This guest post is by Ahmed Safwan of To Start Blogging.
Do you have hundreds of posts in your archive?
Most of them receiving a big zero in traffic?
You aren’t the only one who has this problem. Most of the bloggers, even pro ones, have this problem. That’s why this post was created.
Your old posts can generate additional visitors for you. Let’s see how.
1. Create internal links
You’ve heard me talk about internal linking before. This is because it’s very important.
When you link to your old posts, you are giving more value to your readers and also to Google itself.
You will be able to get traffic to your old posts, decrease bounce rates, increase average time on site per visitor, and increase your rankings. All this from just linking to your old posts!
So, whenever you write a new post, remember that your old posts can also give value, and link to them in your new post.
2. Update your old post and republish it
Do you notice how CopyBlogger republishes some of its old articles from time to time?
Doing this will let you catch a break, and also get a raft of traffic to your old content while making sure that content remains current over time.
3. Spread it on social media
Social media can also send more traffic to your old posts. Tweet more than one post each day, to get the best results.
As well as scheduling tweets for the upcoming week, see if you can’t theme your old post tweets around events that are happening in your niche, or the world in general. Depending on your topic, a post you wrote six month or a year ago may provide an interesting coutnerpoint or reminder for readers.
4. Create a follow-up post
Maybe you have an old post, but something has changed around that topic. Great: create a follow-up post that shows what’s changed since you wrote that old post, link back to it, and you will get traffic to it as well.
This can be especially effective if there are valuable comments on the old post, and you can pick up on those in the new one. Tactics like this, which weave the posts together, give readers a solid reason to look back at the past post.
5. Use a “related posts” widget
When your readers reach the end of a post, they want to know what to do next. Show them related posts from your archives. This revives your old posts and provides more context and information to your readers.
Remember, they can be your loyal readers forever, so always try to provide them with the content they need. Your archives should be chock-a-block with it!
6. Use cornerstone content
Do you have a number of posts on a similar topic? Create a single post that contains all of these posts, as a one-stop resource for your readers.
This way, you’ll get more traffic from search engines, and show your authority on this topic—which can only help build loyalty among the visitors you help.
7. Link to your old posts in an email series
Last week, I received an email from Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income. It’s an email that’s sent to all new subscribers after a given time, and in the email, he was promoting an old post. What a great idea.
Create autoresponders to send weekly to your new subscribers. In these emails, you can include links to your old posts and relevant tips. This is a great way to create a richer relationship with your new subscribers.
Do you have any other ideas?
These are the common ways to promote your old posts. If you have another idea, share it in the comments!
In addition to being a successful blogger and a talented freelance writer, Ahmed Safwan is on a mission to help bloggers who want to succeed build the blog that can help them to do so. If youíre one of them, check out his blog for more Blogging Tips that Help you make money.
Great post,
I’ve been using a few of these techniques, but I’d like to implement more. I’m thinking of having a little section in my newsletter with something like “Old post of the week”, with one post advertised there. I guess it’s all about experimentation :)
You have said it correctly: “it’s all about experimentation”. Thanks a lot for your comment. Also, be sure to tell me if you have any idea.
Good topic Ahmed,
#7 above is my favorite.
Here’s a tip to add:
Search your blog for any terms that are trending on social media or Google trends.
The posts that naturally use these terms are perfect for polishing up and re-sharing while this topic is trending.
That’s one awesome additional tip there Darnell! Share old posts whose theme are trending. Aside from this, I have a mind to apply tip #4 and #6.
Thanks James for your comment. Tell me your results by applying the tips.
Thanks Darnell, I am going to do that one, not try! Great advice….
I am also going to do same. Tell me if you want any additional help. Thanks for your comment.
Thanks Darnell for your comment. I am going to try this with all others who are trying to do the same. Thanks for your comment.
Good post. I would add the right tags for the article.
And use it in newsletters.
That’s another great idea. Also, try to apply the cornerstone idea. I am sure you are going to love it.
All ways are very good ways to add life to your older blog posts.
Many new readers still haven’t discovered the gold in the mine of posts on your blog!
Always encourage your readers to explore more articles on your blog :)
That’s the reason why I created this post. Every one on the world must know about your awesome content.
Thanks for your awesome comment.
Hey Ahmed,
great post and good ideas for reviving old content. Event though my blog isn’t terribly old in internet years, I could see myself using a few of these techniques already – definitely have these down in my notes for “stuff to do” later.
But don’t leave it in that “stuff to do” note. Try it and I am sure you will like the results.
Thanks for your comment.
I really love the number one suggestion I just starting doing it on my blog and it help people alot so they know what else is out there .Plus they feel they have the next step in the plan.I never thought about cornerstone content before but it makes sense I should work on that
I am also going to create another detailed post on the cornerstone landing page. However, try it and then tell me what do you think about it.
Thanks for your comment.
I really like the points brought up in this post.
I’ve been using some similar tactics to make sure that the old stuff that is still quality is getting the views. The tip about the related posts, or even a random post widget dramatically increased the amount of views I had and got people reading stuff they might not have found from just browsing the first few pages.
Ill have to try out more of the other tips and see if they can’t bring my numbers up even more.
Thanks guys!
I am happy that you liked the tips. Also, be sure to check the cornerstone content tip. I am sure you are going to love it.
Thanks for your comment.
I like this site, it contains very informative information and people who will come across this site will gain lot of information about it. I will visit this site in future too.
Awesome points…Creating internal links and Using related posts widget are the best techniques to get traffic to the older posts…very useful post for all the bloggers.
Thanks for your comment Anand. I also hope to know your results by applying the tips.
really nice post!
its not that all of these are totally unknown, but thinking about them and having them compiled in one post is something really valuable… hope to implement at least most, if not all, of these!
Thanks man for your comment. I am glad that you liked the post idea.
Great tips. I implement a few of these tips, but not all of them, I will need to see how I can use them.
If you faced any problems, be sure to email me . I will be happy to help you.
Ahmed this is a great list mate. I’ve certainly been republishing old posts, or more appropriately, making them better and then linking new posts to my make good posts and I can’t tell you that it works! Your tip number 6 is a new one for me and yes I do have a number of posts that I can create a resource post with, so that will be my next task, thanks again.
I am really glad that you liked the post Samantha. Also, be sure to ask me if you want me to help you in any details.
Great advice – in the post and the comments!
I’m going to start doing a “One Year Ago” type of link at the bottom of posts (highlighting the post from a year ago that day). IF the post is worth revisiting, that is!
I think it’ll be something I’ll try on several of my websites.
Tell me your results. I am glad that you liked the post. Also, try more than a tip at the same time.
I am using the interlinking method as well sharing old post via tweets. Those techniques gave my older blog post life and as well help my new readers to discover my old stuffs which they can’t see on the front page of the blog.
Also, try using the cornerstone content idea. It has helped copyblogger to grow really really fast.
Thanks for your comment.
this is great tricks by these tricks we can modify our old post and publish in new way thanks for sharing,…
Thanks for the tips Ahmed.
I have often fought in the past with old content that is out of date or just not up to scratch and it can be frustrating.
One great tip that i would add is to use Screamingfrog’s SEO spider. You can easily find old posts that are buried 6 or 7 levels deep in your site and then use new posts to link to them and bring them back into the limelight.
Really awesome tip. Also, try to apply the above tips and tell me what do you think?
Great tips! We use internal links strategies in our blog posts to provide our customers with extra, relatable resources, and keep that traffic flowing! Recently, we have started compiling old posts and updating the material to create free ebooks for our clients. It’s a great way to reuse the content and still offer something fresh, directed, and valuable.
Thanks!
Sarah Bauer
Navigator Multimedia
Another way to repackage information instead of ebooks is to use cornerstone landing pages. Where you have a page to you are proud enough to share and get more subscribers.
Thanks for your comment.
Excellent.
What value do you and does Google place on external links and relevant pictures with Alt tags?
Thank you.
One technique that I am using to revive my old-posts is to implement the related posts (old posts) icons at the end of every posts. This can be achieved automatically through Plugins like nRelate.
Cheers!
But try to apply more tips and you will be able to get more traffic. Thanks for your comment.
Great reminders! There are some old posts that I have written with what I believe is great content that took me some time and effort to put together that I should really bring attention to again :)
Apply the tips and then tell me what do you think. Thanks for your comment.
I completely agree with Darnell Jackson, when you write article, i think you can some analysis on trends.
I also liked this tip. Apply it with some of the above tips, I am sure you will get awesome results.
Great and excellent clues, especially the linking back to old post, I don’t joke with that. Sometimes, I write evergreen post that is worthy of sharing all the time. Thanks Ahmed.
Thanks for your awesome comment. I am glad that you liked the above tips.
Good info! One question, when updating a post & re-publishing it, do you keep the old post up? If not, would this affect search engines looking for the old post?
Just change the date of the old post to today’s date. Like this, it will be on the top of the posts. Don’t try writing any other posts.
Thanks for your comment.
One question, do you run into duplicate content problems with search engines?
No, because I don’t duplicate content. I just edit the date and the post will be pushed again to the top of your posts.
If you have any other questions, please ask Tim. Thanks for your comment.
I’ve started to recycle some of my old posts that either drew a lot of comments or offered what I felt was good content. At first I felt guilty, but I’ve updated them and found that I’m getting a good response. Why do we think that people might have read a post we published three years ago!?
That’s why you should apply the above tips to make your post seen by larger crowd.
Thanks for your comment Jeannette.
Hi Ahmed,
Thanks for sharing this great list. I found your post here from the blog roundup over at Ti’s place.
I actually already do several of these. I link internally to older posts, although I’m not going back too far right now because I changed my focus about a month ago. I have a few older posts that might be somewhat relevant, but most of them would miss the mark by a long-shot.
I have the plugin Tweet Old Posts which automatically retweets older posts at an interval that I have setup. It makes life a lot easier as far as that goes. I also use a related posts widget.
One thing I literally just implemented today was linking to old blog posts in my email sequence. I just added a new email today linking back to a post from a couple of weeks ago that I’m using as the start of a series. I’ll be linking to posts in all of my upcoming emails as I go through this series. No sense totally rewriting all of that content in email form when I put a lot of effort into the blog posts to begin with. Plus, as you mentioned, it gets traffic flowing back to my blog.
Great suggestions! Thanks again for sharing. I hope you have an outstanding weekend!
~Barry
Thanks for this great comment. Your comment made my weekend outstanding. I really liked the idea of tweet old posts plugin.
Thanks again for this awesome comment.
I regularly link back to older posts on my main blog because it means people can find out more about the topic. If i’m just brushing past the topic because I’ve already written about it, it’s very easy to just link to that post instead of having to write more about it.
Also, you can use other tips to just build a resource page that can make you get more leads and sales.
Thanks for this comment.
I retired a monthly e-newsletter a few years ago and was able to copy and paste the key articles from it into my blog draft queue. I intend to tidy them up a bit and republish them as blog posts. There was TONS of content I was letting sit on my computer going to waste. Originally, only around 250 people read them anyway, so I am not robbing anyone of content which was meant for their eyes only as subscribers.