How to Maintain and Update Your Existing Web Content

As digital transformation accelerates and organizations publish more content than ever, websites and apps quickly fill up with outdated articles, pages, and assets. What was timely in 2020 may now be irrelevant or inaccurate.

Marketing and editorial teams are often focused on producing new material, leaving little time for reviewing their existing content inventory.

But when you do get the chance to maintain and update your digital experiences, where should you begin?

Decide on a Strategy

Start by defining your purpose: awareness, lead generation, sales, support, or something else. Publishing content without a clear goal leads to clutter and weak results.

Regardless of industry, SEO (or its modern AI equivalents of GEO/AEO) remains crucial. Modern search engines favor both established and updated content.

With Google’s continuous search updates and increasing emphasis on helpful, accurate content, maintaining evergreen pieces regularly is more important than ever.

Put Everything in a System

Once your strategy is clear, organize your content so it can actually be managed.

Asset Overview

Create a complete inventory of all digital assets—pages, posts, documents, images, product information, audio, PDFs, etc. This can live in a spreadsheet, a DAM, a CMS, or a combination.

Modern tools increasingly include AI-powered tagging and automatic metadata extraction, which can drastically speed up cataloging.

See also: Our New AI Will Boost Your Content Productivity »

Calendar

A content calendar helps you track what you've published, when it needs updating, and what’s coming next. Simple spreadsheets still work, but many teams now use collaborative planning tools or CMS-integrated calendars that support automation and reminders.

Editorial Process (ContentOps)

Adopt a repeatable editorial cycle—like ContentOps—where ideas are planned, produced, published, and then re-evaluated after a set period.

With AI increasingly integrated into content workflows, teams can accelerate updating, repurposing, and quality control while still relying on human judgment.

Set Alerts

If your calendar isn’t enough, set alerts—inside the CMS, in your project tool, or even on your phone. The platform doesn’t matter as long as it keeps you proactive.

Use On/Off Time

For seasonal or time-sensitive content, automate publishing and unpublishing through your CMS. This saves time, reduces clutter, and removes the risk of outdated campaigns staying live too long.

Work better: Content Studio Cheat Sheet »

Involve Subject Matter Experts

Writers and editors shouldn’t update specialized content alone. Involve experts to verify accuracy, add new insights, or reflect industry changes, especially in fast-moving fields like healthcare, fintech, AI, or regulations.

How to Decide What Needs Updating

Even with good processes, you must decide what to prioritize. Subject matter experts can guide you by highlighting recent developments or shifts in the industry.

Maintain a shortlist of important themes and review related content regularly. New tools, like AI content audits and semantic search, can also help identify outdated information, missing topics, or declining performance.

Analytics remains crucial: use tools like Matomo Analytics, Search Console, and heatmaps to find pages with low traffic or declining engagement. Then evaluate whether they need updating, merging, or removal. AGConsult offers additional guidance on underperforming content.

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Maintaining and updating your digital content may seem overwhelming, but with the right structure and ongoing processes, you can ensure your content stays relevant, accurate, and valuable.

First published 21 January 2021, updated 14 January 2026.