Written on March 2nd, 2010 at 12:03 am by Darren Rowse
5 Tips for Getting Readers Viewing Your Old Blog Posts
Over on Twitter last week @JapanNewbie asked me about how to get people viewing old posts on your blog once they drop off the front page. In this video I tackle the question with 5 suggestions including using:
- Best of Sections
- Autoresponders
- Related Links
- Best of Posts
- Repost Old Content
I’d love to hear your suggestions on how you drive people back to your older blog posts?
Related Reading:
- Updating Old Posts on Your Blog – how and why.
- Interlink Your Old Blog posts
Watch this video at full size on Youtube at How to Get People to Read Your Old Posts.
183 Responses to “5 Tips for Getting Readers Viewing Your Old Blog Posts” - Add Yours
Surgery Houston
March 2nd, 2010 12:56 am
The volume on the video was a bit low for me.
I have tried a few of these tactics in my short time as a blogger. I use the best of links in the sidebar. I have linked to older posts within the contents of my newer post. I also have reposted old stuff. It all works pretty well. I just need to stick to the techniques. I get too lazy.
Bojan
March 2nd, 2010 1:01 am
I like the related links one because that brings other entries that people are interested in.
Nibras Bawa
March 2nd, 2010 1:01 am
Archives based competitions !
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer
March 2nd, 2010 1:02 am
I used the Related Sites (by Blog Traffic Exchange) plug-in to auto-generate related internal and externals links
I also manually link to other articles when appropriate.
I used to have a “best of” section, but they I became a multi-author site and didn’t want to have the headache of judging which articles were the post, at the risk of offending authors who didn’t make the cut.
I repost older content on a rare ocassion. One of those ocassions is coming up, as I’ll be reposting my review of the best baseball sites as we come upon the new season.
Martijn
March 2nd, 2010 1:02 am
Nice! I also red something about a WP plugin to tweet your old posts. I kept it in my Read It Later List for later, but maybe someone could use it now?
http://www.blogussion.com/wired-weekend/twitter-traffic-bring-life-back-to-old-posts/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogussion+%28Blogussion%29
Kosmo @ The Casual Observer
March 2nd, 2010 1:03 am
@ Nibras – I haven’t done an archives-based competition before, but a friend of mine did. He gave away a gift card of some sort to the first person able to answer a question based on his archives. That seems like a great way to get people to delve into the archives.
Simon English
March 2nd, 2010 1:03 am
Thanks for these tips and great video…could you recommend the Wordpress Plug-in you refer to for providing recommended reading? I’ve been unable to find it.
Adib
March 2nd, 2010 1:06 am
I believe that an archive page is important where you list down all of the posts on your blog.
A blogger once criticised my blog and said that she hates how the navigation on my blog was like because she’d have to go back and forth from my archives page. So the two things I did for her is put a link under each of my posts, “next post, previous post”.
Just now, I added links on my sidebar to view posts together in one page according to their month. So when someone clicks on Jan 2010, they’ll see all the posts I’ve made on January 2010 in one page.
Still looking for new ways to get around this.
Monevator
March 2nd, 2010 1:09 am
I highlight my best articles very prominently in the sidebar – in fact it’s my main discovery method, though I also offer search, Best Ofs and so on. Readers like to be teased first.
One thing you don’t mention is linking to old posts yourself from within new articles. It becomes a challenge to remember what you’ve got to link to, of course, but it does add a lot of value to newer posts, and helps with SEO, too.
Preston D Lee (@prestondlee)
March 2nd, 2010 1:11 am
Some great tips here. I already did most of these, but they are a great reminder. I also recently learned about a plugin called “Retweet old posts”. It a wordpress plugin that randomly chooses old posts and tweets them every once and while. This is a fully automated way to share old content and has proven fairly successful for me.
Thanks
Find Answers
March 2nd, 2010 1:15 am
Link posting.. where almost every blog post links to another (without over doing it) of, at least one, internal post from the same blog or a post from one of your other blogs :)
Paul Roekle
March 2nd, 2010 1:17 am
Best of the month posts perhaps. Even best of the quarter (year) posts. You can always create opportunities to drive your visitors deep into your archives, as long as you are creative about it. Also, I am a big fan of re-purposing content. You can create videos, audio files, or even mini ebooks and link back to the original post.
Ami
March 2nd, 2010 1:18 am
Hi Darren,
I run a blogging diary documenting what I do on my blog; I call it The REAL-TIME Blogging Report. Now through this I all the time link to my posts as I go along and readers going over the report can view all my posts.
I guess this is like an archive but has a timeline to it and of course statistics (which makes it interesting).
That’s my resolution to this issue.
Ami
Bee a Blogger | REAL-TIME Blogging Report
Fred
March 2nd, 2010 1:25 am
argh Darren – I can’t see the video from behind “The Great Fire Wall”, but I noticed how you recently pushed forward some posts from 2006 in a series for beginner’s blogs.
I’ve been drawn to them I learned a couple of things I could implement at once.
Cheers
Jade @ No Longer25
March 2nd, 2010 1:26 am
I used Link Within and I love it, since I’ve installed it I’ve had lots more people viewing my older content and commenting. I really like the look of it too with the thumbnails at the bottom of your post, you can choose how many you want to apprear, the link is:
http://www.linkwithin.com/learn?ref=widget
I also find linking back to old posts which are relevant to what your writting works well too.
Having a best of section is a great idea, I’ll have to add that too my blog. Great suggestions as always from Problogger!
Thanks,
Jade
http://www.jadedickinson.com
Adrienne
March 2nd, 2010 1:27 am
I use Linkwithin and use links throughout the post. I also use words like, “I wrote a previous article”, or “I posted about this on”. Basically any phrase that lets the reader know they can find more like this because Linkwithin isn’t always accurate with related posts.
I use a random post widget in my sidebar along with an archives widget.
Mirella McCracken
March 2nd, 2010 1:33 am
Waw, this is amazing information!! Thank you so much for sharing!
I stopped watching your video after you gave us the second tip and start applying your ideas to my blog! you have so many invaluable information here! Thank you so much for sharing.
I am going to bookmark your video and come back to it.
I want to tell you that I also enjoy your tweets very much!
Keep up the good job! and thank you again!
SleepingBlogger
March 2nd, 2010 1:48 am
I retweet the old posts with different sentences (of course with link) and found this way is quite useful.
Robert Salceda
March 2nd, 2010 2:05 am
i used related post/article at my post footer so that maybe there will be a chance on reading it to.
Ei! Darren, Do you work with Starak?
Anne Lyken-Garner
March 2nd, 2010 2:17 am
Thanks for this. I already use the list on my heading. At the end of each month I place the articles I’ve written at the bottom of a pre-written page I have on my blog heading. This way all my articles get catalogued so they can be found by just clicking the appropriate heading at the top of my blog.
There is also a linkwithin plug in at the bottom of each post. Of course, like you said, Google sends in visitors from searches too. I hate to think my old stuff is going to waste.
Sudeep
March 2nd, 2010 2:20 am
Hey ,
First of thanks to @JapanNewbie for such a great question that I often wondered and I am sure many have.
I myself have found my readers do click most of the links in the post and also writing related post.
Secondly I have started newsletter for my RSS readers where I have linked some of my old post.
Chris Pontine
March 2nd, 2010 2:32 am
Well with all the content that you have to utilize you can link back to it, especially if it relates to key items in your new blogging posts. Nothing like some nice juice flowing through your blog. Or I know, in the past you wrote about “Follow Up Posts” to give it a new fresh breath of air, and well, maybe keep it going if it is possible.
Ted @ Charlotte Web Development.com
March 2nd, 2010 3:47 am
While I certainly need to be more attentive to the strategies Darren just suggested, I spent a few hours working with some WordPress keyword plugins that redirect terms in my posts and pages to other posts and pages that I’ve written.
People like to use this approach for affiliate links but if you instead link to your other material, you can increase traffic to your other, older pages automatically.
TheYoungLib
March 2nd, 2010 3:56 am
I am still trying to get people to read my new stuff!
Jodi Kaplan
March 2nd, 2010 4:14 am
Here are some things I’ve been doing:
1) Link to older posts within new ones
2) Yet Another Related Post WordPress plugin
3) Highlight my favorites in the side bar
4) Best of posts- at the end of the year, highlighting several posts on a particular topic
5) Follow-ups to older posts
6) Free mini e-books with older posts on a single topic (just did one on “Secrets of Writing Killer Copy.”
Got the idea from someone’s guest post here (sorry, I don’t remember who it was to give them credit). I post those on the front page of the blog, along with other resources.
Wayne Vassell
March 2nd, 2010 4:34 am
Great question by @JapanNewbie and some great solutions. Thanks fo sharing, it is easy to forget the archive of content your blog builds up.
Iago Fraga
March 2nd, 2010 4:35 am
Hi Darren!
First of all, I completely thank you for your accent. I am galician (spanish), and I’ve just arrived from a couple of days holydays Dublin, Ireland. The contrast is so huge!! Being clear and easy to understand (written and spoken) is one of the main success points of proBlogger, I’m sure.
I am a noob in this but, doesn’t a list of links to older stuff at the end of your post drive a lot of traffic away from comments? I have many clicks in what I put at the end of posts but, it seems to have a negative effect on the number of comments I get and, actually, since I am starting, I prefer to make a list of good content in a separate section rather than putting a list at the end of each post with similar posts.
Thanks once more.
Free Classifieds Blog
March 2nd, 2010 5:41 am
I use Autoresponder and write extension of the old post that starts with a summary of and link to the old post.
Lucas @SurvivalCache
March 2nd, 2010 6:16 am
Darren,
Thanks for the great ideas.
The one thing I know of you didn’t mention that works really well is internal advertising.
You literally create banner ads that only link to your own content.
It is best if you save this tactic for your absolutely premium content (top 1%) but it can work very well. Especially driving traffic to your pillar articles.
Alex over at http://bloggussion.com is very good at this. His sidebar always has a couple of internal advertisements for his best articles.
They are most effective when they don’t look like ads at all.
J.D. Meier
March 2nd, 2010 6:39 am
When the tried and true “best of” or walk through “link memory lane” doesn’t work … offer free t-shirts! (who can resist the power of the tee ;)
ppc tips
March 2nd, 2010 7:56 am
Great ideas. I will definitely have to try some of these techniques. Thanks a million.
Mike Stenger
March 2nd, 2010 8:27 am
These are great tips Darren. Right now I’m figuring out a way to get my previous week of posts (and do this every week) out there at different days that way, not only will my new posts get looked at and read, but those who missed my previous week’s posts, will get to see those too.
The trick is doing it without pissing off my followers and friends and so that’s what I’m working on.
David Parsons
March 2nd, 2010 9:09 am
Thanks for the tips. I’ll be sure to use them myself!
Technology Slice
March 2nd, 2010 9:24 am
Linking to them from newer posts always works.
Joseph McDowald
March 2nd, 2010 9:33 am
Me personally developing an auto-responder system and driving people to your old post is the best way to drive traffic to all your old postings…
Hear Mum Roar
March 2nd, 2010 11:36 am
Surprisingly, I find a lot of people seem to look at older topics if they are shown in my ‘recent comments’ widget! Go figure…
I find having thesis on my blog really helps a lot. Since changing from blogger to wordpress with a thesis template, my older posts are being viewed a lot more.
I want to use linkwithin widget, but can’t get it to work, but I have another related posts widget for the meantime, and I believe it helps. I also link throughout my blog posts to any other post that is related to what I’m talking about too.
Robin@MyMelange
March 2nd, 2010 11:57 am
Great suggestions!
I link within posts and I also have a related post widget. I often post the links to older posts on Twitter announcing that they are ‘from the archives’- or an ‘oldie but a goodie’. I have also I updated older posts with current info and reposted them drawing attention to the new information.
vegetarian army rations
March 2nd, 2010 2:41 pm
I just read this post they were very helpful to me and i would be using to get visitors to read my older posts. My bog is more than 2 years old and i have just got to know that my older posts have no visitors, so this will help me to a large extent.
Andi | WebMarketerDepot
March 2nd, 2010 2:54 pm
The Most Popular Posts sidebar and Featured Posts (posts recommended by you) surely the best way to get people back to some of your better old posts. And Related Posts plugin just works wonder in my case.
Drop Shipping
March 2nd, 2010 4:46 pm
I think, related links is the best way to drive people to read your old blogs. Rest of the tips too are great. Thanks.
bigjobsboard
March 2nd, 2010 6:29 pm
Thanks for the video! It really helped me a lot. it is definitely a must-do for bloggers to get their old blog posts be read. Especially with me, my old blog posts seem to be the best i’ve ever did!
Kevin Khachatryan
March 2nd, 2010 8:28 pm
After watching this video, I decided to add a related links to my blog posts.
Its a great idea because when browsing your site, I find myself clicking these all the time.
jayant
March 2nd, 2010 8:34 pm
why did you made a video out of it??
John
March 2nd, 2010 9:04 pm
Personally I think ‘best of sections’ are the best, especially when they are covering quite a specific section, such as ‘gaining backlinks’ or ‘best layouts’.
Obviously you have a highly successful blog and probably don’t need to do this, but putting a ‘best of section’ into .pdf ebook format is awesome too!
Samantha Milner
March 2nd, 2010 9:32 pm
Hi guys
i find that i get a lot of hits on old blog posts from the seo from google.
If you are new to Blogging i thoroughly recommend that you set up backlinks to your old posts or use long keyword titles for your blog posts and then it will easily flow through.
kind regards
sam
X
Chris
March 2nd, 2010 9:50 pm
This article is very useful. And Thanks for giving such a great ideas. I will definitely use these techniques.
Thanks,
Chris
My Business Listings
March 2nd, 2010 11:01 pm
Thanks Darren. Putting related articles in the end of the post really help. I ll be using these tips from now on.
ashok
March 2nd, 2010 11:02 pm
Yeah, I’m addicted to – and dependent on – a “related posts” widget in order to get readers looking at older posts. I also update an index to a large portion of my work, organized by topic.
Reza Winandar
March 2nd, 2010 11:43 pm
I think this topic is already talked and discussed, isn’t it?
Deb Ng
March 2nd, 2010 11:56 pm
I send out a weekly newsletter with excerpts (and links) to the week’s posts, job listings, contest listings, Q&As and more. I also include a “blast from the past” each week highlighting an old blog post.
Something else I do is a list post. For example I’ll post “50 Posts About Setting Rates” and include all my past posts about rates. They always go over very well.
jatger
March 3rd, 2010 12:07 am
i need this to make my blog more better. thank’s
Sparrow
March 3rd, 2010 12:15 am
If your Blog is a news or information type site try Old Post Promoter. Does not work for chatty type sites or dated posts.
Randomly choose an old post and reset the publication date to now. The effect is to promote older posts by moving them back onto the front page and into the rss feed. This plugin should only be used with data agnostic permalinks (permalink structures not containing dates).
Michelle Quillin
March 3rd, 2010 12:25 am
I just spent 30 minutes on this one post, going through the comments, and learned so much from you and your readers! Archive competitions, the Link Within widget, linking to old posts in new ones, re-purposing content — these are the tips I’m going to use.
By the way, I like the blog format you used for this post: 5 short tips, and a video if you want more. You got me to stick around WAY longer than I had scheduled. LOL!
Michelle Quillin for New England Multimedia and Q Web Consulting
vishnu
March 3rd, 2010 12:25 am
i experimented this idea and worked out very well, especially i earned reasonable amount of money from Adsene
Madeleine
March 3rd, 2010 1:19 am
I’ve just been working on this issue, so I was excited to see this post. Several commenters have mentioned LinkWithin, in one case saying it wasn’t working. I have it, and it’s not working right. It shows the same 5 related posts for everything. I sent an email to the support team about the problem but haven’t heard back. Any suggestions?
Melissa O'Connor
March 3rd, 2010 1:58 am
Thanks Darren for another great post. I have been linking older posts in my newer posts for now. I think I’m going to add a related posts feature the the footer of my posts now.
Thank you,
Melissa
scheng1
March 3rd, 2010 2:23 am
Repost old content works only when those are evergreen posts. I dont see any advantage if the blog is a news blog. I will probably rewrite, rather than getting links to old content.
Eric T
March 3rd, 2010 3:57 am
To get attention for your old post you can create a new “Best of…” digest post of them, with links and short descriptions of five or more old posts you want to get noticed. As a new post this will create internal links as well as accomplish your goal. Do this once a week.
You could also create a Best Of page featuring older articles you want noticed.
wptidbits
March 3rd, 2010 4:13 am
Adding related post feature is the best in my mind now to get readers viewing old blog posts. One other way is to highlight best old post in a category such as the “all time best of problogger” or “never miss this” etc.
Courtney
March 3rd, 2010 5:36 am
In reading so many blogs, oftentimes the best content I find is when I take the time to dig through old content. Thank you for the tips, especially the round up of best posts over a designated period of time. Also – what do you think about collecting the best of or categories of posts within an ebook?
Morten Juul
March 3rd, 2010 7:25 am
As many have mentioned a related post feature is a good way to go. I was once suggested to add a “recent posts”-type of widget that posted random posts from the entire blog. Very nifty, however it didn’t fit my blog type at the time. Unfortunately I’ve misplaced the brain cells that remember the name of it, but I’m sure with a little Googleing it should be possible to find.
Free Samples
March 3rd, 2010 8:03 am
Adding related post feature is the best in my mind now to get readers viewing old blog posts. One other way is to highlight best old post in a category such as the “all time best of problogger” or “never miss this” etc.
John Town
March 3rd, 2010 8:04 am
Yeah, I’m addicted to – and dependent on – a “related posts” widget in order to get readers looking at older posts. I also update an index to a large portion of my work, organized by topic.
Jamie L
March 3rd, 2010 9:30 am
All those seem valid ways to get people to read the old posts but not too sure about republishing old content. While it may seem alright if the visitors have not read it, you do have to think of the ones that did. I love related post plugin and it’s the best way to make sure your old posts get read. SEO the posts too, it may help!
Keith Hamilton
March 3rd, 2010 3:29 pm
Great post. I think linking to your old posts also helps loads. This is one thing that keeps people coming to old posts.
Vance Sova
March 3rd, 2010 4:13 pm
Hi Darren,
I got many valuable ideas from your video post.
There are several things I can add to what I’m already doing.
I link to my older posts that are relevant inside the new posts.
I also use a relevant posts plug in.
I’ve heard of reposting old posts with some updating but I always worry about duplicate content.
Vance
Eric
March 3rd, 2010 6:12 pm
Great tips Darren.
I especially like the best of idea and the posting a new date on old posts and editing them just a bit. That would be an excellent way in case you can think of something brilliant that you could add to something old to really spice it up a lot and make it great for the future.
Awesome article here.
Rinaldi Syahran
March 3rd, 2010 6:50 pm
Thank you for the advice. Very useful for bloggers to be able for his or her write in their blog remain readable and searchable by visitors.
Jimmynguyen
March 3rd, 2010 7:50 pm
I agree with Adib’s idea. Thanks for your idea
Butjazz
March 3rd, 2010 9:16 pm
You could try out one of thes:
- “Want to know what I was writing about on 3rd March 2010?” and so on and so forth – the date exactly a year back or maybe 2 years back.
- Most popular Blogposts of March 2009
Different readers get excited about different things – the above could work with readers inclined towards ‘history’ or the ones who ‘don’t want to waste their time on sifting through posts to find out which were the ones that really worked’
Kaushik
March 3rd, 2010 9:18 pm
Create a section called “One year ago” and every day post a link to a post you made exactly a year ago. I have been thinking about doing this from a long time. Never actually got to do it. :(
Duia
March 3rd, 2010 9:30 pm
Thanks for your sharing. In fact, it is really a difficult thing to let people view my old blog posts because I don’t have such a habit.
Faith Barista Bonnie
March 4th, 2010 4:52 am
Hi Darren –
One question – I need help with the last tip – reposting. If I repost, the post would go up with a new url. How do I repost with the original url — so that I can get a “refresh” online of that url. I use Wordpress. Is it as simple as changing the “publish” date and click “update publish”?
I don’t want to “experiment live”, since my RSS readers would see the results :) — so thanks to Darren or anyone here for an answer.
Btw, I love Problogger – I just started my blog less than a year, following your tips — and it’s taken off very well! If only I had more time on my hands to implement everything you put out here. :) LOL.
chandan
March 4th, 2010 6:55 am
I have put widget on my blog linking to some old post, so that my reader can see the old post, next I sometime retweet or share on social media sites.
Awareness Home Funding
March 4th, 2010 7:30 am
Thanks for these tips, this will be very useful as we continue to develop our blog. Once question though, as a relatively new blogger, at what point should you start referencing your older posts? We have about 40 now, with categories clearly marked for various topics. While I have referenced past posts when doing a series (3 part or 5 part), when can or should we start doing this? Is our blog mature enough to warrant this? Thanks.
Caleb - the MarketSecrets Blogger
March 4th, 2010 8:37 am
There is a great plugin called WP Old Post promoter that takes care of this..it lets you schedule in advance and choose specific posts w the ability of hiding the dates too ;)
chicago fence
March 4th, 2010 9:00 am
great ideas! We are in the process of adding a blog.
Ray
March 4th, 2010 1:48 pm
I thought blogging was supposed to be like a recent news sort of thing. If this is the case, then who cares if anyone reads the old posts.
If you were building a blog like Steve Pavlina, then I could see it. His material is pretty much timeless. You can read it any day and for the most part it still applies. Most bloggers aren’t like that though. They talk about current events.
vishal
March 4th, 2010 5:54 pm
Amazing stuff. I tried waiting for readers to get old interesting posts
Студии загара Петербурга
March 4th, 2010 9:31 pm
Thanks for these tips, this will be very useful as we continue to develop our blog. Once question though, as a relatively new blogger, at what point should you start referencing your older posts?
Jess
March 4th, 2010 11:08 pm
I use a related post plugin and it works good!!!
Syed Hyder Ali
March 5th, 2010 2:36 am
Too good! I do not find anything you missed.
Got an idea after going through video. Take 4-5 blogs related to one topic. Make a summary of each blog and post it as a fresh post with links to relevant posts.
Hyder
http://www.winwinmantra.com
Franck
March 5th, 2010 6:52 am
I didn’t start the best of post yet, But I will. As for the autoresponder, I am already using it, and it works great. It’s good to send your subscribers to your blog so they can read a case study or the best posts.
Frank
Andee Sellman, One Sherpa
March 5th, 2010 7:46 am
Hi Darren,
We have a simple way of getting people back to the old posts.
We make up our newsletter from the best blog posts and then it has a double whammy effect.
1. We get it out by email to those who haven’t read it yet and
2. Off the email everyone comes back to the site to read it.
Have a look at some of our old ones if you’d like to get a feel for it
http://www.onesherpa.com/news
IPBrian
March 5th, 2010 8:22 am
I love the idea of a best of section. I think we meed more time to post (posting history) but I will definitely be rolling that into the site in a future release. Thanks as always Darren!
WAHGO
March 5th, 2010 9:57 am
“Best of” posts seem like a great idea.
People are always looking for the best of and worst of, so why not capitalize on your archives to resurface some of the good ones.
Accommodation Cotswolds
March 5th, 2010 2:49 pm
really? this is good. I also see some old posts in google search how about that?
What I do is RE-bookmark my older posts, would that be okay?
Kim Miller
March 5th, 2010 6:54 pm
I try to refer back to things I wrote about in previous posts and link to them within my new post. It seems to work. I think people click out of curiosity.
Chris
March 5th, 2010 7:54 pm
Yes I really agree with you. As per the points which are given here are works very well and give very well results for the blog specially for the old blogs.
Thanks,
Chris.
howtoblogformoney
March 5th, 2010 8:47 pm
Re-posting old posts sounds like an interesting option
Jan Iye
March 5th, 2010 8:52 pm
My question. How will Google view such reposts? Will one be penalized for duplicate content?
30day weightloss
March 5th, 2010 8:58 pm
Is there a trade-off between writing a fresh post and updating old one? Does it not take the same amount of time? And the results–are they worth it?
Whitehat Internet Marketing
March 5th, 2010 9:49 pm
Very good tips. I think for my internet marketing blog the best way to get people visiting older posts is to update them since internet marketing is in a constant state of change. Having a related section will probably also help.
Kris,
Mark
March 6th, 2010 2:13 am
Wonderful post I must say. Provides a lot of useful information and sounds like a smart idea. Re-posting an old post is certainly useful as some sites/blogs tend to archive and delete posts after a certain date.
Keep it up
Mark
http://www.plr-king.com
Steve SEO UK
March 6th, 2010 6:34 am
My Blog is quite small in content – some 26 posts so far. What I do at the moment is to tweet each article on a regular rotation on Twitter. This certainly helps my CTR.
I will adopt suggestions in this article and from comments.
Many thanks,
Steve
Brent
March 6th, 2010 11:09 am
I’m just now looking into increasing my blogs traffic after blogging for over a year. I don’t know that any of my earliest have actually been seen.
Does re-posting the same stuff really hurt your Google rankings?
Brent
be-inimitable@blogspot.com
dave
March 6th, 2010 1:14 pm
would this involve any duplicate content issues?
Just curious
Chris Faddis
March 6th, 2010 4:25 pm
Great video tips Darren. I liked the ideas. I actually recently added a related posts plugin to my site. Within two days my bounce rate cut in half and my “average time on site” doubled. Within a week the average time tripled. I’ve also seen an increase in visitor loyalty. It’s only been a month but I’m glad I added it. I plan to put into place some of your other ideas and see where that goes.
sam
March 6th, 2010 10:42 pm
Thanks for the great advice Darren, hopefully some of it will me to help get more people reading http://howtohelpnow.wordpress.com/
Kevin Khachatryan
March 7th, 2010 11:34 am
Darren,
I posted here when I read this article and implemented some of your suggestions… within 4 days the number of pages per visitor on my blog went from 1.7 to 2.1
Thanks for such great advice.
satrap
March 7th, 2010 4:34 pm
I do it in two ways. I use the related post plug-in, and I also link to my older posts where ever appropriate.
But reading and listening to your post made me wonder, how would you go about re-posting your old post? I mean wouldn’t you be creating duplicate content ?
We all know duplicate content and penalty for it is a myth(at least in the way that most people think of duplicate content). However there is one situation that duplicate content penalty applies to, and that is having the same content twice or more on the same domain.
I dont know if I am missing something or …
I really would appreciate it if you could elaborate on that a little and explain more about re-posting old posts(if you have time for it of course).
Thank you for the post.
Devin
March 7th, 2010 5:31 pm
Love this post as it was just was I was working on right now. Thanks for the help.
devin
Farnoosh
March 8th, 2010 9:14 am
I have been asked to be a columnist at Elephant Journal, and they love content, period! They specifically do not mind having old content from my blog, and there are many topics that I have written about which suit them fine. So I publish there and link to the original post. It’s new for that audience and brings a few hits back to those posts, not to mention I go through them again for accuracy and clean-up!
AJP
March 8th, 2010 4:50 pm
what I have been doing of lately is more of related link.
Let say If I am talking about topic Á and that topic A is related to previous blog post than I will try to create a link within the blog post itself.
danohis
March 8th, 2010 10:07 pm
Great post Darren. I really wanted to find out how you do this and this video has really help. your contents are so so inspiring.
thanks so much.
Maria Kirk
March 8th, 2010 11:52 pm
This is great… I have often wondered how I go about getting people to read my old posts
Kelsey
March 9th, 2010 2:24 am
The related posts wordpress login has been great for me. I’ve found that the traffic stays steady on my older, well-written posts.
kelowna photog
March 9th, 2010 4:17 am
thanks for the tips. The related post plugin has helped a great deal on my blog.
Steve Gasser
March 9th, 2010 4:53 am
Love your ideas! Epecially the “Best of” ideas.
I re-purpose my blog posts into white papers and handouts at seminars. Some people really like to hold onto paper – this helps build credibility offline. Many of the handouts are just excerpts that direct them back to the blog post.
Travis Lusk
March 9th, 2010 6:37 am
I’ve found that just asking is the best way. It seems to have the most immediate response.
Granted, some posts just are not controversial enough to warrant comments. If you are writing about a pretty straight forward issue, people might not be as inclined to comment.
If there is a little controversy, that usually gets the ball rolling.
Also, if you are doing a “how-to” post, those tend to do well if you encourage people to post questions in the comments. However, you are then somewhat obligated to respond…which you should be doing anyway.
Jakk Ogden
March 9th, 2010 8:25 am
What I do is just go on is.gd and shorten old URL’s and then post them on Twitter. I have found that it is a fantastic way to gain direct traffic sources, and I always find plenty of fresh comments and opinions from readers the next day (even if the post is two months old)!
ALSO, check out Linkwithin, a plug in which is awesome for displaying visual related posts. No other plugin I have found has matched its looks or click through rate.
I also optimise each and every web page with a niche title and niche description. loading the content with keywords and after a few days or weeks get found for loads of highly specific search terms across Google.
Anyway check out linkwithin dot com and take a look :) dunno if Problogger has covered it but they should ;)
Nadia at Easy Freebie Trading
March 9th, 2010 10:03 am
Hmm.. Interesting. I’ve just started a blog, and, since I haven’t currently got any posts old enough to have me worrying about this, I haven’t thought about it before. It’s good to know for the future, though. Thanks for the information – I might as well start using it early. :)
BK
March 10th, 2010 1:02 am
What I had done so far is to link back to older posts in new posts and doing a best posts session at the side bar. You tip to re-post older posts is what I have been wanting to do but thought that readers may be put off with the re-posting.
Jose Guerra
March 10th, 2010 3:24 am
I would also find related discussions and use the old posts as canned answers that you can link to in your comments and also submit them to bookmarking sites and submit them to article sites if you haven’t yet.
Konstantin
March 10th, 2010 7:16 am
I think reposting should be done with care to make sure your visitors are not put off by old content. Check dates, references, links inside articles, etc.
Griff
March 10th, 2010 8:57 am
Great ideas. My blog is fairly new, so I am not in need of those ideas yet, but I’m sure next year will be a different story.
thanks!
Adam Munns
March 10th, 2010 1:09 pm
If it’s appropriate you can also create inline links to older posts right there in the content of newer posts. This is especially helpful in guiding readers to older posts without relying on them to click a related article in the footer or sidebar.
Samantha Milner
March 10th, 2010 3:33 pm
This blog is very informative. I would look into trying some of these techniques for some of my blogs.
Kind Regards,
Samantha
X
mbt shoes
March 11th, 2010 12:17 am
One thing you don’t mention is linking to old posts yourself from within new articles. It becomes a challenge to remember what you’ve got to link to, of course, but it does add a lot of value to newer posts, and helps with SEO, too
WhichBetter
March 11th, 2010 5:54 am
Very good tips, i always thought how to make people read my old posts, but now I have a new blog, so I will use the ideas for this time..
Thanks a lot.
Anton
March 11th, 2010 6:10 am
Hi,
thanks for the tips.
I don’t have actual content on my site. So in order get readers to view my old posts, I use Twitter. I tweet the old post and name it a “Classic”.
Jonha
March 11th, 2010 3:36 pm
Hi Darren,
I always wondered how could I ever attract visitors to my old posts and these suggestions are really helpful. Also, it is important that when posting, you make sure you make every post worth reading as if it is not, readers will not likely to go back. Write like there’s no tomorrow.
sky insurance
March 11th, 2010 10:47 pm
Hi
Im one of newbie on the list. And I face the exact situation. Am looking forward to your next post.
Kharim
March 12th, 2010 12:44 am
I would retweet old posts, or if I use forum I would put the link and title in my signature, maybe use random posts so that posts randomly shows on a section of the blog so all posts rotate.
Jamiah
March 12th, 2010 5:42 am
As a blogger I tend to think of my archives as useless. However, there maybe a really good post that you may have written and I think it would a good idea to link back to it.
If it’s a good piece of content why let it go to waste? I also like the idea of updating old posts and adding more to that particular piece of content.
Great Tips!
- Jay
James Stewart
March 12th, 2010 7:50 am
What a fantastic post!!
I’ve often thought about this in the past and now I have some ideas!!
Fantastic stuff mate…..brilliant!!
DiggyDaddy
March 12th, 2010 8:41 am
Great ideas. I started my Daddy blog 4 months ago. I had a lot of energy (and still do) and put a lot into my early blogs (and still do). I’d hate to think no one will ever see the adventures I wrote about early on.
I’ll be using these ideas soon.
Thanks
–DiggyDaddy
The Constant Complainer
March 12th, 2010 9:22 am
Great post. I often resurrect posts years later. It works, if you know what you’re doing.
mixed martial arts
March 13th, 2010 3:34 am
I just let the search engines do the work. If the content is good and your SEO is good then old blog posts should always attract visitors. Good internal linking will help as well. Maybe a top list of your favorite past entries.
Jim
March 13th, 2010 3:30 pm
I often re-post it the old articles and I get reviews,it works for me.
The Rat
March 14th, 2010 5:11 am
Great tips. I think that it’s also important to update your Best Of page from time to time so that you’re best material is reflected.
innocriss
March 14th, 2010 5:53 am
thanks for the post. It’s long i’ve been thinking on how to get visitors view my older post, since i know many visitors hardly use the option of searching on my blog. Now i think, making use of some wordpress plugins is a must.
Ross Fattori
March 14th, 2010 8:03 am
Some good ideas here about re-sourcing old blog posts. Thanks. I will occasionally send links of old posts to friends, colleagues and relatives if the subject is related to a recent conversation we’ve had or something in the news.
Mike Foster
March 14th, 2010 11:49 pm
Cool post – not something I have thought of yet as my blog is fairly new. I have been referring to old posts where applicable in new posts. Will try some of these techniques.
I like the best of too.
Anne Wayman
March 16th, 2010 6:45 am
Every now and again I just gather up five or six of posts I’ve done that I like for one reason or another – these seem to be well received too…
Favorites by category is something that hadn’t occurred to me, thanks
Gavin
March 16th, 2010 10:32 pm
I went back to a few of my old posts based on google anaytics data and made a change to the title and description to optimize to the higher trafficed keyword and bang – sudden jump in traffic for that post
Stephan @ Traffic Ultimatum
March 17th, 2010 8:21 am
Bloggers who are not willing to put forth the effort will not succeed.
So guys and gals, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Create more inbound and outbound links, refresh your old posts by giving them a new title and perhaps a few new sentences here or there, optimize your sites (blogs) with better targeted keywords and keyword phrases.
çiçek
March 17th, 2010 11:26 pm
Bloggers who are not willing to put forth the effort will not succeed.
Evelina
March 18th, 2010 6:00 pm
Some great suggestions.
I’ve always tried to concentrate on bringing traffic to my old posts and here’s what I’ve done with a moderate success.
- Linking from new posts to old ones.
- Added a Most Popular Posts widget in my sidebar.
- Always used the Related Posts Plug-in that has many other benefits as well.
- Came back to old posts to add more content to them.
- From time to time I use to share old posts with my lists of subscribers, and via several social networks such as twitter, digg and stumble upon. It does wonders.
- Building links to your old posts will always help to rank them higher in the search engines so I guess that’s a great idea as well, a bit time consuming but it’s well worth the efforts over time.
Evelina
ParisGirl111
March 19th, 2010 1:31 am
I love the idea of reposting old content, but if you do not change the beginning part, will that cause your google ratings to go down since it is similar to a duplicate post?
Tia
March 19th, 2010 6:55 am
Thanks for this, as I am in the middle of writing a post about keeping the home page short (instead of scrolling on and on) and I can definitely reference this video in that post.
Cheers,
Tia
BizChickBlogs.com
Jay
March 19th, 2010 6:56 am
Great read, i just made a related posts section and its really working out. i will try the others you recommended. Thanks for sharing.
Poor Student
March 19th, 2010 7:09 am
nice podcast..thanks!
Fitness
March 19th, 2010 5:36 pm
I believe good content will always attract new visitors even in years to come.
Nat
March 19th, 2010 7:46 pm
Terrific, now we can recycle previous posts that are still relevant to present time. We do need that now on our website specially that we have an upcoming live forex trading seminar in Sydney. All the blog posts that we have kept on going down when a new post is added. I like the idea of retweeting old posts.
Aditya Sharma
March 20th, 2010 1:34 am
Hi Darren this is my first day on your blog and I must say your story so far and your posts are really interesting as well as informative I haven’t read this much any day of my life and also watched 10 to 20 videos from your youtube channel.
It great too see you always trying your best to emphasis on the point that blogging is not a get rich quick thing for which I definitely would like to thanyou.
I love blogging too but when ever I start any blog I always start reading content related to bloggers through blogs like your and whenever I read that “Blogging your way to fame is not a cup of tea” then I get a bit discouraged but it ok unless I start reading something like this from many other sites too. The increasing number to such incidents have led to, many a times, pulling me away from blogging trust me I have created and deleted more then 12 to 13 blogs and I guarantee it no one in here might have heard or even read about me.
At the moment I have 4 blogs which I had stopped updating since 1 year ago here are the names you may add the blogspot(dot)c.. yourself
1)Blogater
2) GalleryLog
3)2hottrends
4)creatures4u
No I am not thinking of getting them on track again but I would appreciate if you could help me with some suggessions regarding the blog designs and other stuff.
Jarrod@ Optimistic Journey
March 20th, 2010 4:38 pm
I find the related post plugin to be helpful… or as you suggested, Darren, it’s better to hand select posts and manually ad them in there yourself.
I may have to look into a plugin that highlights my best articles because for a long time I’ve been wanting to find such a plugin and include it in my sidebar.
Great video Darren, great tips!
Jarrod
david
March 21st, 2010 1:03 am
I know someone who uses an outstanding way for driving traffic to his old posts, every year he posts most of the year’s archive under the title:
“The best tips for the year XXXX”
and there he links to more than 40 old posts!
Kromarth
March 21st, 2010 4:40 am
The secret is to make sure the content is high quality and not just filler. This way people will become returners!
AffiliateGroundz
March 21st, 2010 12:37 pm
So true!! A lot of people think that quantity is more important than quality when writing blog posts and that just isn’t the case.
Peggy Duncan
March 21st, 2010 2:47 pm
I don’t worry about this. I installed the Feedjit.com widget that assures me that the search engines are sending people to various posts on my blog.
WEBBUILDING
March 22nd, 2010 12:47 am
What about random posts ? Create a section on the front page which will show random post from your web site ( older posts ).
Call Pakistan
March 22nd, 2010 3:00 am
If thes contents good, and I really do mean good,
Then older blog posts always get read as long as your blog
has good internal linking, then your posts will be found by search engines.
Thomas
March 22nd, 2010 3:09 am
I think the best method is using something like ‘related posts’ at the bottom of a post. Beacause the readers are interested in the article and wil read further on that topic.
And what’s old content? Older than 3 months, a year or ten year?
Ruben
March 22nd, 2010 4:15 am
Suggestion: Adding video transcripts. I am one of those “lazy watchers”… I prefer to read than to watch (I read quicker!), and I guess you have a script you follow for your video, thus it is a win-tie scenario (I win, you don’t lose anything :)
Rubén
Balianti
March 22nd, 2010 6:04 pm
Definitely this will help me to improve my blogging. Thank you for your great ideas. I love it.
Vivek
March 22nd, 2010 7:02 pm
Thanks, Dareen your these 5 tips will certainly help me getting more traffic to my Old posts , which were once written with full zeal & interest and are good today too , but readers cant get them quickly due to the nature of a Blog ( reverse chronological display of posts )
smsinhindi
March 22nd, 2010 8:43 pm
For me, it has always been a concer how to send visitors on old post.. hope it will help.
capsiplex
March 22nd, 2010 9:13 pm
So guys and gals, roll up your sleeves and get to work. Create more inbound and outbound links, refresh your old posts by giving them a new title and perhaps a few new sentences here or there, optimize your sites (blogs) with better targeted keywords and keyword phrases.
Learn Japanese
March 23rd, 2010 1:43 pm
Some great tips here. I have never considered using my auto responder to send traffic to old posts. I am going to do this for my Japanese blog.
Ashwin
March 23rd, 2010 10:32 pm
I think the best way is to get people to refer to previous blog posts for an answer, or support. Also, when you post something related, making a casual mention of the previous post.
Preschool Lake Worth
March 24th, 2010 12:37 am
Great blog, I may have zapped this note – so forgive me if its posted twice) In any event, I know that If I want to get stronger, get healthier, change my course, or simply find out what’s on the other side of making a tough decision, setting a big goal, keeping a personal commitment, or simply doing what’s right when it’s hard to do so, I have to learn how to push on through. and that keeps us strong. The only suggestion I can make is to “keep on trucking.” Our church’s preschool is trying to develop some different blogs, so thanks for hte advice.
Tom - marketing tips
March 24th, 2010 7:43 pm
Great tips and video! To get people to read my old posts I often use deep-linking where I link to a old closely related post.This gives the visitor more in-depth information and the search engines can crawl my blog deeper.
Jahangir Alam
March 25th, 2010 1:50 am
This topic looks something that need some time to watch the video and understand Darren’s tips.
Well, I will bookmark it and then watch the video later as I am now using a public computer and running bit late on time.
Your posts are always great Darren.
Keep writing and spreading the knowledge.
Thanks
Jay
Eileen
March 25th, 2010 2:36 am
I get a lot of reader questions and in my answers am able to link back to earlier posts.
Question: Does Google frown on updated posts as a form of duplicate content?
Judd the Photographer
March 25th, 2010 6:53 am
I always hoped that people would browse through the archives to look at my old photo shoot blog posts – but I guess that was wishful thinking – am definitely going to apply these principles which will hopefully make it easier for people to see our old work – thanks!
Mark Bradshaw
March 25th, 2010 7:54 am
I’m new to blogging, and looking for ways to attract readers, so I’m definitely going to try a couple of these techniques. Thanks for the tips.
Donna Cunningham
March 25th, 2010 11:11 pm
The one tactic that worked fantastically well for me was creating links to related posts at the end of most new ones. I had a huge surge in stats, and my page hits have stayed up there ever since as I do it consistently.
To simplify the process, I keep a word processing file that categorizes the most popular topics and lists links to the related posts. That way I can just cut and paste the relevant ones into the post. I add a link to each new to the catgegories in that file. A small bit of work that pays off hugely. (Some of my older posts regularly get as many as 100 new hits a month.)
One site I visit regularly, ElsaElsa.com, has a charming feature called “A year ago on Elsa.Elsa.” So many enjoyable features that otherwise would have been permanently buried. Donna Cunningham on Skywriter
denim leggings
March 25th, 2010 11:15 pm
I think that people who are really interested in your stuff will read all the entries you posted no matter what the date of posting it. Besides, like it was said, it is good to have categories.
James
March 26th, 2010 5:43 am
I think depending upon whether your content has the ability to age will determine how many people read through old posts. I know myself that if it’s good and still useful/relevant content i’m happy to read back through time.
SleepBarn
March 26th, 2010 7:59 pm
yes i agree to that sometimes mostly reader base their comments through previous post..
SleepBarn
Plano Real Estate
March 27th, 2010 10:21 am
I have a couple blogs that I can do a best of list, love the idea. I will however on some places like activerain, trulia, etc…I just repost something and bring the post up to date. I will try the other 4 suggestions and thanks for the video.
sabreehussin
March 28th, 2010 12:31 am
before this i just let people that come from search engine to read my post
walley
March 29th, 2010 1:32 am
I love the related links one. It’s really useful :)
Adam
March 29th, 2010 12:49 pm
Thanks for the great tips. I have already implemented some of them. I also try to reference my old posts via links from the newere posts if they are relevant.
Zsupe
March 30th, 2010 12:51 am
Really helpful post. What you said about the three C’s in your other post, I couldn’t comment there but you got me thinking. I never focused on “consideration” I always wrote for myself. But if I want more readers I need to consider what ways should I communicate my ideas so that people will be influenced in a positive way rather then just get bored and never visit my blog again.
You’ve a great blog btw!
SEM Services
March 30th, 2010 4:35 am
Great post. I’ve found that reposting blogs helps (remember to delete the old blog post). Also, make navigation on your site easier. Make your nav tabs easy to read and access, and people will click through to other blog posts.
Bioidentical Hormones
March 30th, 2010 5:04 am
I like the idea of re-posting old articles (however, change them up a bit) and a “best of the best posts”. Also, using the wordpress related posts is a great idea because people will find related subjects/articles they might have been looking for in the first place. Excellent sight for blogging information and tips, especially for people who are just learning.
Love
March 30th, 2010 8:04 pm
Thanks for this. I already use the list on my heading. At the end of each month I place the articles I’ve written at the bottom of a pre-written page I have on my blog heading. This way all my articles get catalogued so they can be found by just clicking the appropriate heading at the top of my blog.
Umbrella
March 31st, 2010 6:43 am
You just got one more follower Darren:) Tons of great info.
I have never heard of the related post plugin. Will definetly try this one out.
My tactic that I use on my blogs to bring the old content in the light again is to have a small block of all time most commented blog posts. This always attracts new visitors attention and always gets a huge ammount of clicks.
Reposting a old article is sounds like a great idea too.
Bubble Umbrellas
July
J D Ebberly
March 31st, 2010 3:21 pm
That’s easy. Construct sneeze pages. Works every time.
Danial David
April 1st, 2010 5:59 pm
It becomes a challenge to remember what you’ve got to link to, of course, but it does add a lot of value to newer posts.
hollywood-acting
April 11th, 2010 4:39 am
i have had no success with old blogs not being read on my various websites. it is a great idea to have newsletter subscribers get an email with links to old, best stuff. thanks. i will try to figure out how to automate this.
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