If most of your keywords are already coming back to page 1 and page 2, I wouldn't spend most of the budget on new articles right at this moment. Your biggest opportunity is to push existing pages higher.
I'd prioritize internal linking first, then quality backlinks to key category and product pages, and only then new content.
Seeing as the site is already manifesting signals of recovery, this is typically the time to build authority and relevance rather than expand aggressively.
In my experience, moving existing keywords from positions 8-20 into the top 5 often brings in more revenue than publishing dozens of new articles. With a limited budget, I'd allocate roughly 50% to backlinks, 30% to internal linking optimization, and 20% to strategic content updates.