What do you do with all of the old content in your site archives? Does it just sit there languishing? Does it attract spam comments faster than you can delete them?With just a small amount of effort, you can breathe new life into your old content so it helps you achieve your goals rather than simply taking up server space. Here are five tricks to revive your old content to get you started:

1. Create a Frequently Asked Questions Page

Search your archives for pillar content. This is the evergreen content that explains the basics about a topic. Create a new Frequently Asked Questions page on your site and aggregate the links to that old content to use as the answers to those questions.

2. Update Outdated Content

If you published content about research studies or news and that content is now out of date and irrelevant, take some time to gather the latest research data or information and update your articles. A useless old article can turn into a very useful new piece of content that includes not just new data and information but also historical data and information!

3. Compile Content into an "Ultimate Guide"

Do you have a number of old pieces of content that are all about the same topic? If so, you can pull them together and turn them into an "Ultimate Guide" about that topic. The old content can become a new "series" or you can publish all of the content together on a new page on your website.

4. Update Product and Service Reviews

If you review any kinds of product or services in your content, then it is highly likely that some of your older reviews could use an update. This is particularly true of reviews of technology products where features, pricing, service, and so on change quickly and frequently. That five-star review you gave to an application two years ago might need to change into a one-star review today.

5. Add New or More Images

If your old content doesn't include images or just includes one image per article, take some time to add new images to make the old content more visually appealing and more shareable on visual social media sites like Pinterest.

Repurposing Old Content

There are many creative ways to give old content a new life, but you can also repurpose old content and turn it into completely different types of content. A blog post can turn into a video or a SlideShare presentation can turn into an ebook or a series of blog posts.Don't let your old content go to waste. Instead, invest some time into giving it new life or repurposing it into other things!How do you breath new life into your old content? Share your tricks in the comments below.Image: gfpeck licensed CC BY-ND 2.0