Your Old Blog Posts Aren't Dead. They're Just Sleeping.

We've been tricked. All of us.

That freshly baked, piping hot, sweet-smelling, pie called Original Content grabbed us by the collar. Assaulted our nostrils. Made us salivate.

This pie was made just for me. It's fresh and juicy. No one else has had a bite. I want the first piece. 

We bloggers know this pie well. We should, because we baked it.

As we create the content pie that becomes a new blog post, someone is standing over our shoulder. Maybe it's that Internet marketer who sends us their weekly newsletter. Or that hot-shot author whose book, "Create Original Content or Die," is on the bestseller list. And they are whispering:

"Say something new! "

"Write with your own voice!"

"Be original. Be Cree-A-tive." 

Why Bringing Back an Old Blog Post Can Be a Good Thing

Attention spans are murderously short on the Web. Plus, you are always collecting new readers.

So you have your memory-challenged regular readers. And you have a brand new audience that has never read your old posts. That means that with just a little tweaking (or a lot, if it makes sense), you can get more google juice.

Of course, if you just start republishing old posts randomly, without choosing carefully, you'll just be rehashing stale, boring ideas. But done right, you'll get a surge in traffic and, very possibly, some new subscribers.

5 Steps to Waking Up an Old Post

1. Revisit your older posts often. Your goal here is to find which posts were the most popular. If you see a certain post being viewed again and again, this is prime content to bring back. Sometimes it will be a post that had a lot of reader comments and sometimes not. Pay particular attention if the referring site (where the reader came from) is Google. If people are searching for help with a certain problem and they keep finding your blog post, you have a winner and you should consider republishing it.

2. Look at your title, sub-heads and formatting with a fresh eye. Reworking the title just a little bit could make your post even more popular in a Google search. An added benefit: Google will look at it with fresh eyes, too. Google Analytics even tells you what terms people were using in their search when they found your post. Adding intriguing sub-heads also helps—to break up the text and draw the eye to the important parts of your post. And check your spacing. Do paragraph breaks often to help readers skim and scan. Sometime my paragraphs are just one sentence long, especially if I want to add emphasis to a thought.

3. Consider updating the content. Your most popular posts got to be that way for a reason. If you can add new content, or rewrite, you'll capture more readers, people who wanted to know more about what you were talking about. So think about the new things you could add.

4. Add new tags. A tag is merely a keyword or category used to describe the topic of your post. Tags are indexed by Google and Technorati, so someone doing a Google search is more likely to come across your posts. Revisit your tags and think about whether adding a few new ones might help more people find your post.

5. Think about adding a new image or two. If you are like me, you didn't give much thought to images when you first started blogging. But images can be very powerful, hitting the part of the brain that triggers memory and emotions. The result: You attract more readers—and keep them engaged in your post. For more advice on what the right image can do for your post, read 5 Ways the Right Photo Can Get You More Blog Readers. For some good sources of photos, see my recent post, How to Find Spectacular Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Post.

What about you? Do you republish old blog posts? Do you think it's a good strategy?

Comments

[Carl Coddington]

I can't wait until your blog becomes popular. People are going to salivate over your writing style.

I really hope you start posting more often. I am eventually going to forget this blog exists and I don't want that to happen.

[Judy Dunn]

Carl,

Thanks for the compliment.

I'm getting a fair amount of traffic, but the level of commenting really fluctuates. I tend to do more in-depth posts, so aim for weekly publishing.

It is one of the big questions, though: shorter, more frequent or longer, more helpful. I did write a post on this very issue a while back.

Anyway, thanks for visiting!