Over on Twitter last week @JapanNewbie asked me about how to get people viewing old posts on your blog once they drop off the front page. In this video I tackle the question with 5 suggestions including using:
- Best of Sections
- Autoresponders
- Related Links
- Best of Posts
- Repost Old Content
I’d love to hear your suggestions on how you drive people back to your older blog posts?
Related Reading:
- Updating Old Posts on Your Blog – how and why.
- Interlink Your Old Blog posts
Watch this video at full size on Youtube at How to Get People to Read Your Old Posts.
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I don’t worry about this. I installed the Feedjit.com widget that assures me that the search engines are sending people to various posts on my blog.
What about random posts ? Create a section on the front page which will show random post from your web site ( older posts ).
If thes contents good, and I really do mean good,
Then older blog posts always get read as long as your blog
has good internal linking, then your posts will be found by search engines.
I think the best method is using something like ‘related posts’ at the bottom of a post. Beacause the readers are interested in the article and wil read further on that topic.
And what’s old content? Older than 3 months, a year or ten year?
Suggestion: Adding video transcripts. I am one of those “lazy watchers”… I prefer to read than to watch (I read quicker!), and I guess you have a script you follow for your video, thus it is a win-tie scenario (I win, you don’t lose anything :)
Rubén
Definitely this will help me to improve my blogging. Thank you for your great ideas. I love it.
Thanks, Dareen your these 5 tips will certainly help me getting more traffic to my Old posts , which were once written with full zeal & interest and are good today too , but readers cant get them quickly due to the nature of a Blog ( reverse chronological display of posts )
For me, it has always been a concer how to send visitors on old post.. hope it will help.
So guys and gals, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Create more inbound and outbound links, refresh your old posts by giving them a new title and perhaps a few new sentences here or there, optimize your sites (blogs) with better targeted keywords and keyword phrases.
Some great tips here. I have never considered using my auto responder to send traffic to old posts. I am going to do this for my Japanese blog.
I think the best way is to get people to refer to previous blog posts for an answer, or support. Also, when you post something related, making a casual mention of the previous post.
Great blog, I may have zapped this note – so forgive me if its posted twice) In any event, I know that If I want to get stronger, get healthier, change my course, or simply find out what’s on the other side of making a tough decision, setting a big goal, keeping a personal commitment, or simply doing what’s right when it’s hard to do so, I have to learn how to push on through. and that keeps us strong. The only suggestion I can make is to “keep on trucking.” Our church’s preschool is trying to develop some different blogs, so thanks for hte advice.
Great tips and video! To get people to read my old posts I often use deep-linking where I link to a old closely related post.This gives the visitor more in-depth information and the search engines can crawl my blog deeper.
This topic looks something that need some time to watch the video and understand Darren’s tips.
Well, I will bookmark it and then watch the video later as I am now using a public computer and running bit late on time.
Your posts are always great Darren.
Keep writing and spreading the knowledge.
Thanks
Jay
I get a lot of reader questions and in my answers am able to link back to earlier posts.
Question: Does Google frown on updated posts as a form of duplicate content?
I always hoped that people would browse through the archives to look at my old photo shoot blog posts – but I guess that was wishful thinking – am definitely going to apply these principles which will hopefully make it easier for people to see our old work – thanks!
I’m new to blogging, and looking for ways to attract readers, so I’m definitely going to try a couple of these techniques. Thanks for the tips.
The one tactic that worked fantastically well for me was creating links to related posts at the end of most new ones. I had a huge surge in stats, and my page hits have stayed up there ever since as I do it consistently.
To simplify the process, I keep a word processing file that categorizes the most popular topics and lists links to the related posts. That way I can just cut and paste the relevant ones into the post. I add a link to each new to the catgegories in that file. A small bit of work that pays off hugely. (Some of my older posts regularly get as many as 100 new hits a month.)
One site I visit regularly, ElsaElsa.com, has a charming feature called “A year ago on Elsa.Elsa.” So many enjoyable features that otherwise would have been permanently buried. Donna Cunningham on Skywriter
I think that people who are really interested in your stuff will read all the entries you posted no matter what the date of posting it. Besides, like it was said, it is good to have categories.
I think depending upon whether your content has the ability to age will determine how many people read through old posts. I know myself that if it’s good and still useful/relevant content i’m happy to read back through time.
yes i agree to that sometimes mostly reader base their comments through previous post..
SleepBarn
I have a couple blogs that I can do a best of list, love the idea. I will however on some places like activerain, trulia, etc…I just repost something and bring the post up to date. I will try the other 4 suggestions and thanks for the video.
before this i just let people that come from search engine to read my post
I love the related links one. It’s really useful :)
Thanks for the great tips. I have already implemented some of them. I also try to reference my old posts via links from the newere posts if they are relevant.
Really helpful post. What you said about the three C’s in your other post, I couldn’t comment there but you got me thinking. I never focused on “consideration” I always wrote for myself. But if I want more readers I need to consider what ways should I communicate my ideas so that people will be influenced in a positive way rather then just get bored and never visit my blog again.
You’ve a great blog btw!
Great post. I’ve found that reposting blogs helps (remember to delete the old blog post). Also, make navigation on your site easier. Make your nav tabs easy to read and access, and people will click through to other blog posts.
I like the idea of re-posting old articles (however, change them up a bit) and a “best of the best posts”. Also, using the wordpress related posts is a great idea because people will find related subjects/articles they might have been looking for in the first place. Excellent sight for blogging information and tips, especially for people who are just learning.
Thanks for this. I already use the list on my heading. At the end of each month I place the articles I’ve written at the bottom of a pre-written page I have on my blog heading. This way all my articles get catalogued so they can be found by just clicking the appropriate heading at the top of my blog.
You just got one more follower Darren:) Tons of great info.
I have never heard of the related post plugin. Will definetly try this one out.
My tactic that I use on my blogs to bring the old content in the light again is to have a small block of all time most commented blog posts. This always attracts new visitors attention and always gets a huge ammount of clicks.
Reposting a old article is sounds like a great idea too.
Bubble Umbrellas
July
That’s easy. Construct sneeze pages. Works every time.
It becomes a challenge to remember what you’ve got to link to, of course, but it does add a lot of value to newer posts.
i have had no success with old blogs not being read on my various websites. it is a great idea to have newsletter subscribers get an email with links to old, best stuff. thanks. i will try to figure out how to automate this.