In This Post, We’ll Talk About Ideas To Get Double Benefit From Old Blog Posts
Nowadays, most bloggers consciously or unconsciously follow the rule “a new day, a new post.”
Thus, they believe (and perhaps, quite reasonably) that so they will be able to attract more new readers to their resource. I personally stick to the formula “better fewer, but better”
Nevertheless, some bloggers are so passionate about writing something new, that sometimes they do not notice what is under their noses – namely, already written posts on the same topics.
These posts might have their own readership, but for whatever reason they do not operate at full capacity. I would like to share my ideas about what can be done about old posts to increase their search engine rankings and page views.
Here are the top 10 tips how to breathe life into your old posts.
Contents
#1. Link New Posts to Old Ones
The first and most obvious solution that will give your old posts a second life is, of course, a direct link to them from new articles.
Thus, you will not only attract your readers’ attention to your “dead” post, but receive an internal link to it which will be counted by Google. You may give an anchor link in post body or link the related post in Mashable “SEE ALSO” style.
Don’t forget to paste links in those old posts to relevant new ones as well. Cross-linking is very important!
#2. Revise Post Keywords
If an old post receives too little pageviews, it means that you picked up unpopular keywords or your post does not withstand the competition with similar ones on other resources.
The advice here is to reconsider the post keywords. Use Google Trends and Keyword Planner to search for better keyword ideas.
Maybe, it is worth narrowing the main keyword to your niche only or choosing a synonymous phrase which has a lower competition.
#3 Rewrite Post Title
Once you revised the keywords, you will need to make alterations to meta-title and meta-description tags. It is a common trend that Google may prefer your post headline instead of the title tag.
So you have to take care of both. Just rewrite the article title in some interesting way. Use powerful adjectives like “killer”, “incredible”, “awesome”, etc. for eye-catching headlines.
For example, we at Freemake Blog love adding “Best of 2024” at the end of the title to show the recency of the post to the readers.
#4 Change Post Thumbnail
The post first image is its face, so it should be attractive and speak for itself. Plus, the post thumbnail goes to all social media channels and can boost referral traffic if chosen appropriately.
Go to Google Images or popular stock photo sites to get free images under Creative Commons license for any topic.
Keep in mind to write appropriately the alt, title and description tags for your image to be indexed by Google.
#5 Compile Old Posts Into a List
Another interesting way to revive your old posts is to combine them into different lists or series of articles on a certain topic.
You may organize own tops – I mean “Top 10 (100, 5, 3, etc.)”. For example, “Top 10 Articles About Blog Monetization”.
It will require minimum efforts, however, the profit is obvious. At the end of the year you may unite the best posts which got most social engagement or page views on your blog into the “Best of 2024” list, like Lifehacker does.
#6 Add Videos and Podcasts
Readers appreciate when you accompany your articles with some additional content like podcasts or videos. Look through YouTube and iTunes to pick up relevant audio and video materials and embed them into your old blog post.
If you have enough time and skills, you may create your own videos and podcasts on the basis of those old posts, then upload them to YouTube or iTunes and provide links to your articles.
Thus, you will receive additional promotion possibilities and attract a new audience from these channels.
#7 Bookmark to Social Media and Q&A Sites
Share old posts on all your social media channels and ask your friends to do the same.
Check out popular forums in your niche and Q&A sites for the opportunity to mention your old article in the thread.
For example, on Yahoo answers, there are tons of open questions in numerous categories. A simple keyword search will help you find those questions to which you may reply with an old post link suggestion.
#8 Suggest to Read
Add a custom widget “I advise you to read” to your sidebar section.
The idea is that this post link will be visible site-wide, and thus you will increase the likelihood of its being visited by your readers.
Alternatively, you may install any of the related post plugins to show old posts among related content suggestions at the end of the article.
#9 Send Across Newsletter
If you send a newsletter to your subscribers on a regular basis, just consider including the revived blog post links into it.
Look here at the ideas on how to boost your email subscribers if you don’t have many of them. Another idea is to add a link to an old post in your email signature.
#10 Change Post Publication Date
The last and easiest way to reanimate old posts is a simple date change. WordPress let do this very easily.
Thus, you may do so that your 2-year-old post will be re-scheduled as a recent one. So it will be featured on your main page.
While the benefit of this means might be disputable, I can say that I have examples when such a date change helped combined with other tips from the above list.
I hope that the ideas listed above will help you take a fresh look at your good old, but forgotten blog posts.
Just keep in mind that sometimes it’s more useful to reconsider already written pieces than to create new ones. Don’t forget to write updates if the information provided in the post becomes outdated.
And of course, check the related articles before writing a fresh one.
Maybe, it is worth applying some of these tips to revive them?
