Revamping/Re-optimizing State Pages - What to do with old content?

[LindsayE]

Hello Moz Fam!

I work in the insurance industry and we serve all 50 states. We have a state page for each state where the content is thin(ish). We're slowly revamping each page and hitting every talking point for that specific state. I've used multiple tools to come up with a content template and link building template for each page as well.

I spent 5 months last year proof reading all these pages. So the content is good, just not SEO good. I didn't have the team or resources to really optimize them all yet, now I do. My question is...  what should I do with the old content? I was thinking of publishing it to other platforms that we have a contributor account on and linking back to each state page with it. Of course, I would wait a few days for the search engines to index the new content so it wouldn't be duplicated on these platforms.

Good or bad idea?

[Andrew-SEO]

I would try and incorporate the old content in the new content to get an even higher word count. Does the new content have a rewritten form of the old content? Do you definitely have no use for it on your own site?

[LindsayE]

The old content is completely going to be rewritten, we're doubling the word count. The current verbiage will be reworded and updated, but won't be the same. We're being cautious regarding knowing what state specific keywords were ranking for currently so we know what keywords need to stay. We also have all the competitors pages that are ranking pulled to compare too as well.

So... no, we won't have any need for the content on our own website anymore.

We've only done one state page so far, we have the remaining scheduled out over the next few months. I would say we have about 4-6 pages per month being revamped.

I can use the one we just completed as an example to show you.

• Are new updated New York content
• Where I published the old content (published today, the author bio links back to our own New York page)

[Andrew-SEO]

Using your old content on other sites and generating backlinks from it is certainly a good strategy.

If your not using it on your main site and can use it on relevant industry sites and generate backlinks, then that sounds like a winner to me.