Did you know that I have written nearly 500 posts on this blog? 478 to be exact. The closer I’m getting to that number, the more I think about how much Thirteen Thoughts has changed over the last three years.
Over that time I went through a lot of trial and error in order to find my own style (both in terms of writing and photography) and I absolutely loved the entire process. It’s undeniable that with so many blog posts and articles, a lot of them get buried under fresh content. I recently decided to spruce up some of my older posts, refresh them and drive more traffic to them. This is what I’m planning to work on during this process.
UPDATING OLD IMAGES
This is a big one. Despite of already having great photography equipment (thanks to my husband who dabbled in photography a little) I knew nothing about photography. I only knew how I wanted my pictures to look, but I didn’t know how to make it happen. I definitely came a long way since the beginning of my blogging days, but that also means that the photography in my older posts, doesn’t live up to my current standards. Aesthetically-pleasing images will get shared on Pinterest, they also are much more likely to get a re-tweet on Twitter, a Facebook share or a re-post on Instagram- all of which can potentially lead to driving more traffic to your blog. Updating images on old posts will definitely be time consuming, and I’m obviously not going to do all of it at once, however, I already did try this with a few of my older posts and it worked like magic.
This is what my pictures looked like a few years a go:
This what they look like today:
ADDING KEYWORDS
Back in 2012 I had no idea what SEO even meant. Going back to your old posts and adding keywords, making it search-engine friendly is another way to freshen up that content a little.
REPUBLISH OLD CONTENT
Chances are that a lot of people who are reading your blog right now, weren’t reading it since the beginning. Maybe there are some posts that you are particularly proud of, but haven’t received much attention because when you published them you didn’t have much of an audience? You can update those posts, along with images, revamp them a little bit and republish. I’ve actually done this with a few of my posts in the past. I’d recommend that you also add a note at the end of the post, saying that the post was previously published and is being updated.
DO A ROUNDUP
This is another great idea for bringing traffic to those older posts, and it’s also something that I see a lot of successful bloggers do. Do a post rounding and linking up your best content, like your best breakfast recipes, your top outfit posts, your favorite DIY posts- this will of course depend on the type of content you’re creating.
TWEETILY
I already mentioned the Tweetily plugin in one of my previous posts, but I have to mention it again right here. It’s basically a plugin that sends out automatic tweets promoting your archived content. You can include certain categories, you can set up how often you want the tweets to go out, etc. I definitely noticed a big difference in my Twitter referrals since I started using this plugin.
ADD A POPULAR WIDGET
Some of the most popular posts on Thirteen Thoughts were published over a year a go. Adding a Popular Posts widget to your blog will let new visitors know what kind of content they can expect from you and it can also bring new traffic to those posts. You can use a plugin for this, or do it manually.
LINK TO OLDER CONTENT
This one is a bit, well, obvious, but it also brings results! When writing new content, try to link to your archived posts whenever you can, but always make sure that it’s relevant (for instance, don’t say “today, I’ll show you how to make a sexy dinner for two- oh and by the way, check out this foundation review I wrote last month!!”).
When it comes to growing your blog and bringing more traffic, I’ve learned that there isn’t just one particular area that you should work on. There’s promoting your content on social media, SEO, frequency and quality of your posts, networking with other bloggers, etc. Driving traffic to your archived content is just one of the ways to bring traffic to your blog.
If you liked this post, you might also want to check out 6 Simple Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog. (See what I did here? <img src="http://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/72x72/1f61b.png" alt="