By 2025, getting to the first page of Google isn't the sole focus anymore. With AI-driven answer engines, voice and visual search, and more zero-click interactions, search is changing. The emphasis is now on providing users with quick, accurate answers while ensuring your brand is visible where decisions occur.
This guide will help you update your content strategy for the modern SEO environment, combining classic essentials like keyword research and technical optimization with new approaches for generative AI, user intent, brand authority, and AI visibility. Whether you're updating an old blog post or creating new content, these steps will keep you ahead in 2025.
Related article: What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?
Why You Should Update Your Old Content
Content can become outdated quickly if it's not refreshed to align with current trends. Pages that once ranked highly may lose their position or relevance in AI-driven search outcomes.
Updating content:
- Keeps it accurate and relevant for today's users.
- Enhances visibility in AI-based answers and zero-click searches.
- Reinforces your brand's authority and expertise.
- Boosts traffic and engagement by matching current search intent.
Tip: Focus on pages with dropping traffic, outdated data, or those that target crucial queries in your field.
Tip: Our free SEO audit tool analyzes website content and gives recommendations to leverage top-priority pages and get better SEO results, such as improving SEO titles, meta descriptions, title links, etc.
This enhances your website’s credibility and boosts the freshness score of your content, improving SEO and enhancing your overall ranking.
Interestingly, the average page among the top 10 search results is over two years old. Refreshing an older piece of content can be more effective for ranking than creating a new article.
Which Content to Update
No, not all of your website’s older content needs to be refreshed. There’s a difference between topical content, fast SEO and evergreen content. Some articles are very topical (e.g. company news), which makes these types of articles very hard to re-use.
Evergreen content, on the other hand, is a bit easier to update. These articles have been written to stand the test of time and are purposefully written to rank on certain search topics and relevant keywords.
Before deciding on the content to be updated, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my content still relevant to my business or product?
Businesses often change their focus or target new audiences, making old content outdated. - Does my content have a higher potential for search volume than the current keyword?
Check if the main keyword can boost monthly traffic more than the article's current performance. - Does my article still match the search intent?
- Did I write my content to increase organic search traffic for a particular keyword?
Articles written for specific events may not need updating since they won’t attract more visitors after the event. - Has my content already been successful in the past in driving traffic?
Look at past data to see if the content previously brought in traffic. If not, consider if updating is worth the effort. - Does my content have enough backlinks to compete with other results on the first page?
If your article lacks backlinks and ranks low, more effort will be needed compared to articles with better rankings and more backlinks.
How Often To Update Content
There aren't strict rules for optimizing your content, but starting with quarterly content audits is a good approach.
Check for any decreases in traffic, especially for content that previously attracted valuable leads. If you notice a blog post's traffic is dwindling, it’s time to update and optimize it to regain both traffic and leads.
Now that you understand when and why to update, here are ten ways to refresh old content to enhance your SEO strategy.
Tip: By using StoryChief’s free analytics, you receive automated suggestions for keywords and topics, ensuring your content remains relevant and competitive.
How to Improve SEO & GEO: 10 key updates
- Revalidate keyword research & intent
- Rewrite headers within your articles
- Update your meta descriptions
- Update your article headlines
- Check and correct any grammatical or spelling errors you might have missed
- Optimize images for SEO
- Update any outdated content and fill content gaps
- Remove or update broken links
- Add internal, external, and backlinks
- Improve the quality of your content
Analyze your SEO efforts and get personalized recommendations. Try StoryChief’s integration with Google Search Console for free.
1. Revalidate Keyword Research & Intent
Keyword research is no longer just about search volume and competition. In 2025, focus on:
- Search intent: Informational, transactional, navigational, or conversational queries.
- AI-driven queries: How chatbots and answer engines frame questions.
- Real-time trends: Use AI content platforms to see trending queries and topics.
To reassess your keywords, use SEO audit software to analyze your existing content. Some original keywords may no longer perform well, so retarget with precise, high-value keywords that align with current search intent and AI visibility.
2. Rewrite your article headers
Headers are more important than ever as Google and AI search have become user-centric. Use H2/H3 question-style headings and structure content for skimmability:
- Use bullets, lists, and clear subheadings.
- Maintain logical flow so AI and search engines can easily parse content.
Header Tips:
- H1: Use only once per page, include the focus keyword naturally.
- H2/H3: Organize content in a system that makes sense to the audience. For example, H2 = main topic, H3 = subtopics or steps.
- Answer clearly: Each header should answer a user query concisely; AI bots often pull featured snippets from these sections.
Example Header Structure:
3. Update meta descriptions
Updating meta descriptions boosts click-through rates (CTR) in search results:
- Write multiple meta description variations to see which performs best.
- Tip: Test your meta descriptions in paid search campaigns (Google Ads) to identify high-performing copy quickly.
- Include relevant keywords naturally and align descriptions with user intent.
4. Update content headlines
80% of people read the headline but only 20% of those who see the headline read the content. That makes good titles and content headlines super important when it comes to updating older content.
So, what makes for an excellent content headline?
- Use listicles: “10 Tips on How to Improve SEO in Marketing.
- Include the current year: “SEO Marketing Strategies for 2025.”
- Use checklists: “SEO Marketing Checklist for B2B Marketers.”
- Optional clickbait: Only when content delivers on the promise.
Related article: 75 Headline Examples That Get The Click
5. Check for grammatical and spelling errors and fix them
Ever noticed a spelling error in a blog post that you were reading? Yeah, we’re no fan of them either.
Poor grammar and incorrect spellings can make for a bad user experience. And it’s actually bad for your SEO since Google is moving from a keyword-centric model to a user-centric model.
So when you update your older content, don’t forget to do a grammar and spell check and rectify all the errors.
Grammarly is a great tool to help you check your grammar and spelling.
6. Optimize images for SEO marketing
A small change that can boost your SEO significantly is optimizing your images.
As we said earlier, search engines work by “crawling” websites. But Google’s crawlers cannot crawl images. For Google to “crawl” your pictures, content marketers add image titles and alt texts. Here are a few tips on how to optimize images for SEO.
- Filename: Use descriptive, keyword-relevant filenames instead of IMG0001.jpg.
- Alt text: Keep short and descriptive; include focus keywords naturally.
- Size & format: Use optimized formats (WebP), compress images for speed, and enable browser caching.
- Optional captions: Add captions for context where relevant.
7. Update any outdated content and fill content gaps
Has the world changed since you wrote the original piece of content? Most likely, yes. You may want to check for outdated references and update them with new, accurate information to make the content more relevant for the audience today.
To do this, you should search for new and updated information about the content you’re updating and include it. Add the latest updates in the original article to show that you have updated the article to improve the user experience.
PS. StoryChief automates this process by analyzing your article's coverage against the top 10 search results and recommending any missing keywords or topics.
8. Remove or update broken links
Once you have decided to update a piece of content, you need to check each internal and external link to ensure none of the links lead to a 404 error page.
If you find any such links, you have three options.
- Remove the link
- Update the link with a working link
- Update with a relevant link addressing the same use case
9. Add internal links, external links, and backlinks
As you already know, there are three types of links for SEO - inbound links, external links, and backlinks.
Internal links are the easiest to fix. While you’re updating your content, add relevant internal links pointing to other blogs or site pages. Also, find other content on your website, which can point to this updated piece of content and link back.
External links are relatively simple, too—link to the relevant information source you have used to validate your article's specific points.
The toughest of the lot is backlinks. If your article does not have any backlink, you should ideally not update it, as getting backlinks is a crucial step in making it rank higher. However, if you want extra backlinks, you should be ready with an outreach plan.
10. Improve the quality of your content
Google’s goal is to provide the best result for a certain search term.
If you want your content to be the best result, you’ll need to publish high-quality content. Not only that, it has to be way better than everything else on that topic. Ahrefs calls it 10X content.
This means that you need to check if your content is just like everything else available on the web (1X) or is it a little better (2X), or is it the best possible content on that topic (10X).
The better the content and the more shareable content, the longer it stays at the top of the search results.
So, how do you improve the quality of your older content to make it 10X content?
- Quality: This could comprise of an excellent website design, easy-to-read content, and usefulness of the content.
- Uniqueness: Is your updated content unique compared to everything else available on the web, and does it add value to the audience?
- Authority: Are you a subject matter expert or an authority on the topic?
Summary: SEO & GEO Audit Checklist to Improve Traffic and Rankings
Here's a comprehensive checklist for conducting a modern SEO and GEO audit:
- Scan for broken links, duplicate content, missing meta tags, and crawl errors using Screaming Frog, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.
- Monitor indexing in Google Search Console.
- Check load times with PageSpeed Insights; optimize Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP).
- Ensure mobile-first design, clear navigation, and voice/visual search readiness.
- Refresh thin or outdated content
- Align with search intent and AI/answer engine queries.
- Use clear H1/H2/H3 structure, bullets, and short paragraphs.
- Optimize title tags, meta descriptions, and alt texts.
- Implement FAQ/Q&A/schema markup for AI visibility.
- Audit backlinks for quality.
- Build credibility with author/organization profiles and track AI citations.
- Expand or update content, explore new keywords via StoryChief, SE Ranking, SEOptimer, or AI Keyword tools.
- Track traffic, CTR, engagement, and AI/answer engine visibility.
- Set alerts for errors, broken links, or speed regressions.
✅ Tip: In 2025, visibility isn’t just clicks — being cited by AI or featured in answer engines is equally important.
The three types of SEO
When you’re working on the SEO of your website, it’s important to understand and optimize your website for each of the 3 types of SEO. This is what that means:
Technical SEO
Technical website setup plays a crucial role in how search engine crawlers index your site. Ensuring that your page load times are optimized can improve user experience and contribute to search engine success. Additionally, using alt tags for images not only aids accessibility but also helps with search engines' goals of understanding content.
On-Site SEO Strategies
On-page strategies focus on optimizing individual pages to target competitive keywords effectively. By enhancing the content quality and relevance of target pages, you can boost page authority and meet modern SEO standards.
Off-Site Factors
While on-site SEO efforts are vital, off-site factors such as backlinks also influence search engine success. Building a network of high-quality links can further elevate your site's authority.
Monitoring AI-generated results from chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity also counts here—tools like HubSpot’s AI Search Grader offer insights into the type of information these chatbots display about your brand and how to increase presence on AI search results.
Final Thoughts on How to Improve SEO & GEO
While many classic SEO tactics remain relevant, 2025 demands adaptation. AI-powered search, zero-click interactions, and brand authority are redefining success.
Approach SEO with a “SEO + GEO mindset”, focusing on both traditional search and AI visibility.
Refresh content regularly, optimize for intent and AI comprehension, and measure beyond traffic — being the definitive answer is the new win.
Grab your free SEO analysis today. No more hassle of switching tools and getting overwhelmed with keyword data, just actionable SEO insights at a glance.
