Everyone knows that when it comes to blogging, content is king. Many bloggers make the mistake of thinking that the only content worth a damn is that which they wrote last week however. This is completely the wrong attitude to have. As the months pass, the archives of the average blog continues to grow and those archives should not be left collecting dust.
Provided you take care of your old posts and you are willing to do a little bit of spring cleaning now and then, there is no reason why what you wrote last year cannot benefit your blog just as much as what you wrote last week. Killer content is timeless provided it's kept up to date and frequently exposed to both the search engines and your readers. Here are ten tips for doing just that.
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Brainstorm Better Post Titles
Changing the titles of old posts is not only one of the easiest ways that you can breath new life into old posts, it's also one of the most effective. You should make a list of the titles of all your old posts and keep that list close at hand for a few days or even weeks. Keep brainstorming and when that killer title idea hits you, you'll be ready to write it down. New titles are not only beneficial in terms of SEO, better titles will attract significantly more page views.
Rewrite Your Introduction
Aside from coming up with a better title, the fastest way to get more interest in your older posts is to rewrite the first few sentences. As any blogger will tell you, a posts introduction can make or break its popularity simply because it's often the deciding factor in whether or not the rest of a post gets read. When checking through your older content, whenever you find a sub par introduction, it's therefore well worth taking the time to rewrite it.
Swap Things Around
How well content is structured obviously has a major effect on just how readable the resulting post is. If you find that over time, you've started to structure your posts in a clearer, more logical fashion, don't be afraid to go back over your old posts swapping a few paragraphs around. Doing so requires no new words but can make those that you've already written significantly more powerful.
Add More Images
Just because your old posts don't contain massive blocks of text, that doesn't not mean that you cannot significantly improve their appearance by adding a few images. Nothing beats killer content except killer content that is also aesthetically pleasing. Don't focus exclusively on photographs either, info graphics detailing any statistics included in a post are also always worth adding.
Update Outdated Information
Depending upon just how fast topics in your niche change, you might find that a lot of your older posts have become inaccurate. This is especially likely if you are a fan of including informative statistics in your posts. A little bit of time and research is all you need to make sure that otherwise useless information becomes just as valuable as it was the day that you first published it.
Optimize for Keywords
It doesn't matter how well you optimized your posts for keywords in the past, your old posts can still be improved. This is because you now have access to information that you didn't have at the time, your traffic statistics. You should establish which keywords are driving the most visitors to your old posts and you should optimize those posts for those keywords. You might be surprised to learn which long tail keywords you've accidentally ranked for. A little bit of tweaking and your traffic should jump.
Convert Regular Posts to Lists
The most popular types of posts are invariable those of the list variety and therefore converting old posts into lists is always going to be worth your while. Provided you have the habit of writing in a logical and structured fashion, chances are most of your non list posts can be converted very easily. And you might be amazed at just how many more page views your old posts get once they have been converted into lists.
Add More Content
Don't make the mistake of thinking that you are always better off writing a new post rather than just adding content to an existing one. When you add content to an old post, you are not just benefiting from the new content. You are also increasing the perceived value of the content that was already there. Your are both increasing the SERP of that existing content and you are making the entire post more attractive to your blogs visitors.
Proofread With Fresh Eyes
Even if you are pretty disciplined when it comes to proofreading, it's always possible for a few mistakes to creep in unnoticed. This is because it's pretty easy to get so wrapped up in the process of writing a post that small mistakes become very difficult to spot. When you proof read a few months later, you are essentially doing so with a new set of eyes and therefore mistakes that were missed in the past can become much more apparent.
Link New Posts to Old Posts
Finally, internal linking is not just important in terms of SEO and bounce rates, it's also great for increasing the number of page views that your old posts receive. You should try to get into the habit of including a link to an old post every time you write a new one. Many bloggers link to related content but most focus on linking to their most recent work. New posts are likely to be read anyway, you should focus your internal linking efforts on getting your older content noticed.
on
I’ve been using some of these tactics (in a similar way) for some posts I had on my old blog that I never seem to care about anymore. They are still profiting and my community is loving everything I’ve set back once I “breathe” more life into it.
It’s always great to have reminders like this post, thank you.
on
To ensure the flow of new blog ideas, reading is the key! You can read other blogs. You should also try to look at what people are talking about in the different social networks. Your observations can stimulate new ideas for your blogs.
It is also advisable to ask someone to read your drafts. This is similar to the aforementioned tip on proofreading with different eyes. Asking someone you trust to read and evaluate your draft will help you come up with other insights.
on
I have been contemplating whether to focus on writing a lot of new content to propel my blog forward or go back over the last years worth of blog post written as I was learning the craft. After reading your article, I think it might be more fruitful to re-visit my older post and optimize them since I was such a newbie a year ago and growing into a toddler now. 🙂 Of course, I will still write new content, but I see real value in tweaking my older post. Thanks for the great ideas. With regard to the post title, I always understood you should not change the url. So if you change your title make sure the page url does not automatically update. Some plug-ins may update your slug when you change the post title.
on
Excellent post! Some really good information in there. I’m a relatively new blogger so I don’t have very old posts yet, but as I progress I will definitely keep this information close at hand. Updating outdated information and adding more content, I think, are really good ideas for breathing new life into older posts.
on
I read similar helpful tips before. Adding spice to old posts is the key into drawing new readers of yours to them. You can always add related posts plug in to your site to expose old postings in your blog. Quality content is a big factor so you must make sure that your every post is great or there will be no use of getting them up again.
on
Another way to use old content is to remember that a blog post doesn’t have to remain a blog post forever. Your older pieces will also be good in an email newsletter or autoresponder series.
Take pieces or even entire posts that are related and put them together into a white paper and then distribute that new document via document sharing sites. Turn a post’s content into a slideshow presentation that you can publish to those type of sites.
Good content is an asset and assets are meant to be used, not sitting there collecting dust.
on
I can see where older posts could really come in handy if one writes about subjects that happen at certain times of the year. i.e. crafts for Thanksgiving or spring gardening tips. Those topics can bring new traffic on an annual basis.
I certainly can relate to the proofreading comment. I wrote an article over a year ago and I must have proofread this article over a dozen times. I just had someone point out a spelling error! It was very embarrassing.
on
Proofreading is key! Using a set of fresh eyes can help you avoid future embarrassment.