Today’s task is to create a Sneeze Page for your blog.
What is a Sneeze Page?
The term ‘sneeze page’ is one that I came up with for the 2007 version of the 31 Days to Build a Better blog and is a concept that I’ve been using as a key strategy in my blogs for quite a few years.
The idea is simple – to create a page that propels people in different directions deep within your blog by highlighting a variety of posts that you’ve previously written.
Why a Sneeze Page?
The challenge that many bloggers face is that over time the archives of their blogs fill up with hundreds and then thousands of posts. The problem is that by default a blog generally only highlights the most recent posts that you’ve written on the front page while the majority of your posts go largely unnoticed once they drop off the front page.
A sneeze page is all about showing off those archives.
Benefits of Sneeze Pages
There are a variety of reasons that a sneeze page can be powerful:
1. It shows off your archives – I don’t know about you but when I spend hours (if not days) crafting a blog post, I want people to read it! Sneeze pages lengthen the time that people interact with your older posts.
2. It’s great for SEO – search engines not only look at the links that other people make to your posts in order to give them ranking but the internal links on your blog. Linking to old posts can help them grow their search engine ranking.
3. It can help create a ‘Sticky’ Blog – I’ve not seen stats on this but it is my suspicion that a person arriving on your blog for the first time increases the chances of coming back to it the more great posts that they view on it. Get someone to read 10 great posts that you’ve written previously instead of 1 and you’ll exponentially increase the likelihood that they’ll subscribe and become a regular reader.
Types of Sneeze Pages (with Examples)
There are many ways of creating a ‘sneeze page (or post)’ for your blog. Lets explore some:
Themed Sneeze Pages – these are posts or pages on your blog or site that revolve around a single theme.
http://digital-photography-school.com/landscape-photography-tips/
For example here on ProBlogger I have created sneeze pages around some of the main themes for this blog such as:
- How to Make Money Blogging
- How to Find Readers for Your Blog
- How to Write Great Blog Content
- Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers
- Using Social Media Sites to Grow Your Blogs Traffic
These sneeze pages (and others) are linked to prominently around my blog – including the ‘best of ProBlogger’ section of my front page.
Similarly – on DPS I’ve created pages for key topics (like Composition Tips, Digital Photography Techniques, Portrait Photography Tips, How to Photograph and Digital Photography Tips for Beginners) and link to them from navigation areas. I find these pages generate a lot of page views both themselves and the pages that they link to.
One more example that steps away from some of the posts that are purely lists of links is 21 Settings, Techniques and Rules all New Camera Owners Should Know – this post is still a list of links but it is written more as a post with pictures and descriptions of the points made in each of the posts linked to. While the examples above are all ‘pages’ in WordPress and didn’t ever appear as posts this last example just appeared as a normal post on my blog.
Time Related Sneeze Pages – these pages are based around a defined period of time. They are usually a ‘best of’ post that highlight your key posts from that period to either remind readers of previous posts that they might want to revisit or to highlight posts that they might have missed.
The period of time that you choose can really be anything from a year through to a month, week or even a weekend (ie a post that summarizes the posts from a weekend that those readers who don’t read your blog on a weekend might have missed). Blogs that have a particularly high frequency of posting often use these quite regularly.
For example on dPS we often do wrap up posts that give summaries of the best posts of the first half of the year or at the end of a year.
From our end of year wrap up posts – this one highlighting our best portrait related posts of the year.
Retro Sneeze Pages – Another variation of this ‘time related’ sneeze page is to do one that unashamedly shows off a number of posts from your blog from a particular point in its history. The most common way to do this is to do a post highlighting posts from the blog from a year ago. LifeHacker was another blog that did (and still occasionally does) this (example).
Lifehacker’s ‘one year ago’ sneeze page
Series Sneeze Pages – many bloggers use the technique of writing a series of blog posts that allow them to explore a topic over a period of time with lots of interlinked posts.
One key with writing a series of posts is to make sure that readers have a trail of links between posts so that they’ll not only read one but the full series.
A great way to help readers discover a full series is to develop a sneeze page. All of the posts in the series should link back to it and it links to them.
Series Sneeze pages can become key pages on your blog. For example here on ProBlogger one of my most popular pages is Blogging for Beginners which started out simply as a list of posts from a series I was writing specifically for beginners.
Promote Your Sneeze Page
Sneeze pages can be an effective way of driving people deep within your blog – but they’ll only do that for as long as you’re able to drive people to the sneeze page itself.
As a result – a sneeze page is something that you’ll want to promote and position prominently on your blog in a place that people will continue to see it. Do this by linking to your sneeze page from navigation menus, sidebars or other ‘hot zones’ on your blog.
Create a Sneeze Page and Share it With Us
OK – it’s time to go create a sneeze page for your blog. Once you’ve done it please do come back and share a link to it in the comments below as I’m sure there are a lot of creative ways to use these types of pages that we could all learn from by sharing them.
Check out what others are doing with today’s task in our thread for Day 18 in our 31 Day Forum.
Want More?This task is a sample of one of the tasks in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook – a downloadable resource designed to reinvigorate and revitalize blogs. Join over 14,000 other bloggers and Get your Copy Today. |
Ohh, I’m right on top of this one, that will be my post for the weekend.
Although making a sneeze page with a small archive of just two months worth of blogging will be a challenge.
I’m really enjoying this challenge, keep up the good posts Darren!
This really is a must have for any blog. Many times…Google searchers and fly by night readers have no clue how to navigate and find information on blogs. Having pages like this greatly increase the chances that readers will find more of your quality content and turn into long time readers.
Great idea Darren, I created this sneeze page a while ago for a series I wrote.
http://back-links.org/11-things-to-consider-before-you-start-blogging/
Hope you like it.
This is a really fantastic idea, however is harder for new bloggers to do!
Instead I’m going to focus on building a twitter welcome page. Rather than just sending Twitter people to my home page, I’m going to send them to their own special page with my best work!
I totally agree with you. For instance, I’ve done it for an article about 5 ways to safeguard its Firefox profile.
Another thing to promote old posts is the creation of an archives pages or a best of articles block in the sidebar.
Thanks for your tips !
Wow. This post comes at a great time. I have been contemplating creating this kind of grouping for a series of articles I am writing on my blog.
It’s not done yet but I’ll come back and post a link. Can you suggest if a WordPress page or post works best for this? and why?
Been meaning to do this for a while, thanks for inspiring me Darren.
Wow, glad I logged onto Twitter just as you tweeted this :P. This is a great idea. I thought about doing something like this but wasn’t quite sure on how to actually approach it. Great post and great idea. I especially like the time related ones. A best of this month, or that year type of thing could be really effective.
One way I thought about getting more traffic to older posts would be in using blog comments too. I think that if a person is commenting on a dofollow blog of fair to high popularity, and leaves a good post with the “website” section linking to an older post, they may get some more hits to it :P. Great post though, love it.
Great idea. I love coming across these pages, especially when I visit a new blog for the first time. It’s a great way to get a feel for the topics that the blogger covers regularly. Even if I am not interested in everything a blogger is posting, knowing that there will still be plenty of material I am interested makes me 10x more likely to subscribe.
I think it also gives bloggers a way to come up with post ideas if they are stuck in a rut. We can look back at our splash page and very quickly and easily find topics that we haven’t posted on in a while, or would like to expand on.
I’ll get started on this task this weekend, at the latest. My blogs are both fairly new, so it shouldn’t be a hard task.:) Great tip. Thanks, Darren.
As promised, here is my sneeze page for an ongoing blog series. It was a big quickly hacked out for this purpose but I will improve it soon. Do let me know if you think it works.
http://sidekickblog.com/how-to-modify-the-mimbo-30-theme-285.htm
I decided to go with a post for the sneeze page.
This is a cool idea I’m only just starting out but am already worrying about content getting lost!
I think related post plugins like yarrp helps with this too, but a sum of page of most popular pages would work really well for me too
thanks
Thanks Darren for a great tip. My own blog is just an infant at present, so this is not something that would be particularly useful right now. But I’ll definitely file it away as a good idea to consider further down the track!
I’ll have to look into this. It sounds like something that will keep people around on the blog.
just did that where i listed my most googled tips in previous months
http://www.tipsgoda.com/2009/04/top-20-most-googled-posts-from-tipsgoda.html
I’m not quite sure this is prominent on my blog, but it is under my Pages header on the left sidebar and is across the top of my header. I call it Best of Cardiogirl.
http://www.cardiogirl.net/?page_id=1099
I’ve made special page for Twitter followers http://www.rolandinsh.lv/blog/twt/ and You’re right I’ll need to meke some All-in-one info page
Hehe, you brought back memories of childhood – sneezing while eating a lamington was one of the funniest things there was!
Another type of sneeze page is one you create in response to being featured in the media or on a large web site. You can quickly create a post welcoming those new readers, and pointing off to key posts on your blog that may interest visitors from that particular source.
I recently did a page like that when I was interviewed for an article in our local newspaper:
http://green-change.com/2009/03/18/welcome-illawarra-mercury-readers/
This makes perfect sense especially as archives grow…
I have seen the sneeze effect used extremely well at the NY Times and at problogger too.
I will keep this in mind as I develop more material for my currently small blog. The challenge for me now is to keep adding to my few blogs.
Thank you for running this fabulous workshop. Everyday, I check in to see what else you have up your sleeve Darren.
This is great Darren,
I have gone ahead and I am creating one right this second. It will be one looking at my posts from a year ago.
My blog has changed domains twice since then so it will be really interesting to look at
http://www.ryanmclean.net/one-year-ago
Thanks for the opportunity to link to it.
Darrin, I love the tabbed approach that you’re using on the home page of ProBlogger. It elegantly meets the needs of different reader segments – beginners, people who want to catch up with the best of PB over different time segments, and people who want the very best of your blog’s content (“all time” and “Darrin’s favs”). I assume this was custom coded – or is it a WP plug-in? It would be awesome if such a plug-in did exist.
How much maintenance does this require on the PB blog? Do you invest some time at the end of each month hand-picking the posts for the “this month” tab? Or does it automatically pick the posts with the greatest number of views?
Here’s my “articles” sneeze page:
http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/articles/
Nice post Darren, this is something that a lot of people miss, and to be honest I am haven’t deliberately done a sneeze post on my blog in a few months. I’ll put my hand up and say that I hadn’t even thought about listing relevant posts from a series onto a single page, but this would be a lot more user friendly that just the categories. Thanks!
I must admit I’d never before heard about sneeze pages, but I like the idea, and immediately gave it a try. I created a sneeze page for people who are starting out to use Google Adsense: http://www.icantinternet.org/2009/04/adsense-articles-for-everyone/
This is a great idea! I had noticed that you do that on one of your blog posts I was reading and then found that I’d spent the next 20 minutes on problogger.com.
Here’s my attempt.
http://thebetterleader.blogspot.com/2009/04/do-we-need-presentations.html
Been looking at the sneeze pages you mentioned. They are pretty good.
I will definately be creating more sneeze pages for my blog in the future.
Brilliant way to remember the gold ol’ days and to give out some great information also
Ok, mine’s up. This was a useful exercise – making me realise how much I had covered this topic. I’m sure there are many others I could do – http://getpaidtowriteonline.com/the-joy-of-blogging/
Great idea! Who knew? How about a look back of your personal favorites over the first 6 months, or each year? Stay tuned!
I’m thinking that a sneeze page every 50 posts will be a good idea, that way I can recap what I’ve done and also update any older sneeze pages.
Some time ago I created a “How to use this blog” page, that is part of my main menu. This page features some specific articles to let the new reader know how to make his way through our archives. I may give it a twist and update it some “top read” posts or series.
During last year I did something similar to Lifehacker by creating a “flashback” post every Friday highlighting the posts from the past week for the last 4 years. I noticed no one read it, so I decided to use that time for other things.
I use to receive many questions at my Contact Form from lazy readers unwilling to dive in the archives or use the Search box, that gives me the chance to bring up old posts from the archives my self by publishing their questions and linking to those old entries. But I;m not sure that’s a sneeze page or post. Is it?
Have a good day…
This is an excellent idea. I’ve written sneeze pages (although I didn’t know they were called that) for two series that I write – “Get Your Creative Groove On” and “How to Be an Innovator.” The links appear at the top of my blog. However, I’m not doing much to promote them right now, so I’ve written a “sticky” post that will promote these series and stay at the top of my blog. I feel like the post is too long, and maybe I should cut out one or two of the series I have listed. You can view it here. I’d appreciate any feedback!
This is an awesome tactic. I started something of a sneeze page a few months back where I list exclusive content that I had created for the blog.
http://www.reignofthegirlchild.com/2007/01/fgg-real-deal-workshops.html
This “Reign Exclusives” page is listed on the Nav bar so it’s easy to find.. Right now it contains only interviews and some workshop information but you’ve given me some ideas on how I could expand it even more by adding other categories.
Great advice!
I created a sneeze for the Top 25 Ways I Save Money at at http://www.howisavemoney.net/save-money/25-ways-i-save-money-the-full-list/
This allows my readers to go back to each of the five posts I wrote on that topic and read all of the top money saving tips in one place.
Thank you for this incredible idea! It is a simple way of growing your blog that most bloggers won’t take the time to do. It also proves you are a professional.
I will use this idea when I gain more archives.
Dugg it!
Bookmarked it!
Sphunn it!
Thanks!
I have actually done this before and agree that it’s a great way to show off those past posts. Thanks for the reminder to revisit this technique. I recently added the Organize Series plugin and like that so far (you will see it in action on my college guide sneeze post below).
Talking Technique
College Bound – Your Career in Dance
Children and Dance
Ahhchooo, Bless you.
Ok enough of that. A sneeze page hey.
Well I suppose that this really works well if you have a lot of historical posts.
What do you think is the minimum posts to have for a sneeze page to be viable. Or is it just that you want to point people to old topics.
Of to my blog to see what sneeze pages I can create
Thanks
Well, Darren, I’ve written something that looks like a combo of “link post”, “list post” and “sneeze post”.
Need your opinion on that.
How to Find an Internship
http://www.aarknet.org/blog/how-to-find-an-internship-206
im working on it, thanks for the tips Darren !
You just stumped me! I have been up to date with every project till now: http://www.se7en.org.za/2009/04/23/se7en-and-probloggers-31-dbbb-part-3
I wrote a post on a reader question after task 16 and more than doubled my usual comments!!! Great Task!!! (http://www.se7en.org.za/2009/04/22/se7en-reasons-why-children-dont-play-anymore)
I know I really need to do this and make a sneeze page, it just seems a little overwhelming to get started… I will have to ponder on it!
I often wondered how to promote old blog posts and never even thought about implementing this ideaa. Thanks once again!
Good Info sir. by the way will related articles (automatically generated) be considered as sneeze pages as well? or should we really create a link inside the post itself.
I have a list on my sidebar called “Behind Pink Ink” which highlights some posts that I feel give more insight to myself.
I also have a “news” button that I update regularly which lists and links to interesting things I have done.
I love blogger’s new linkwithin gadget. I can link to related posts automatically and it unburies some old stuff even I have forgotten about! I have this at the end of each post.
Another wonderful suggestion for all of us – no matter what level blogger we are.
As a new blogger, I don’t have very many posts yet, but I do have enough that I am already worrying about some of my early posts traveling off into oblivion. This will be a great way for me to continue to give these posts some exposure.
As a student, I rarely thanked my teachers for giving me homework, but in this case . . . thanks for the homework!
Here’s my sneeze page, linked from every page within the site:
http://www.mikeslife.org/content/useful-resource-posts-new-bloggers
Since I run a popular science blog, a lot of my posts are what you would call evergreen and can be used as a reference in newer articles. And that’s primarily how I use them.
However, I did try to create something sneeze-page like in the side-bar. Calling my categories “topics” and going to a template that shows them as a list, I’m trying to encourage people to burrow deeper into my blog and spend some time exploring posts on topics they care about.
Great ideal. I’ll have to create some today.
Excellent refresher on the sneeze page concept. Ever since I read your original article a year ago, I have been using this technique with great success!
Here I used it to make a complete guide to craps:
http://news.silveroakcasino.com/craps-strategy/
There are 15 articles in all (craps is a complicated game!) and using the sneeze page I was able to bring them all together in a series format which makes all of the articles way more accessible. It also allows me to give suggestions for which order the user should read the articles in- very useful!
This is an awesome post. Squeeze pages are definitely great for driving up your pageviews. It is difficult to get them ranked high in search engines unless you can get a lot of links back to it.
What I have done is just linked to my squeeze pages throughout my articles so that the search engines can constantly find them when the spiders come. It usually tells the search engines that these pages are important. Just don’t over do it because it will look like Spam.
Hi,
One way to do this is one that I have used:
Present some of the search words your users have used to find your blog. And then link the search words to apropriate posts.
Regards,
Fredrik – Självförsvarsbloggen
en blogg som hjälper vanliga människor att bli bättre på självförsvar
Another great concept. Sneeze Page.. LoL… I will have to try this with my hosting plan comparison site.
For series, I would recommend the “In series” plug-in (available for download @ http://remstate.com/projects/in-series/ )
You can see it in action on my blog – the table of contents nicely ties together the two parts of this story.
http://www.observingcasually.com/fiction-friday-the-tale-of-the-wolf/
As I add more to the story in the future, I can easily append them to the series (by simply cmaking a couple of clicks within the WordPress “new post” screen) and the “table of contents” in the older posts are automaticallty updated.
I’ll also be adding a “Best of The Casual Observer” page very shortly.
OK guys, I took a look at nearly all your sneeze-pages. It’s maybe just me, but I don’t get it.
What I observe in most cases is this: you make a sneeze-page and then don’t put it in your navigation. You link to it from a post that will be soon on page 20 of your blog. So your sneeze-page will drown together with your post.
What do I miss? Can someone explain this to me?
Darren, it’s a great idea b.t.w.