Step 3: How to keep your content up-to-date

💡 Why is this important?

Content goes stale fast. The amount of all content on the internet doubles every month (and that includes your competitors)
Fresh content = better rankings and better AI visibility. Up-to-date, comprehensive content ranks best and gets included in LLMs like ChatGPT
Google is consistently releasing updates to it’s algorithms
Refreshing is easier and less time-consuming than writing from scratch—and you may already have content that you can capitalize on

All this makes continuous optimization (or re-optimization) a must, because once created content becomes outdated, it quickly looses value and can even hurt your domain in the long run.

❓ What’s in it for you?

You will get weekly recommendations on best articles to refresh
A 5-step workflow to fix what’s underperforming
Your domain will have fresh content that easily will keep up with any competitor and Google algorithm changes
By keeping your content comprehensive and up-to-date, you significantly increase your chances of being mentioned in AI overviews and LLMs

🛠️ What you’ll need:

Google Search Console connected to Surfer
Content Audit in Sites
Content Editor

📆 When to do it? How often?

In general, content should be re-optimized every 3 to 6 months. This can vary based on the industry, as well as the topic’s trendiness.

To make things easier, check our weekly refresh recommendations to keep up with the best reoptimizing opportunities.

Prepare

Make sure you’ve already connected GSC to your Surfer account (see How to add Google Search Console to Surfer for more details).
Make sure you’ve set up your Sites Project (see How to audit your website and refresh old content for more details).
Once the Content Audit for your desired domain is ready, open it. You can find list of all your domains under Sites tab.

4. Review the main keyword for your content. We are determining the main keyword based on your current performance - keyword that gets the most clicks becomes the main keyword in Content Audit. This might not always be the keyword you want to target, that’s why you should always double-check it before proceeding.

❓ Why this is important? In Surfer we are using main keyword to review your performance, calculate Content Score, and prepare content guidelines. The main keyword is also used in Auto-Optimize. If it’s not the keyword you are targeting, you will get inaccurate data.

You can change keyword in two ways: choose keyword from the list of keywords you are already ranking for, or add targeted keyword manually.

Note: This will recalculate Content Scores of your articles.

❓ What if there’s no keyword? Sometimes we can’t determine your main keyword; usually because page is not yet ranking for any keyword. In that case add the keyword you want to target manually.

Step-by-step

Review audited pages and add/remove content if needed.
1. If you want to remove content from the list:
  1. Click on the checkbox on the left side of any content you want to remove from the list. You can remove content in bulk. Select more articles by marking all desired checkboxes.
  2. When the checkbox is marked, a page is selected. You will see a additional context popup at the bottom of the screen with information on how many pages you currently selected, as well as a button “Remove selected”.
  3. You can remove content from the list by clicking Remove selected.
2. If you want to add content to your audit:
  1. Click + Add Pages above the table to open a context window with a list of all available pages. Here you will see only URL, traffic and impressions from Google Search Console for last 30 days. List is ordered according to the traffic, from the highest to the lowest.
    
    Remember, page must be indexed an have minimal traffic within the last 30 days to appear on the list (at least one visit). Pages to choose from are limited to your top 20 000 pages.
  2. Select page(s) you want to add by marking a checkbox on the left side of the chosen URL. You can also use search bar to find specific URLs or paths, e.g., if you are looking for content with word blog in URL, simply type blog into the search bar.
    
    Each Surfer organization has a page limit per its pricing plan. The limit is shared between all domains added to your organization; if you have limit of 500 pages, you can use all 500 in one Site or split it between multiple Sites, e.g., Site A can get 200 pages, site B can get 50 pages, and Site C can use remaining 250 pages.
  3. When the checkbox is marked, a page is selected. You will see a additional context popup at the bottom of the screen with information on how many pages you currently selected, as well as a button Add selected.
  4. You can add content to your list by clicking Add selected.
  5. Adding content to the list will trigger analysis of added content. This may take a few minutes.
Start with the Recommendations tab. This is your shortcut to pages that’ll move the needle fastest.

Usually it’s content with relatively low Content Score and Position that can be easily improved. To better understand the potential of each recommendation, you can check their Score (last column in the table).

💌 You’ll also get these recommendations weekly via email—just whitelist [email protected] to make sure the emails reach you.

3. Pick a page → Click Optimize
This opens the article in Content Editor, ready to be reoptimized.

💡 Not sure which page to pick? Here are 3 easy tactics:

Start with Recommendations that have the highest Score.
When in Pages view, use Filters, to find content that is on positions 11-20 and sort content by Content Score from lowest to highest. These are usually fairly easy to re-optimize and can earn you a quick jump into top 10. If you don’t have content on positions 11-20 expand it to 11-30.
When in Pages view, use Filters, to find content that is on position 6-10 and sort content by Content Score from lowest to highest. If you can find content that has Content Score lower than 65-70, at the top it’s worth to consider re-optimization to jump into top 5.

Inside Content Editor: How to refresh old content

Clicking Optimize button will take you to Content Editor with the article already fetched from your website.

Review your Guidelines (optional but smart)
1. Adjust competitors in Customize Settings ⚙️ (ditch big, unmovable sites like Wikipedia or YouTube, keep relevant ones).
  
  Our algorithm always picks (by the quality of their content) top 10 ranking URLs for your article’s primary keyword but these may sometimes include pages you do not want to compete with (like Wikipedia). In that case, uncheck them.
  
  You can add different competitors by reversing this process and manually checking any empty checkbox on the competitor list.
  
  Remember: While we allow for manual competitor choice, we do not recommend it. If you still decide to do it, focus on pages that have high Content Score (ideally, 67 or higher). Your guidelines will be bechmarked off of the competitor list; if you pick poor content, you will receive poor recommendations.
  
  💡 If you’re optimizing content different than a blog article (e.g. a landing page or product category), try choosing competitors with the same content format and a high Content Score (ideally, 67 or higher)—this way, the guidelines will be more relevant to the format you picked.
2. Adjust Terms in Settings (add/remove if needed).
3. Open Facts tab in guidelines to scan what top results already cover. The competitive analysis takes a couple minutes, so it’s better to launch it ahead of time.
Start optimizing. Surfer will give you feedback as you go.

Here are some general tips:
- Don’t obsess over hitting 100. Aim to score 10–20 points higher than your top competitors.
- Focus on the most important terms first—they will always be at the top of the list.
- Use Boost Coverage button in the Facts tab to automatically add missing facts to your content.

💡 Need help writing?

Use Surfy in the Editor—type /ask or hit the button to rewrite, expand, format, or add a table. You can also ask Surfy research questions, like “What do my competitors say about this issue?” and then ask him to add the most interesting parts into your article. Here’s a list of the most useful Surfy prompts →

Start with Facts. Our research shows that this is the factor that correlates the most with SERP positions, aside from entities. In simple words: the more comprehensive content is, the more entities you can naturally cover and the more value Google sees in it.

You can add missing facts manually, through Surfy, or by clicking the Boost Coverage button in the Facts tab to add them automatically in bulk.
Make sure to include the suggested terms from the Guidelines tab. Put them in headings as well, as per Guidelines.

💡 Use Auto-Optimize to automatically insert missing terms.

(Optional) To add extra value, add one or two paragraphs with your unique point of view or experience related to the article’s topic.

As a general rule, the more trustworthy, expert, novel, and personalized your articles will be, the better they will do in SERPs, and sharing your personal experience is always the quickest way to achieve that.

3. Add internal links to the article
Use Surfer’s built-in Auto-Internal Links feature to automatically insert up to 10 most relevant and semantically related URLs into your article (GSC integration is required). You can also follow the manual workflow below:

Make a list of related articles - pay attention to the topics they are covering and if they are from the same content pillars and clusters.
Find words and phrases in the article that are related to the article you want to link to. Usually, it’s related to the main keyword other article is targeting, but you don’t need to use exact mach keywords.

💡 Diversify anchor texts using synonyms, sentences, and keyword variations. Or automate it with Internal Linking feature ;)

Check surroundings of this words and phrases. Paragraph should be closely related to the article you are linking to.
Make adjustments in the paragraph if needed.
Add the links. Remember to add the most important internal link in the first paragraph of your article.

There’s no exact number of internal links you should add. The longer the article, the more links you can place but remember: too many URLs in unnatural placements can harm User Experience (UX) and readability. Try to make all links as relevant, natural, and contextual as possible.

Note: You can mix both approaches or use just one.

4. Add images. Add a few images (+3 per article) to your article and make sure to include targeted keywords in alt texts. (hint: our AI image generation will do it for you ;) )

Use custom, unique visuals if you have them, or generate via Surfy. You can also use our Pixabay integration but keep in mind, that Google prefers unique, original images over stock images.
Give images descriptive file names. Make sure to include the keyword in the file name.
Write and add descriptive alt text to each image. Make sure to include the targeted keyword in the alt text.

Note: you can generate up to 3 high-quality images in manual Content Editors and up to 5 in Surfer AI. 3. Give images descriptive file names. Make sure to include keyword in file name.

When everything is ready, republish your article as quickly as possible—don’t sit on it. The sooner you get it out there, the sooner you will see the results.

💡 Add to your content calendar a note to review this article in 3 to 6 months.

🎉 That’s it. Your content is fresher, stronger, and ready to rank. Next up: How to find new topics and plan your content calendar →