing sections of the site on a rolling basis.

Calendars in the content domain have evolved to cater to diverse needs today. Besides just content, they now integrate audience insights for optimized post timings and promote real-time adaptability to current trends. Modern calendars foster collaboration across teams, align with overarching marketing goals, and visually map the content landscape. Integrated analytics further refine content strategies based on performance, making calendars indispensable in today's dynamic content environment.

There are two methods to keep in mind with your content planning and updating. Firstly, don't underestimate the power of repurposing. You're probably sitting with a wealth of evergreen content already created, which can be reworked into new formats to gain more engagement and achieve marketing KPIs. Secondly, pay attention to your distribution strategy. It requires as much time and effort investment as your content planning. Spend time to see how your content can live in other channels and through new partnerships with other creators and brands can unlock much greater growth. You want strategic distribution across as many high-quality channels as possible.

There are so many ways to update content, and you don't always have to do a heavy edit, rework or cut. Sometimes, you could make a blog or article more effective by adding quotes from subject matter experts, smart linking to additional resources, adding media like video or even just tweaking your title and introduction copy. The trick here is to keep measuring and learning from what works and doesn't.

Another factor to consider is where your organization is in its lifecycle. Are you a startup that has grown from 80 employees to 300? That may change the voice and tone, the audience, introduce different goals, etc. Have you recently introduced a partner program? You now need partner-focused content. Has a large corporate organization acquired you, and do you now have to align your content processes and themes, perhaps targeting different audiences but selling the same products and services? Here you will likely find synergies, ways to use content, co-promotion, and co-creation to leverage other teams' content strategies. Organizational change and growth are significant elements when updating content plans and strategies.