Picture by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash
If at first you don’t succeed, strive, strive once more….
Have you ever ever written a submit that you just thought would hit the spot along with your readers, generate a number of curiosity and/or stimulate an amazing dialog after which discover it fell flat on it’s face?
I’ve – in reality it occurs on a regular basis for a wide range of causes:
- Typically your posts fall over as a result of different tales break within the blogosphere and hog all the eye
- Maybe you simply had some unhealthy luck and the correct influential blogger didn’t occur to see your submit (and unfold the phrase)
- At different instances its since you posted on the improper day of the week
- Or maybe you wrote the submit within the early days of your weblog earlier than you actually had any readers to learn it
- Alternatively it may be merely that your submit wasn’t adequate
Many of those unsuccessful posts slide off the entrance web page of a weblog by no means to be seen or thought of once more (by your readers or by you) – nevertheless, maybe in time, they deserve a second probability. In spite of everything, you’ve put work into researching and writing them and with a second probability within the highlight they might really attain their potential and develop into extra fruitful and rewarding to you as a blogger.
Over the previous few weeks I’ve experimented on a variety of events with giving outdated posts that I felt hadn’t lived as much as their potential a second probability. I’ve accomplished this in a number of other ways with various levels of success however wished to share the strategy that was most profitable for me (in addition to a number of others on the finish of this submit).
Reposted Replace
Essentially the most profitable of my experiments with giving outdated posts a second probability have been reposting them on the entrance web page of a weblog with updates.
I did this a number of days again with a submit on DPS on Sluggish Sync Flash. The earlier model of the submit had been posted again in January when my readership was significantly smaller than it at the moment is (ie most of my present readers wouldn’t have seen it earlier than) and whereas it had been reasonably profitable when it comes to producing feedback I used to be by no means utterly glad with the submit (when it comes to what I’d written and/or the site visitors it bought).
So I up to date the submit with a number of tweaks that made it extra helpful, enticing and related and reposted it on the prime of my weblog (just by altering the posting date in WordPress). I additionally included a word that it was an up to date submit on the finish of the submit.
IMPORTANT NOTE – I’m able to do that at DPS as a result of I’ve a permalink construction that doesn’t embody dates (ie it’s simply the BlogName/PostName not BlogName/Date/PostName as it’s right here at ProBlogger. you probably have dates in your permalink construction you shouldn’t use this technique as you’ll find yourself with a brand new URL for the submit which may imply you lose any search engine optimisation rating your earlier model of the submit had.
The outcomes of this up to date repost have been important with a entrance web page look on Digg, giant StumbleUpon site visitors, being featured on the entrance web page of Scrumptious and hyperlink ups from many blogs together with a number of authoritative ones.
The benefit of this technique is that the submit not solely will get a second probability within the highlight – however as a result of it’s a longtime submit with some Search Engine Rating – the mixture of the content material being up to date and new feedback being added (Search Engines like contemporary content material), the looks in your entrance web page and the additional hyperlinks that the submit may generate implies that the submit will construct it’s search engine optimisation authority.
The hazard of this method is that if you happen to do it too usually with posts that the majority of your readers may have seen earlier than you run the chance of them changing into disillusioned with you. I don’t have an issue with updating outdated posts to make them extra related and helpful – however a few of your readers may get a bit sick of studying the identical outdated stuff if you happen to do it too usually.
This method works finest on evergreen or timeless posts – notably ‘’ or ‘suggestions’ posts.
Different methods of updating content material and giving it a second probability
The reposted replace is one thing that has labored very properly for me on a variety of events. Nevertheless there are different methods to offer an older submit a second probability together with:
- Full Rewrite as a brand new submit – on this method you merely take the ideas out of your earlier submit and rewrite it from scratch as a brand new submit on the weblog. You may make the identical posts, replace a few of your ideas, add new factors and many others however find yourself with two posts on the identical subject. I’ve used this method with some success additionally. I’d usually hyperlink again to the earlier model so readers can see the development of my concepts.
- Replace Posts and Hyperlink to them – one other method is to replace an older submit after which write a brand new submit saying the replace with a hyperlink to it. This doesn’t are inclined to work fairly as properly for some cause – maybe as a result of the outdated submit nonetheless has your outdated date on it and may be seen as ‘dated’ by many (it’s wonderful how individuals write off outdated materials as being not present or outdated for simply being written a number of months again).
- Archive Compilations – posts that look again at a yr passed by and that hyperlink to outdated posts may also be one other means of driving individuals again into your archives for a re-examination. I have a tendency to do that on particular events (weblog anniversaries, the finish of the yr and many others). It’s a mild means of reminding new readers that there’s extra to your weblog than what they could have seen.
- Outstanding Hyperlinks to Key Posts – linking to outdated key posts in aspect bars, headers, posts and even as ‘associated posts’ beneath your posts may be methods of giving outdated posts a second breath of life. That is under no circumstances as radical as reposting an outdated submit – however over time this will drive important site visitors again to an older underperforming submit.
- Selling Previous Posts to Different Websites – that is one thing I’ve had some success with additionally – however fairly by accident. A month again I seen a spike within the site visitors coming to DPS from Digg. I instantly thought that considered one of my most up-to-date posts was the one bringing within the site visitors – nevertheless after I checked out the place the site visitors was heading I spotted it was to a submit that was 9 months outdated. Considered one of my readers had stumbled throughout it and had thought it digg worthy. Others had jumped on board and as a stroke of luck and with no work on my half I had successful on my fingers because it went to the entrance web page. It struck me at this level that maybe my archives held different outdated posts that had not been promoted to different bigger websites. Because of this I submitted a few older posts to a few giant blogs and to my amazement they have been picked up and linked to. I ought to word that one of many major causes that I think this works on DPS is that I don’t time stamp my posts. I’ve written extra on this follow beforehand (it’s one thing that can once more go well with evergreen timeless content material greater than blogs which are newsy and whose posts want the context of a date to be helpful to readers).
So do you replace posts? If that’s the case how do you do it and have you ever had any success with doing so?
This submit itself is an replace from the unique article revealed Could 11, 2007 and up to date Could 5, 2022.
