How to Use Yoast Duplicate Post to Make Old Posts Look New Again

Flipboard, Pinterest and other traffic sources love brand new just-published posts. What do you do when you’ve created evergreen posts that are as fresh ten years from now as they were when you published them?

Enter Yoast Duplicate Post plugin, with the “Rewrite and Republish” option. This plugin has several features to help you clone posts with minimal risk of accidentally publishing the same post twice.

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You know the importance of consistently publishing fresh, engaging content to keep your audience coming back. But you also know you’ve got some good old posts that are worth updating, polishing and republishing for the fans who didn’t see them 10 years ago.

Why Fresh Content Matters for Traffic

Let’s talk about why it’s so important to keep your blog looking fresh. Sites like Flipboard, Pinterest, and even Google love to see new content.

When you update and republish old posts, these platforms sometimes treat them like brand-new articles. That means you can get another spike in traffic from posts that already proved popular.

But it isn’t just about getting more pageviews. Fresh content tells your readers (and search engines) that your site is active and up-to-date.

It also gives you a chance to fix any mistakes or add new information that’s become relevant since you first published the post.

Hidden Benefits of Repurposing Old Posts

Revamping old posts isn’t just good for your readers. It can actually save you a ton of time as a blogger. Instead of starting from scratch, you’re building on something that already exists. This means:

• Less research time: You’ve already done most of the heavy lifting.
• Faster writing: You’re not staring at a blank page.
• More confidence: You know the topic works because it’s been successful before.

Plus, when you update older posts, you can add new affiliate links, update your calls-to-action, and make your content work harder for you.

What is Yoast Duplicate Post?

This plugin has quickly become one of my favorite WordPress tools because it allows you to quickly and easily create new versions of your existing blog posts, so you can publish them like new, but without changing the URL that’s already indexed in search.

Yoast Duplicate Post is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to create duplicate versions of your existing blog posts with just a few clicks. This can be incredibly useful for a variety of reasons:

• Updating Outdated Content: As time passes, the information in your blog posts may become outdated or inaccurate. With Yoast Duplicate Post, you can easily create an updated version of the post, preserving the original while giving your readers the most current information.
• Repurposing Popular Content: If you have a blog post that has performed particularly well in terms of engagement, views, or conversions, you can use Yoast Duplicate Post to create a new version that builds on the original’s success.
• Experimenting with New Formats: Maybe you want to try presenting your content in a different format, such as a video, infographic, or podcast. Yoast Duplicate Post makes it easy to create a new version of the post in the desired format without starting from scratch.
• Targeting Different Audiences: If you have a piece of content that could appeal to multiple audience segments, you can use Yoast Duplicate Post to create targeted versions optimized for each group.

The beauty of this plugin is that it preserves the original post while allowing you to make changes and improvements to the duplicate version. This gives you the flexibility to experiment and try new things without losing the equity you’ve built in your existing content.

The Rewrite and Republish feature is the one I’m using right now. It makes a copy of your old post, which you can edit. Once you’ve edited it, you update the date if you want (or even schedule it for future republishing), click “Republish” and it replaces the old post.

What Rewrite & Republish Does

If you want to understand what’s going on behind the scenes, here’s what the plugin is taking care of for you. You could manually:

• Create a new post
• Manually copy over everything you want, including attachments, SEO plugin settings, the URL slug, etc. (With Yoast, you may still have to copy one or two things, but it gets most of it.)
• Edit until you’re happy.
• Change the date on the post, if you want to refresh it, which is my goal.
• Delete the old post to free up that URL
• Quickly publish the new post on the old URL

But with the plugin, that workflow is simply:

1. Click “Rewrite and Republish” and it opens the “new” post for you.

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2. Manually copy over anything Yoast missed. For me, that’s the settings in the Novashare plugin and nothing else. (Hubbub Pro does carry over its options to the new post.)

3. Edit until you’re happy.

4. Change the date on the post, if you want to refresh it, which is my goal. You can schedule it for the future if you want.

The plugin will take care of deleting the old version and then saving the new one to the old URL. I haven’t had any glitches with this, and I’ve tested it on 3 sites so far.

How to Install and Use Yoast Duplicate Post

This is a straightforward process that can be completed in just a few steps.

Step 1: Install and Activate the Plugin

First, you’ll need to install the it on your WordPress site. You can do this by navigating to the “Plugins” section in your WordPress dashboard, clicking “Add New,” and searching for “Yoast Duplicate Post.” Once you’ve found the plugin, simply click “Install” and then “Activate.”

Step 2: Pick the Post You Want to Duplicate

Next, go to the “Posts” section of your WordPress dashboard and find the blog post you want to duplicate. Hover over the post title and you should see a new “Duplicate” option in the dropdown menu.

Or you can open the post and click it from there, as shown above.

Step 3: Customize the Duplicate Post

When you click the “Duplicate” option, a new version of the post gets created. You can then customize this duplicate post as needed. This might include:

• Updating the Title: Consider giving the new version of the post a fresh, attention-grabbing title that reflects the changes you’ve made.
• Revising the Content: Go through the post and make any necessary updates, expansions, or edits to the text, images, and other media.
• Optimizing for SEO: Use the Yoast SEO plugin to optimize the post’s metadata, including the meta description and focus keyword.
• Changing the Publish Date: You can update the publish date to make the post appear as a new, fresh piece of content.

Step 4: Publish the Duplicate Post

Once you’ve made all the desired changes, simply click the “Publish” button to make the new version of the post live on your blog. You can also schedule the post to go live at a future date if you prefer.

Step 5: Promote the New Post

Don’t forget to promote your revamped blog post across your various marketing channels, such as social media, email newsletters, and any other platforms where you share your content. This will help drive traffic to the new version and ensure your audience sees the updated information.

Best Practices for Updating Evergreen Content

Just copying an old post and hitting publish isn’t enough. To really get the most out of this process, here are some tips:

1. Do a Content Audit

Before you start updating, look through your old posts and pick out the ones that have done well or still get some traffic. These are the best candidates for updating because they already have some authority and interest.

2. Check Your Facts

Things change fast online. Double-check any facts, statistics, or product links in your post to make sure they’re still accurate. Outdated info can hurt your credibility.

3. Refresh Visuals

If your post has images or graphics, swap them out for newer ones if possible. Screenshots especially can get outdated quickly, and new visuals can make your post stand out.

4. Add New Insights

What have you learned since you first wrote the post? Maybe you have a new tip, a better tool, or a personal story to add. Your readers will appreciate the update!

5. Improve SEO

Use this chance to tweak your keywords, update the meta description, and make sure your post follows the latest SEO best practices. The Yoast SEO plugin can help guide you step by step.

How “Rewrite & Republish” Helps with SEO

One of the trickiest parts of updating old posts is making sure you don’t mess up your SEO. If you just create a new post and delete the old one, you might lose backlinks and search rankings you’ve built up over the years.

The “Rewrite & Republish” feature is a lifesaver here because:

• Keeps Your URL: Your post’s web address stays the same, so all your backlinks and search engine rankings stick around.
• Updates the Date: Search engines see the new date and know the content is fresh.
• No Duplicate Content: The plugin replaces the old post with the new version, so you don’t have two copies floating around.

This combination means you get all the benefits of fresh content without losing the hard work you put in before.

Tips for Promoting Updated Posts

Once you’ve updated and republished a post, don’t just sit back and hope people find it! Here’s how to get the word out:

• Share on Social Media: Even if people saw your post years ago, most have probably forgotten about it by now.
• Email Your List: Let your subscribers know there’s something new (or newly updated) on your site.
• Use Pinterest/Facebook Groups: Share your updated post in relevant groups where people might be interested.
• Internal Links: Go through your other posts and link to the freshly updated one where it makes sense. This helps both readers and search engines find it.

Troubleshooting: What If Something Goes Wrong?

Tech stuff doesn’t always work perfectly, so here are some quick fixes if you hit a snag:

• Didn’t Copy Everything? Sometimes plugins miss things like custom fields or settings from other plugins. Double-check before hitting publish.
• Formatting Issues: After copying, preview your post to make sure everything looks right.
• Broken Links or Images: Test all links and images in the new version.
• SEO Settings: If you use other SEO plugins besides Yoast, check that all your settings carried over.

If something goes wrong, don’t panic. The original post usually isn’t deleted until you republish, so you can always go back and try again.