6 Surefire Strategies for Bringing Your Old Blog Posts Back to Life

by Andrey Milyan

Blogs are great, there is little doubt about that. However, the concept of the blog has its shortcomings. One thing that has been bothering me for a while is how quickly great blog posts disappear into oblivion. You’ve spent countless hours writing and rewriting that perfect post, just to see it vanish from sight within a week. So what can be done to make sure your visitors are able to tap into the priceless content of your older posts? Here are 6 surefire strategies to help you resurrect those older pearls:

1. Categories. Besides helping you organize your blog, categories can also help you keep your posts accessible longer. If you have ten categories with ten posts on the front page of each one, that means that you now have 10 times as much real estate as you would have with a single blog page.

2. Related Posts. Displaying related posts for each blog entry is a great way to get exposure for older content and get those pageviews per visitor up. If you are using WordPress as your platform, take a look at the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin or this one.

3. Random Posts. Setting up a “featured post” or “post of the day” can also help dust off those old posts. Again, if you are using WordPress, take a look at this plugin.

4. Drop standard blog layout. Is there any particular reason why you are still holding on to the same old blog layout? Personally, I really like what http://www.pronetadvertising.com team has done with their layout. Categories are a lot more prominent and once you select the category, only titles and dates are listed. That insures that more posts are being accessible to the visitor.

5. Post a summary. At the end of the day, or at the end of the week (depending on the volume of posts) post a list of all the entries. For example, Search Engine Land staff posts a SearchCap, where they list all of their blog posts for that day plus interesting posts from other blogs.

6. Send out a newsletter. Send out a weekly or monthly newsletter, highlighting the best posts you’ve made during that time. It is unlikely that everyone reads your blog daily so you can bet that your readers have missed a post or two.

You’ve put in a lot of hard work into those blog posts. Make sure your readers get a chance to appreciate them.

P.S. You are probably annoyed by all the lists being posted lately but after Garrett and Joe posted theirs, I felt left out. That’s how this post was born

Posted on February 22, 2007

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6 Responses to “6 Surefire Strategies for Bringing Your Old Blog Posts Back to Life”

Andrey Milyan Says:
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Just a note, Pronet Advertising site has changed their layout to a more standard blog layout. Too bad…
Jack Says:
April 16th, 2007 at 1:22 am

This is a great big question for a lot of people looking to build authority sites on a blog platform.

It’s almost as if they think a static site is any better at keeping information up at the top of a domain.

It also assumes people are entering your site ONLY on the front page and not via search results deep into your site.

The biggest concern should be how to improve old posts rankings once they start generating some results in the engines.

I think a lot of people post and forget that they can edit posts to optimize them for rankings once they see what the post pulls to begin with.

Finally, a blog is a web site plain and simple. Actually it is just a database with a query and reporting mechanism to display results.

When people understand that part, they loosen up on their old ideas of what a web site should be.

A web site should be dynamic and as seo friendly as absolutely possible.

(If your goal is to be found.)
Justin Ver Burg - SureFire Strategies Says:
June 25th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Thanks for making this information public!
Justin Ver Burg - SureFire Strategies Says:
July 6th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Do you think that a blog would help our business. We sell high-tech flashlights primarily to males. Do you think that well-to-do-males would spend much time reading a blog on our site? LumensFlashlights.com

Someone I know set up a blog at NickOnkenBlog.com and it seems like the fact that no one has placed any comments may hurt his image. Do you think the issue is that people just don’t know about his blog? Or does he need to nurture it more and keep posting new articles regardless of whether people respond?

Thank you,
Justin
Andrey Milyan Says:
July 9th, 2007 at 12:26 pm

Well, it takes time to get the blog up and running. If you are worried about your image being hurt by the lack of comments, you can always disable comments for a time being, and then bring them back once the traffic picks up.

I am not really familiar with flashlight market so I’m not sure if the blog is going to work well. It is clearly a very niche market so the success of your blog will depend on what you are planning to offer there.

Do keep in mind that marketing tools like blogs, social media, etc. are not for everyone. You will need to figure out for yourself whether these tools will work with your target audience.
Justin Ver Burg - SureFire Strategies Says:
July 11th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Thank you for the useful information. That’s a good point you make that blogs “are not for everyone.” Best regards!