Writer’s block is the worst thing that can happen to bloggers. Sometimes you simply burn out and cannot come up with new blog post ideas even if your life depended on it. So what do you do when this happens? Well, you can always travel back in time and revisit your old articles.
If you’ve written evergreen or timeless articles in the past, you should not let them get buried. The hard work you put in 1, 2, or 3 years ago deserves to be seen again. Why not update your older articles and add even more value to them?
Here are a few great ways to recycle your old content!
1. Add and Restore
You can, very easily, go back to an older blog post and start writing more about the topic, or change things that you might feel differently about now. Try to add even more value to the post. Add pictures, quotes, useful websites, etc. Make it beautiful.
2. Reshare
You can easily reshare the best articles you’ve written on Facebook and Twitter. Have a great post about ____? Great, reshare it. Chances are your followers don’t stalk your Twitter or Facebook feed every single day of the year. You might also have some new followers who just found out about your website. There is no way in the world that all of your fans and followers saw that one article you wrote a year ago.
Pro tip: Schedule your old posts with Buffer or Hootsuite. Your old articles will be automatically tweeted without you having to be behind a computer screen.
3. Create a FAQ Page
Not as silly as it sounds. It’s really easy to think about all the industry-specific questions your constantly bugged about. How do I do this? Where can I find X? What’s the best way to ____? Take note of your most commonly asked questions and answer them on a dedicated page.
You can also link back to old posts for more detailed answers. People will love to read these old posts instead of asking you to repeat yourself a million times. If you already have an FAQ page, consider adding some links and getting rid of very long answers. This will promote your evergreen content.
4. Slideshows
For some reason, slideshows have become increasingly popular. Think about it, how many ‘Top Ten’ posts have you made, or even ‘How To’s.’ These are perfect candidates for creating slideshows. Use high quality images and create a slideshow of your old blog post. After you’re finished, upload it to Slideshare. You can also create a screencast and upload it to Youtube. Doing these things will increase the visibility of you and your blog.
5. Create a Series
If you have an old article that did well when you published it, why not create a series from it? Let’s say you published an article about link building. Revisit that content and add more to it.
6. Highlight You Old Articles
Create a separate web page on your website that will list the best articles you’ve written in the past. You can label it as, “Best of…” or “Top 30 Posts.” This is useful for your current and new readers. You should only list your best work on this page. In a way it’s a representation of what your website has to offer.
7. Teach!
If you’re like me, you have more than 100 posts about every topic you know, floating around somewhere in cyberspace. Why no use your old content to create a massive guide or an ebook? You can easily combine your old posts into a PDF and offer it as a free download. If you’re really lazy, you can hire a freelancer on oDesk, Elance, or Freelancer to go through your entire website and create a stellar ebook out of your content.
Pro tip: A lot of people will pay for the organization of old content.
Author information
Igor Ovsyannykov
Igor Ovsyannykov is a 21 year old geek, blogger, and designer. He mostly spends his time working here and sharing resourceful knowledge with others. He also enjoys weight lifting, hanging out with friends, and losing his mind to progressive house music. If you would like to reach him, send him an email to inspirationfeed@yahoo.com
