Did you know that most blog posts have an average life span of 90 days? This term refers to blog posts which have been posted for over 90 days. These postings tend to be forgotten and are never again revived from the archives. The main reason why anyone would want to reuse or recycle a previous blog posting is that it is simply much more convenient as opposed to having to post fresh new content every day.
If your original post came with back links, reposting can also get old links re-indexed as well. Rewriting a previous article also gives you a chance to hone your blogging skills and will educate you on how you can write better headers and present the original information from another angle.
Another interesting reason for reviving old blog posts if is the content previously written has become priceless or is much too precious to be ignored, especially by new readers who have recently joined your site but haven’t had the time to go through years of blog archives!
Make a Round Up Post
The Round Up Post is usually done by seasoned bloggers at the end of every year. This post contains a list of all the best blog posts they have written in the past 365 days, including the link to the post for new readers to access. The drawback to this method though is that you will need to have a handful of high quality blog posts which you would like to mention in the post.
The other problem with the Round Up Post is that it cannot be done very often, just like how Selena Gomez can really only release one Greatest Hits Album in the next decade to avoid redundancy. The good news though is that linking to your previously popular posts can boost your back links and it is pretty easy to write about.
Mention the Old in the New
Most seasoned bloggers also tend to connect their previous posts to their current posts either by blogging about a relevant subject or by going completely off topic. Unless you already have a stream of loyal readers who would click on anything you recommend, you should only mention previous blog posts in fresh but relevant blog topics.
The good thing about this method is that it provides the reader with more information on the topic. This re-posting method can also be done repeatedly over and over again without looking superfluous as it serves only as a side note to your fresh new blog content.
Be an EzineArticles Writer
EzineArticles is an article database which chronicles hundreds of thousands of articles on the Internet. To refresh an old blog post, what you need to do is to sign up as a writer (for free!) and then submit a rewritten article based on your old blog post. The article should be well written with an attractive headline and a back link to your old post at the end of the article.
This way, EzineArticles visitors can then find their way back to your previous posting via the article, therefore generating new visitors for your blog. The drawback to this method is that you will have to find a unique way of rewriting your blog post and the submission and approval process of your articles can be tedious, although the results are definitely worth it.
Another major drawback to this method is that EzineArticles’ values might have been lowered due to the Panda Update. However, for the purpose of reusing older blog posts, this method is still good to try!
Write a Newsletter
If you have an e-mail database of all your site readers, you might want to update them on your latest blog postings via newsletters. A great way of reminding your readers of your high quality content is by linking to your old blog posts on your newsletter, which will then encourage your newsletter readers to click back to your blog site.
Alternatively, you could also simply copy some contents of your fabulous old blog post and paste the information in the newsletter for your readers to read from their inbox.
Better yet, as most of your newsletter readers would also be your regular blog readers, you should also inject your newsletter with new and relevant content to keep your loyal blog visitors satisfied. Along the same line, you might also want to post up links to old blog postings via Twitter so your followers can re-read previous pertinent posts.
Old Posts versus New Posts
If you don’t have the time to rewrite or think about how you can incorporate your previously successful blog posts in your current blog, you might want to start out by first incorporating a “Favorites” or “Most Read” column in your blog featuring links to your most popular blog postings. After all, providing fresh new content for your blog readers should always take precedence over recycling old blog posts.
This is a guest post written by Jasmine. If you wish to write for us, kindly read our guidelines.
Mentioning old posts is good. Reuse is good. But also, many of my most popular posts are years old (across many blogs the most popular posts for a 3 month period are older ones). It is true a reasonable number of old posts get minimal traffic. But with good content old posts have long staying power.
You are absolutely right, John, there sometimes popular posts are the older ones. Thanks for your comment!
That sounds great, Vishvast. Good luck on getting more traffic to your posts!
Those are good suggestions, Avatar. I am sure the possibilities are only limited by our imaginations. Thanks.
Hi Jasmine,
Nice article and this article has remembered me of my post how to promote your old blog post. It is little bit different but nice one…..we can also use interlinking and many plugins are there for promoting old posts………….
Hello Prakash, thanks for your comment. I am sure you have a lot of old posts that are worth promoting again. Good luck… and do check out Geeks4share.com and my website 100webhosting.com from time to time.
Bye!
Hello Tech Geek, must learn some tech tips and tricks from you someday.
Yes, it’s good to always interlink… this will give your articles more information as well as to help search engines indexing your old posts.
I put links to older posts that seemed to get a positive response in my auto responder. That way regardless of when a person signs up for my list, they’ll be given the option to revisit some of my older posts. I’ve found it to be a great way to keep older posts “fresh” while catching everyone up on the basics of what I write about. I definitely like the Ezine suggestion though; I haven’t submitted an article to them in quite some time. Thanks for the ideas.
Thanks Jasmine for this post, its good to know that you can recycle old content and repost and get re-indexed. You mention that a blog post generally lives for 90 days, could you re-publish such content every 3 months, is this good practice?
Hi Samsung,
Thank you so much for liking my post. I am sure by using some of my points, you can reuse older posts and write more useful content. With this you can get more readers and get more traffic to your blog.
I have one doubt,,if i have a post which is not ranking well,should i delete and rewrite it or edit the post
Recycling is important everywhere, even in the blogging world! I never thought of that and i felt enlightened when i read this article. Thank you for sharing this.