Do you have posts in your archive that are diamonds in the rough? Maybe you wrote a corker when your audience was smaller? You don’t have to just forget about these posts, you can breathe new life into them and make them earn their keep! Here’s how.
Which posts to target?
You can get very good information from Google Analytics. This tells you what people are looking for on your site. Use this to your advantage by signposting them to what they want. Posts that would benefit from a makeover are ones that are;
- Current / In season for the time of year.
- How to’s / Tutorials
- Evergreen advice posts
- Posts that would do well on Pinterest (ones which you can create a good pin worthy image for)
In summary, you’re looking for great posts that for some reason didn’t shine when they were initially published.
How to make old posts work for you?
Update/rewrite the post
Would changing the title help? People are attracted to numbers and ‘how to’ titles, i.e. How to get your child to sleep in 5 easy steps! Update any information which is now out of date. Change things around so it reflects your current style. Check any links you’ve included, make sure they still work.
Optimise for SEO
Make sure you picked the right keyword. If you didn’t, change it and reoptimise the post. Yoast WP Plugin is great for making SEO easy. If you change the keyword you might need to change the url. If so, you’ll need to do a 301 redirect, to direct the old post link to the new post.
Update images
As you go through your blogging life your skills improve. There’s no doubt your photography will also develop, along with your writing skill. So update any dodgy images with lovely new ones. Also remember to set a featured image for the post and make sure it’s the right size for your theme.
Add affiliate links
One of the best ways to optimise older posts is to add affiliate links. If you haven’t got any relevant affiliates, you could join more programmes or link to your general resources page (which shoould be full of affiliate links!).
Add internal links
A great way to help people travel through your site, stay on longer and lower your bounce rate is to add more internal links. We’re often great at adding older post links to the current post we’re writing. But we tend to be poor at going back in and adding links to posts we wrote more recently.
Add an email opt in
Since you first published the post have you created a relevant opt in freebie? Could you create one now? Adding an opt in freebie to the post will help you convert the eyeballs you get on this revamped post into subscribers.
How you can then get traffic to your polished diamonds?
- Promote them on social media – reshare them on Facebook, schedule some tweets and create a few new pins for them. Can you reword the social media caption and share it on Linked In?
- Include a link to these revamped posts in a new post – This leads readers to the polished posts and also helps lower your bounce rate, bonus!
- Write a round-up – You have so many options with round-up posts. They could be on around a theme, a time span (i.e best post of a certain year), anything you fancy. This is a great way to drive traffic to old posts.
- Showcase them – You can do this in a couple of ways. Try a small badge in your sidebar linking to the great refurbished post. Create a popular post widget for your sidebar. Or if you have a slider across the top of your blog, put them in there.
Update or republish?
If the old post has no traffic at all and therefore probably no links to it, you could consider republishing it and deleting the original. If there was some traffic and maybe comments you want to keep, then simply updating it will help. You can redirect links, but remember this does slow your blog down.
I usually make my changes and then republish the posts to bring them back to the top of my blog feed.
However you approach it, don’t let your potentially great posts fade away! Updating old posts can make them work for you!
Do you ever update old posts? What’s your favourite way to make old posts work for you?
Comments 46
I’ve just started sharing old posts using Revive Old Posts and it doesn’t bring huge amounts of traffic, but I quite like seeing them popping up myself! I definitely want new followers to have a gander at my old posts, as I’m quite fond of some of them. Great tips as always, Aby! x
This is really interesting. Thanks Aby x
Great tips – I need to do this x
Great post – i’ve been thinking about this quite a bit recently as I know I’ve got old posts that would still be popular today with a bit of tarting up – so great timing!! the whole question of republishing has me perplexed though! I reblogged something recently and the old comments came with it as did the original URL, so I’m unsure about that bit. I ought to do some more research as ideally i’d like the old content to become new and updated content but keep all the original SEO value. Cake and eat it anyone?! haha! Thanks lovely xx
Great post and really good tips. I forget about the older posts I’ve written and should really refresh and update them every so often x
Author
I need to take my own advice, just lacking time at the moment x
I do seasonal roundups some time, but I suspect I’ve forgotten some old ones that aren’t annual events. Hmm. Food for thought.
Often wondered how successful the “From the archive” tweets are. They seldom make me click on them. Maybe it’s just me and I’m missing a trick.
Author
I get hots on my archive and I do click others x
Great tips. I use the ‘revive old post plugin’ which does some of the work for me but I really should get round to refreshing older posts. It’s been on my mind for a while and this has just reminded me to do it. Round-up posts are a great idea as well – did one a while ago and it worked really well. Thanks for the tips.
I’m currently going back through old posts, every time I publish a new post I tell myself I must go back to an old post and tweak something and get it sent back out into the bloggosphere. I’ve got posts from the very start of my blogging journey now getting comments they never did!
Author
That’s a great method x
I do sometimes link older posts in newer ones, and lately I’ve been doing the #tbt thing, but will definitely be trying some of these out too! #TheList
Never updated old posts before because they were so bad. Lol #thelist
Fantastic post, I was wondering how best to share old posts. As always fantastic tips, will be reading at the weekend when I start to update the blog 🙂 thanks #thelist
Oooh I’ve recently shared one of my old posts and it now has comments that it never had so its really encouraged me to share some more older ones too. really need to have a look and get some editing done. Thanks for the tips
Fab tips as always – my Center Parcs on a budget post always has high views – analytics tell me that people search for it for images of the pool. I didn’t think to update old posts with new images though – great idea that I will look into as my early photography was RUBBISH compared to now #thelist
Author
Hope it helps the views huni x
Great idea, I must rethink some of hte photography from my earlier posts! It is a shame when a post disappears into the virtual world so some lovely ways of reviving them there!
Brilliant tips, I hadn’t really thought about using older posts like this. I’m going to give it a go. Thank you and thanks for having me on #thelist
Author
Glad to be of service! 🙂
A really helpful post Aby – thanks for sharing your knowledge and wisdom as always. Thanks for co-hosting #TheList as always.
Sammy x
What great advice! We have some from last year when we had little audience…. little crackers! Thanks for the blogging tips x #TheList
This is such an awesome tutorial Aby and since relaunching my blog last year I’ve been meaning to update my old posts – some of them are sorely in need of some TLC! Thanks for the reminder, great post x #TheList
Author
Thanks huni, glad it reminded you! x
Great post as always Aby x
Fab advice. Thanks for hosting #thelist
I never do but I want to start – some of my favourite posts were the first ones I wrote before my blog had much of an audience, so I really should get around to re-promoting them! x
There are some great suggestions here.. I’m not sure I would have thought to take new photos but it’s a great idea. My photography has gotten better – or at least my camera has 😉
I should definitely go back through mine and revamp them a bit. I’m sure there will be a couple that perhaps didn’t get decent coverage as my audience was smaller then. Fab post lovely xxx
Author
I need to take my own advice! xxx
These are great tips huni. I keep meaning to revisit some of my first recipes to get some better pictures. It will be on my to do list xx #BrilliantBlogPosts
Never done this myself, but thinking about it some of my posts could do with better titles. I have several evergreen posts so it’s probably worth doing to make sure they reach the right audience. Thanks for the tips, Aby xx #TheList
Great post!
Every now and then I will update an older post to be more in line with my current style and then re-promote it with new pins, tweets, etc. Sometimes I add “from the archives” sometimes I don’t but I didn’t keep track whether it really makes a click difference.
Have a nice weekend 🙂
Thanks for these fab tips! I’ve loads of posts I’ve forgotten about myself then sometime go back and think… Hmmm that was alright, I put a fair bit of time into that. Now I know how to put them out there again. Actually, my Britmums Live post I linked to #thelist this week was one I did last year but is obviously relevant so refreshed and linked up through yours truly I really need to get that evergreen plugin- sounds amazing. thanks for sharing #thelist xx
I have just started doing this, but haven’t used all these tips so thanks for that Aby. Love the tip about numbers in headings too! Great tip. Thanks for linking to #sundaystars
Great tips! My blogs not that old but I already think some of my posts could benefit from a make over.xx #TheList
Great advice Aby. I must try to link back to old posts more often. I also have a new theme that enables me to highlight posts so I need to get to grips with that. Updating is something I am slowly working through on the image front. It’s important to remember the old gems and not let them languish in our archives! #sundaystars
Interesting post, as always, I have to say that recent advice given at a blog event in Wales was not to retweet archived posts as it can annoy your followers, so I hastily removed my plug in 🙁 i see so many bloggers doing it though, it can’t be bad for them! It is hard sometimes to know what to do. Kaz x x
Author
I don’t agree, I get lots of lovely comments in response to tweeted out archived posts. x
I agree, tweeting out old posts is a good idea. I can imagine people complain when it is overdone (I do that maybe 1 to 3 a week out of maybe 20 tweets). I have seen some people tweet out 5 old posts a day and nothing else – that I can see people getting annoyed with. I do, I drop them.
Overall people pay far too little attention to old posts. I get more page views of posts as the years go by. Many posts I wrote in 2010 get more reads in 2015 than they did in 2010 – and this pattern has held true for a long time. There are some posts that get lost over time and get fewer reads but the reverse is more common.
I have a bunch of old posts that I want to show some love… just need to get around to doing it!
This is a great post as always! So useful and really something we are thinking about now that we’re a little bit older #TheList xo
It’s a great idea to go back and update old posts. I need to do this and some early ones are cringey! 🙂 x #TheList
More great advice which I’ve added to my reading list and am about to pin – so when I find it again I can take action 🙂 thanks lovely x
Great tips! I will definitely be implementing them to ALOT of my old posts … well it may not help as they say “like polishing a turd?” lol xxx
Author
Ha ha! But I cannot imagine that huni! xxx
Working on updating old posts is what I’ve been concentrating on since Christmas. Seems to be taking forever and like some posts, I’m literally rewriting them from scratch but I am seeing a difference in my stats so it’s certainly worth doing