Want To Increase Your Blog Traffic?
As bloggers our main focus is on creating new content for our blogs, but what about those older posts from our archives?
If you've been blogging for a while you might have hundreds of blog posts in your archives. How do you figure out which ones are worth updating?
A good place to start is by looking at your traffic stats. Posts that bring in the most traffic are a good place to begin. Updating these 'Evergreen' posts will ensure that new visitors to your blog get the best first impression (especially if these posts were from a year or more ago).
You might also like: Exploring CTA's: Different Types of Calls To Action To Use in Your Blog Posts
Ways To Upgrade Old Blog Posts
Graphics
By updating the graphics on an older post you instantly give it a fresh look. If you use visuals when sharing your posts on social media (which I hope you do), then this is an easy to share the same post again without your followers getting bored of the same old same old. e.g. they might have pinned your old graphic to a board on Pinterest. By giving them a new, fresh, image, they can pin it again to a different board and share your content again with their followers.
Your branding may have changed since you did the original post too, so by updating the graphics you can make sure that your best posts have a consistent look.
You might also want to think about adding additional graphics to the post e.g. if your post only has a horizontal image consider adding a vertical image too. Vertical images work better on Pinterest.
Broken Links
Any blog that has been going for a while is bound to have a broken link or two somewhere.
Broken links are links that do not reach their intended destination. This could be because the page you linked to has been removed. When readers click on a broken link they are most likely to end up seeing a 404 error page. Too many broken links on your website will mean you lose credibility.
Broken links also have a negative effect on your website ranking.
Add Keywords
Keywords are incredibly important for SEO. Make sure you've added a meta description to the post, and used your keywords in your posts title and content.
Reworking your posts title can be a great way to increase traffic to an older blog post. If your original post had a random title like "Recent Musings" it's not doing anything for your SEO. Change the title to something that includes your keywords and makes people want to read your post.
Additional Links
Since writing the original blog post you may have written more blog posts related to the topic. Add your newer links to the older blog post. A simple way to do this is by adding the text "You might also like: INSERT LINK HERE'.
Content
Typo's happen to the best of us. Run your old blog post through a spell checker or a site like Grammarly to make sure no mistakes got through.
If you find that a lot of changes need to be made to the content (e.g. due to outdated information), then you might want to consider deleting the post and creating a new one instead.
Looking for help with your blog? Struggling to come up with ideas, or need help with your branding, SEO, or website design? I can help!
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Increase Your Blog Traffic
Jo Linsdell
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Ways To Upgrade Old Blog Posts
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38 comments
I definitely have some old blog posts that need updating. Thanks for sharing this!
ReplyDeleteWe often get so caught up working on new posts that we forget about the content we've already put out there. It can make a huge difference to traffic too.
DeleteThank you for the tips!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure :)
DeleteThanks for the ideas!
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure. It's so easy to forget about posts once they've been published. Updating older posts can really help drive traffic to your blog though.
DeleteI never thought of any of these - thanx!
ReplyDeleteA lot of bloggers don't think to update older blog posts. It can make a huge difference though so it's definitely worth the while doing it.
DeleteI'm slowly (very slowly) updating my old blog posts to match my new formatting on my blog. I share one old blog post (updated) a week to my social media platforms. Great idea to pin the new imaging to Pinterest too though!
ReplyDeleteThanks Bentley. It's a long, on-going progress to update older blog posts. It really helps with keeping branding consistent, as we all evolve over time. Great idea to do a weekly update and share it on social media.
DeleteI have a lot of updating to do and was just thinking about this the other day. What a timely post for me to read.
ReplyDeleteGlad I could help :)
DeleteI've been doing this to old posts for a while. It's taking its time as I have over a thousand but it is slowly getting there. One of the things I've noticed since doing it is that my DA score went up too.
ReplyDeleteI have the same issue. I've been blogging for years and so have a LOT of blog posts in my archives. My Domain Authority score improves with each update I do too. Quality content makes a big difference. All those little changing to improve each post don't go un-noticed.
DeleteThese are some nifty things everyone must do on their blogs. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteGayathri @ Elgee Writes
Glad you liked the post. Yes, updating older blog posts is a good idea for all bloggers for do on their blogs.
DeleteGreat ideas. I should definitely do some of these for my blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks Allie. Let me know if you see a difference in your blog traffic and DA score once you've updated some of your posts.
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ReplyDeleteThank you. I'm glad you found the post useful.
DeleteHi Jo, "Thank you" probably will be less saying for this high valued work. I am saying high valued for the reasons that traffic is the fuel or heart of any kind of website or blog. Without traffic a blog or website is worthless and bears no significance of the authors hard work. But in spite of writing quality content you can't expect huge traffic to your post because you have to bring your post to the search engine's eye. Again you have to face a lots of competitors to the same issue you post. So, surely you have to gain some seo knowledge which you have already focused well in this excellent article. It is said content is the king. So, quality content, graphics, keywords, meta description, broken link building,( I also love to say to initiate all types of link building works possibly) every steps are related to seo work. Social media can play a vital role in this regards. Anyway I am indeed enjoyed your good and helpful effort and would like to thank you for the share. For the kind consideration of you and the readers here, I dared to share a site that is based in Australia and performing seo service which I discovered a few days ago, seems to me very useful.So, who knows, somebody here is really in need of that service. Much respect to you all here. Please visit here to take a look.
ReplyDeleteThank you Samantha. Yes, SEO plays a big role in bringing traffic to your blog or website, with a variety of elements coming into play.
DeleteThe Grammarly doesn't provide insight into optimization. Besides Grammarly, I was cut and pasting into CPO websites. Then I stumbled on INK for All:http://bit.ly/2IiHXlQ.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up Ink for All. I hadn't heard of it before. Grammarly is for checking for grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.
DeleteVery helpful stuff.
ReplyDeleteGlad you found it useful :)
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ReplyDeleteThank You so much for this informative post - Jo Linsdell
ReplyDeletePlease keep posting and sharing!!
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ReplyDeleteGreat!I never thought of any of these - Thanks
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