Do you have an old website? Update it and upgrade your SEO • Yoast

Has your website seen better days and would you like to restore it to its former glory? Look no further. We’ll help you get your website up to date and make a splash online. We cover all the important areas you need to consider. Feel free to skip the steps that are already current, but be honest with yourself about the work that still needs to be done. Your website only has a millisecond to make a first impression. So let’s make the most of it. Now it’s time to look under the hood, dust off those pages, and freshen up your content.

Check your website setup

Do you want to make big changes? Do that first

Before we dive into the depths of your old website, it’s worth thinking about what major changes you want to make. Maybe you’ve always wanted to change your domain name or URL structure, but it was too much work once everything was up and running. Or perhaps it could be beneficial for you to switch to another CMS or hosting provider. If you want to make site-wide changes, it’s far better to plan it from the start.

Old or new domain?

You registered your domain while your website was still live, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s still available now. Check whether your old domain still belongs to you or is available. If this is not the case, you must select another one. This can give you the chance to start over with a completely new website.

If you’re looking for a new domain, think about how you want to build your website. You can hire someone to create a website custom for you. However, if you want to save costs, website builders like Wix and WordPress allow you to create a website without any coding. Although both allow you to build websites yourself, we recommend WordPress if you want the ability to expand and modify your website beyond the available templates.

AI builders are also something to consider when creating a new website. For example, Bluehost’s AI website builder generates your website by providing a prompt and answering some follow-up questions. A quick way to get back online, including hosting, a domain, and even human support if needed.

Keep in mind that changing your domain name comes with several disadvantages:

• If your website has been popular in the past, you have probably built up some domain authority. This means that people know your brand name and can have (positive) associations with it. So if you change your domain name, you will lose any domain authority you previously gained.
• Your old URLs will then no longer work and you will need to plan to migrate your content to your new domain. This can be a lot of work, so don’t underestimate it!

Are your CMS and plugins up to date?

Next, you should check whether your CMS is up to date. Depending on how old your website is, this could mean anything. When new opportunities arise in web development, a good CMS takes them and (usually) implements them automatically for you. So it’s worth updating your CMS as a first step! However, make sure you back up your website first and test the changes.

The impact of outdated plugins really depends on which plugins you have installed. But whatever plugins you use, you should check them too. The same goes for themes; They can stop working when they get too old or no longer receive support. Online, the older your technology, the more vulnerable it is to hacker attacks. Therefore, make sure to update your intended usage and remove unnecessary plugins.

Tip: If you are using WordPress, go to the Site Health section, located in the backend under Tools > Site Health. This will give you an overview of what needs to be done to get your website healthy again.

Check your robots.txt/indexing settings

By not indexing a page, you prevent search engines from indexing it and displaying it in their search results. Some people prefer not to index their website while making big changes to it to avoid creating a bad impression on users. But you shouldn’t really mess with it unless you know what you’re doing. I also wouldn’t recommend this if you’re still getting a decent amount of traffic to your website.

To prevent your website from being indexed, you need to update your robots.txt file. If you are a Yoast SEO user, you can manage your indexing in your configuration Adjust settings without ever touching your robots.txt file. An easier way to update your website in the background is to use LightStart Plugin.

Check your privacy settings

If your website has been around for a few years, there’s a good chance that your privacy settings don’t meet modern standards. For example, if your website uses cookies to track user behavior, it is now required by law in most regions around the world to ask users for permission. If you have user data stored on your website, it is also important to ensure that it is stored securely and used legally. If this data is old user data, simply deleting everything is probably the safest option.

Review your content

Update your keyword research

If you want to update the content on your old website, updating your keyword research is a good place to start. The words people use in their searches change over time. So the longer your content has been out of service, the more likely you are to need to do this. When reviewing your keywords, you should check whether you are still using the keywords that are most suitable for your website and target audience and whether you can still compete for these rankings.

Additionally, you should consider AI search when researching how to update your content. AI search is now an undeniable part of people’s online search behavior, whether Google presents users with an AI overview or uses AI models like ChatGPT and Gemini. Therefore, make sure you optimize for AI search as part of your SEO efforts.

Does your content need to be updated?

It’s important to update your old posts and pages to keep them fresh and relevant. Various problems can arise with old content:

• Is the quality still good enough? Is there room for improving the content by applying the EEAT principles?
• Is your information still correct and up to date? Are there any new insights you could add to the content?
• Do the external and internal links still work? Does the meta description or SEO title need to be updated?

Look at each page and be critical. What could be improved? Do you really need to keep every page? Do you have to rewrite the whole thing or will a few small adjustments be enough? It may take a while to read through all your content. Be sure to start with your most important pages first.

Check your internal linking and site structure

Ensuring your content is high quality and well optimized is only half the battle. It must be discoverable to. By linking to related pages, you make it easier for your users to find your content. Additionally, ensuring that your most important pages get the most internal links will help Google get a better idea of ​​your site’s structure. As a result, these core pages (which we call cornerstone content) are likely to rank higher in search results!

Check technical SEO

Mobile-friendliness is essential

Most people use their phone or other mobile devices to access the Internet. As a result, Google switched to Mobile-first indexing years ago. This means that if your website doesn’t perform well on mobile devices, it can impact your overall search visibility. Responsive website design and proper mobile usability testing are now more of a requirement than a nice-to-have. Make sure everything works and looks good on all screen sizes. Don’t consider the desktop version of your website as the default.

Core Web Vitals and Page Experience

In the days of dial-up internet, you always had to wait patiently for pages to load. But that’s a thing of the past; Fast loading pages are a basic expectation these days. Fast loading isn’t the only consideration, as your pages actually need to function well once loaded. Google has a ranking factor to measure things like this. So you need to make sure that you meet expectations in the following aspects:

• Loading performance (how quickly does content appear on the screen?)
• Responsiveness (how quickly does the site respond to user input?)
• Visual stability (does anything move on the screen when loading?)

The details behind these factors are quite technical, but it’s worth delving into these Core Web Vitals to ensure your technical SEO isn’t holding you back.

Check your media usage

Another thing that changes over time is the best practice for using images and videos on your website. Nowadays, most users expect high-quality images that also load quickly. Make sure you optimize and tag them properly before mindlessly adding them to your page. When it comes to videos, they can increase your visibility on platforms like YouTube and social media. They also tell search agents that the content on your page is rich and valuable. Therefore, make sure you develop a suitable video strategy for your website and other platforms.

accessibility

For most websites, accessibility is an afterthought. That’s a shame because you’re also missing out on a whole group of potential customers. Don’t just think about how you experience a website; also address the needs of different types of visitors. Accessibility means making small adjustments and additions so everyone can enjoy your content. You don’t have to redesign everything; You can make simple improvements, such as: B. adding alternative text to your images.

Structured data

If you want to get the best search results on Google, you need to start adding structured data to your website. Structured data is a way to tell Google about the context or purpose of different types of content. For example, you can mark your messages as News and Google can recognize this and add your content to the News section. Or you can label your products using structured data and have the chance to be listed in Google shopping results. Structured data helps AI search engines and chatbots better understand your website. There are many ways structured data can improve your content, so give it a try!

Start publishing and sharing

Check your robots.txt/indexing settings (again)

Finally, check your indexing and make sure the pages you want Google to index are crawlable. You can start by checking your robots.txt file or your indexing settings. Google Search Console can be of great help at this point. Submit your sitemap. This will let Google know that your site is ready for indexing again and help it understand what has changed. Search Console reports any crawl errors so you can easily check if everything is set up correctly.

Start (re)publishing and sharing content

And now for the final step in updating your old website: start publishing content again! By regularly publishing content and sharing it on social media, you can increase awareness of your website. Plus, you might gain new fans and followers! If your social media pages are out of date, update them so people know your website is back and ready to welcome them!

Upgrade your website’s SEO with Yoast

As you can see, there is a lot to consider when updating your SEO and refreshing your old website. Once you’ve restored your website to its former glory, be sure to maintain it and your SEO. Otherwise, you could do this again in a few years. Luckily, our Yoast SEO plugin can also help you update and maintain your old website!