One of the key rules that successful bloggers understand is that just because a blog post is old doesn’t mean that it has to die.
And, that they are the primary person responsible for ensuring that it continues to live on.
Here are some key tips to help your old blog posts take on new life, so that they become a long-term asset rather than a one-hit wonder.
1. Create “Best of” posts
These are blog posts that list other key posts you’ve written that are all related to a specific theme. They can be “best of [time period, on a subject, etc.],” “most commented on,” “my personal favorites,” etc. Watch the video to get lots more ideas on this subject.
Each of these posts contains links to 5 or more other posts, with a linked title and a couple of sentences of description about each post.
2. Upgrade your posts
Periodically review each of your old posts, looking for ways that you can upgrade it or bring it up to date. Are there additional points you can make, tips you can add, pictures or formatting changes you can make to it that will make it more valuable to readers, so that they will recommend it to their friends and link to it?
3. Add video to it
If it’s worth writing, it’s worth committing to video! Create a video about that subject, and embed it into the post. That alone could improve its search engine ranking, giving you more traffic to that post!
4. Build internal links to each post
Each time you write a new blog post think “what other posts have I written that add information not available in this post, that my visitors would find value in reading?” Then link to those older posts in your new post. Plus, you should go back in your old posts and do the same.
5. Get offsite links to old posts
As you know, there are tons of ways to do this like writing a guest blog post and linking to your old articles or writing an article which you post to a different site and linking to your old blog posts. In short, always think of your old blog posts as you do things that might create an incoming link.
6. Promote old posts through social media
Lots of people consistently promote their new blog posts through Twitter and Facebook. But what about old blog posts? Most people never read those posts in the first place, so they’re rarely redundant!
7. Email it to your optin list
Regularly email descriptions and links to both your new and older blog posts. This can be an amazingly powerful way to generate a ton of instant traffic, comments and new life for your old posts!
As you do these things, you’ll find your old blog posts getting more traffic, better search engine rankings, more incoming links and putting more onto your bottom line?
What have you done to get new traffic to old blog posts? Share your ideas by writing a comment below! And don’t forget to like and tweet this post!
Right on! Thanks for the tips, always amazed at your level of
expertise.
Thanks for these great blog ideas, Don—my mind is whirling with possibilities! But then, you always have that effect! Now I just need to “go do this stuff!” 🙂
I like to create whirling minds – that’s part of my job!
Don
Hello Don,
Thank you very much for your advices,
they are very good and relevant.
A big hug. Toader
Really appreciated these tips, Don. Not dating our posts keeps them evergreeen, and caring enough to update with additional content is a fantastic idea. It keeps us credible, and since the post has additional content, the RSS feed will reflect that and the post can be pinged again just to remind the search engines to take notice.
Hi Don,
Many thanks for the tips. I love the idea of revisiting old posts to find new ways to add value for the reader. I’ll also take a look at my blog to see if I can “undate” old posts.
Continued success and have a great weekend.
Don,
Great ideas and suggestions. I use Ping.fm to redistribute old blog posts to my social media, but also to the blogs and venues connected through my Ping.fm network.
P.S. Marlon Sanders would be proud of you! 🙂
Hi Don and fellow readers,
Great tips Don, I often link back to relevant old posts when writing new ones and your other suggestions has certainly given me food for thought.
And I’ll definitely take a look at the WordPress add-ins that Hani mentioned.
Here’s another idea for anyone who has a blog and has offline customers: publish your posts in a book.
I did a similar thing to Stephanie, gathering a collection of my blog posts over a span of a year but I decided to publish them in a book.
My blogs often include links to free gifts for subscribers (in password protected posts) or links to interesting posts made by other bloggers. so I decided to include all those links in the collection. I also contacted the other bloggers to get their permission to include their blog in the book.
The majority of the other bloggers, people like Rich Schefren, very generously agreed and it made my final book even more interesting for my readers.
I gave my subscribers a pre-publishing special deal and – even though they’ve got free access to the posts online – 32% of my subscribers decided to buy the book as well and gave great feedback on the content.
The book is available as a printed book (through Amazon and my own website) and as an ebook – with live links – from my website and has proved to be a good way to find clients who are not inclined to read or subscribe to blogs.
Great idea Carol! Actually getting PAID for your old, free blog posts!
Don
Great tips, really helpful to bring my old post to live. Re-use the old blog post is really a great way to create new contents with old articles. Thanks Don.
Your post is spot on for me…. One of my blogs was hacked and all sorts of links for spam crap was posted thru out the site, which has resulted in ruined formating damage to graphics and links in over a 100 posts!
After reading this it could be looked at as a brilliant opportunity to make it a much better up to date blog
with better graphics and more video. And two fingers up to the hacker!
I dearly hope that you’re doing some locking down of your comment stream too!
Don
Yes Don… I thought I had… will do a better job this time!
Don, nice tip and one for the lazy mind! This is one tip that I guess developers think of as anchor tags to content and internal linking is how developers think. How the creatives think is not so technical, so what you have here is a tip that brings technical and creative together. I love it.
Not only is this tip cool for refreshing the SE’s attention to your content it actually makes it better because you are providing a better user expereince for your visitors by letting them find your grouped content easier. According to Matt Cutts, although that is not a quote from him 🙂
Nice tip Don and look forward to more
Adrian
Hi Don,
Thanks for that. Interesting concepts – I guess we are all guilty of setting and forgetting!? I run a couple of regularly updated blogs in the alternative therapy niche and this has definitely given me the push to update and spring clean!!
Thanks
Jonathan
Hey Don,
Great information, and I love your stuff including the Social Profit Formula which has been fantastic.
I had a quick question about imbedding YouTube videos vs. using an XML sitemap and hosting your own videos?
Which is better?
I would think that Google would give higher precedent to actual hosted video with a nicely done sitemap with lots of good information and description tags and the splash image.
This has been confusing my team and I for quite some time so I thought I would ask.
Thanks!
Chris
I suggest that you do both – some on YouTube, some hosted. And definitely an XML sitemap which includes both (you know that video sitemaps don’t have to only include videos from your own site, right?)
Also, never forget that Google owns YouTube… They don’t consider YouTube to be an “enemy” site.
Don
So you are suggesting that we upload some videos to our client’s YouTube channels and imbed the video on their site, and then host others on our Amazon S3 using our own video players, BUT try to include links to both sources on our video sitemap profiles?
Thanks Don.
Yes
Don
Wow, thanks for the tips! Keeping lots of internal links and external deep links has become really important in the past 6 months and these are some great tips for getting those AND keeping “fresh” content on your blog.
Support for this very important topic, Don…
I never had a blog, but when I first got on the Internet in 2003, I joined a very popular social networking site (which has become inactive since everyone went to Facebook), created my own network and used that forum as my blog. For the first time in my life, I wrote…and wrote…and wrote. My original web designer told me to save all of my posts because I would use them again in the future. I listened to her. I also wrote my entrepreneurial memoir on the network as a continuous thread – it attracted a literary agent and attracted two book deals from major publishers – not just for the memoir, but for a book based on my teachings. I didn’t even have to write the “how to” book – everything was already written – on that “blog” forum. All I had to do was edit my own material – all of which were those past articles and posts from the network. The two completed manuscripts contain all the material I wrote online. Those old posts also became my ebooks and newsletter issues over the years. Just this year I have been repeating many of those past article posts for my newsletter. My new subscribers hadn’t seen them before, but I did become concerned that my longtime subscribers would notice the repeated material this year. But lately I have been receiving a lot of comments from longtime subscribers about how much they were enjoying my “new” material (heh, heh). They haven’t noticed the repetition!
By the way, the online version of my business memoir still sits on that now-inactive social media site, but the links to it are on my website. It has had over 34,000 views, increasing daily. It has brought me more attention and more business than anything else I have ever done.
So…that’s my longwinded way of agreeing: DO NOT ignore your past material. It is a storehouse of information that can be recycled many ways – and no doubt contains many of your most brilliant moments that you forgot about 🙂
Thanks for listening,
Marilyn Jenett
Great job Marilyn.
But this does bring up another important point – never put your key content up on someone else’s site, no matter how popular it is at the moment. Put it up on your own blog on your own site. You can write summaries of it, and point people towards it, on the other site, but keep your blog under your control on your own site! I have a rough time imagining a scenario where you will be unhappy for doing that.
Don
I know, I know. I was made aware of that. Generally speaking I know you are right. But I had my own network on that social media site – and that network was the launching pad for everything that happened. It had such a high ranking and high traffic and there was so much interaction between me and my members and with all of the other business networks on that site, that experts told me that it never could have happened for me with a personal blog. There was more profit from that site in the first year than in my corporate business! And to be honest, Don, when my webmaster set up a blog for me, it didn’t feel right to me. At that time, I needed to be with the members of my network and be in the flow of all of those other networks. There has never been another social media website since then that had so much substance and in-depth discussion or that offered the platform for someone to write as much as I did. It was unique, but the owner chose not to keep up with the trends when everything went to Facebook. But it was the perfect venue for me at the time. There is no way someone could write a 75,000 word memoir on Facebook! Or enough content to fill another 65,000 word manuscript. That site literally and dramatically changed my life forever. (Do I dare tell you that to this day, there is so much going on that I still don’t have a blog?) But again, I may be a maverick, but I agree with and defer to your expertise.
Ya…#1 is genius, gotta try that! Ok, that is all. Thanks
James Wedmore
Hello from Montana,
Thanks for sharing your tips and techniques. Always learn something new.
When I am on a book writing project, I don’t take time to post on blogs. Grateful to have some ideas to keep the blogs current.
Your friend,
Judy Helm Wright
Hi Don,
Many people have good ideas. You are more valuable than most out there because you deliver your insights in a simple, clear, easy to understand way. It’s not enough to tell people to go do it, they need to see what to do now. Thank you for the extra work it takes to help us get it easier and faster. Great Job!
Hi Don,
You mentioned something on your last webinar I had never thought about – and I think most people haven’t either – which emphasizes what you say in this article. You said why would we ever want to date our blog posts. While I do look at the date of posts when I’m searching for something related to a software version or an event, etc., I can see how it’s not a good idea from a marketing perspective. Thanks for the tip.
I’m grateful Jeff Johnson refered me to you! Because prior to meeting you I was getting ready to throw in the towel with social media. I was making all the mistakes U talk about in your “8 rules” for social media effectiveness..Just watching your FREE videos I’ve gotten 3 new clients, more traffic, retweets, boost Klout score, increase my followers, etc..Will definitely invest in your program once my income matures:) Thanks bud!
Simple and effective as ever Don – Thanks. These are the things we constantly forget while our focus is always on new things. No content should be wasted!
Love all of these suggestions! I have always been one to recycle posts when I am just too busy to put up something new…I call them FLASHBACKS. I go into my blog which I have been writing for 5 years now and I look back at what I was writing about each of the 5 years in the same month. I find a great older post and then send it out to my list and on social media letting people peek back into my past with me. Kinda like they do on radio stations when they play an oldie and say what year it is from 🙂
Great way to show people how consistent you have been if you have a long standing blog. Creates authority and respect from your leaders.
Don, I always learn something valuable and practical, and this time is no exception. I was just wondering about my old blogs that I put so much effort into, and so this instructional video was timely and appreciated. Thanks!
Also, I applied your you tube video leveraging tips and saw my blog and website go to the first page on google.
HI Don,
Great tips, so easy to do and will actually save time and upgrade my content.
Thanks
Sharon
Don –
Great ideas on reviving older content. I have used the social media technique you mentioned using Twitter and Facebook for about a two years ago now. I am often amazed at how a post that got zero comments the first time around will get all kinds of comments when I share it months or even years later.
I started by looking at every blog post I had written and having my VA create a text file with the title and shortened link for the title. I eliminated every post that was date specific (promotions, event notices, etc.) so that the only posts that were shared were solid evergreen content posts. Next, I took that text file and loaded the information into SocialOomph (here is a post where I talk about it http://www.productiveandorganized.net/2009/07/automated-delegation.html) Every month, my VA updates this file with new posts. The automated tool publishes the older posts on a frequency I determined by watching your social media training videos.
I love the idea of best of posts. Funny, I create a monthly mashup of the best that I have read and have never included my own posts. [slapping hand on forehead now…]
Thanks for the actionable post and great tips.
To your success!
Stephanie
Hi Don
Great tips again thank you. I will use some of these for my old blog posts.
Thanks
Oli HIlle
Author
Amazing tips Don! I have a few more to share with the group.
1. I use a free WordPress plugin called “Tweet Old Posts”. It does what the name says automatically at any interval you like!
2. I also use a WordPress plugin called “WordPress Popular Posts” which automatically showcase you popular posts (based on comments or on views) in your sidebar or on any page you like. Pretty sweet!
Cheers,
Hani
Don I have to say that I really enjoy your tips. I had watched a older video you made on using social media.
Always listen to what you have to say, you remind me of Marlon Sanders he’s always saying the same
thing “just go do something”. Once again enjoy all your information, your one of my favorites.
Anytime anyone compares me with Marlon Sanders is a very good thing!
Thanks,
Don