The Modern Rules of Managing Your Old Blog Posts
When you are running a blog, it is easy to get caught up in creating new content. It might even make you forget all about the articles that you have written before.
Yet, even if you only write one article a week for your blog, and one a week as a guest post on another blog, you will have a portfolio of more than 100 articles in just a year.
This collection can be viewed as an investment. It has the potential to earn you money, and just like any other investment, it needs to be managed.
You need to manage your content, measure its results, and make sure that it is bringing in the best possible return.
There are several ways that your old articles can be used to your advantage.
Historical SEO Optimization
The concept of historical optimization is straightforward: In this process we optimize our existing content with the purpose of boosting its search engine visibility and conversion rate.
When people read through your blog, chances are that they will read as many of your old articles as they do your new ones.
By optimizing the past and ensuring that these older articles are optimized for SEO and conversions, you will know that you are not missing out on conversions when people read these articles.
In fact, these articles have a positive role to play in helping you to achieve more of your content strategy goals. As such, they should regularly be checked to make sure that the content that they contain is up to date.
Link to Your Old Posts and Back From Them to Your New Content
If you write a guest blog article on other business blogs, you will probably include information in the byline towards the end of the post about you. It should contain a link to your blog, offer or website.
If you link to this article from somewhere else, this has two advantages.
Firstly, it helps you maintain a healthy relationship with the person whose blog you are writing on, as it will assist them to build links.
Secondly, it will also help you to create your second tier links, as by sharing the original article, you also include a link to your content.
Using Content Syndication to Reach New Audiences
The idea behind content syndication is taking a high-quality article and republishing on other websites, with the purpose of reaching new audiences.
By syndicating your content you leverage existing high quality articles, and save the effort of producing new ones.
By organizing your existing articles in an online content hub, you increase the chances of being approached by larger websites with a request to syndicate your content.
This may mean that you need to check back often on your guest blog articles to ensure that they are still relevant and that the content is up to date.
Before writing guest posts and syndicating your existing content, make yourself familiar with the search engine optimization implications of these practices. The value and risks associated the guest blogging have been the focus of a long debate.
Similar discussion is revolving around syndicated content. Make sure that you know how to retain the SEO value of your pieces when publishing your articles on other networks.
Revive Them On Social Media
Social media can be an effective way to draw attention to your older blog posts. Even if you usually publish all your articles on your social media pages, you may have gained new followers since your original article was published.
Social media is used all over the world so even content that you posted a few hours ago may be missed by someone on the other side of the world.
Using social media to promote particular articles is something that you should regularly be doing. It needs to be part of your standard blog promotion work.
Use Your Old Articles As References
To keep your old content relevant, you need to think carefully about how it is being used.
You should also consider whether these uses will bring in a new audience. One way to do this is to create a new piece of content that references your old articles.
For example, you may decide to write a how-to guide in a topic that people will visit your blog to find out information about.
Each of the points that you make here will probably have already been discussed in earlier articles and more detail.
As part of your how-to guide, you can direct people to these articles. Particularly if they want more in-depth information on a certain point.
Use Them In Your Autoresponder
One of the key aims of your blog should be to attract new subscribers. Once you have these subscribers, then you will want to add them to an email list so that you can keep them informed of any new developments.
However, it is also important to ensure that list stays responsive to the messages that you are sending them.
One way to achieve this is to include your existing piece of valuable content in your autoresponder sequence on every campaign that you send.
This is where your old articles can be used, as long as you ensure that they stay relevant to the message that you are trying to convey.
Use Them As A Base For Answering Questions On Sites
These types of question and answer sites are another place that is ideal for you to get your blog noticed. The idea behind these sites is that people will ask questions that the community will answer.
By including links to your old articles in your responses, you are helping these items to be seen by a whole new readership.
Remember it is not just the person that asked the question that is likely to visit your blog, but also others that have the same query.
By providing answers that are of real help to people, you will gain a reputation for being a trusted source, and this can dramatically increase the amount of traffic that your blog receives.
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Ron Sela
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