Great blog post was focused on wrong keyword. Now what?

Originally Posted by Leonie van der Sommen

Hello,


I think this is familiar to all of you:

Let's suppose you write 100 blog awesome, long articles.

Roughly 10 of them rank superbly.

70 of them rank pretty good, and they need to be updated to perform better.

20 of them don't rank at all for the keyword that you chose to write the article about.

OK. This is pretty normal.

-> What to do with those 20 blog articles that won't rank at all for your chosen keyword?
It is obious: change the keyword to some other keyword.

For example:
A blog article about the keyword 'class management' can be changed to a blog article about the keyword 'how do I get my students to listen?'

So, you change the title tag, meta decription and keyword density to match your new keyword.

Now there are 2 options. Which one is the way to go?

Option 1:
Delete that blog article that doesn't rank, preserve the text of it, and put it in a brand new blog post and use that text, with adjustments, so that it is focussed on a new keyword.
Advantage: new blog posts get a boost from Google. It is a fresh start.

Or...

Option 2:
Keep that blog article, and just update it right there so that it focusses on a new keyword.
Advantage: updating a blog article is a ranking factor.

Which one to choose?

Thank you in advance!