For most blogs, the life cycle of a blog post is pretty short. Unless you do a pretty good job with post SEO and it brings you long-term search traffic, your post which you worked so hard on will simply fall into the archives of your blog – never to be seen again.
What a waste! Because, I don’t know about you, but I have a lot of good stuff back in the archives of my blogs. And it is a real shame when they don’t serve me longer.
Well, there ARE things you can do in order to lengthen the life cycle of a blog post.
So, let’s discuss it.
#1 – Use A Related Posts Plug-in
You’ve seen them. You get to the bottom of a post and it recommends several others which you might also like. Nice and simple.
There are a ton of plug-ins out there which do related posts, in varying degrees of coolness. For what its worth, the one I’m using is Yet Another Related Posts Plug-in.
#2 – Remove Dates From Your Blog
Blogs are chronological, by nature. But, that doesn’t mean you have to be forced to accept that fact.
Psychologically, when we see an old post date on a blog post, we automatically dismiss the post. We say, “This post is old, so it probably isn’t relevant anymore.”. And we say this even if every word of that post is just as relevant today as it was when it was written.
You could have AWESOME stuff in your archives, but people will write it off automatically if they see an old post date on it.
The solution: Remove dates.
In so many niches, the dates aren’t important anyway. Honestly, unless your niche is very time-driven (i.e. news), you probably don’t need dates on your posts.
Now, I bet you’re asking, “OK, Dave. But, how?”
Well, some themes have the option built-in. If not, you’ll need to hack it. Look in your single.php file of your template and search for instances of the_date(). See this page for more information. When you find it, simply remove it from your theme. To remove from post listings, you’ll need to do the same in index.php, category.php, archive.php (if your theme has these files).
#3 – Inter-Linking
When you write a post, be sure to link relevant keyword phrases in your post to previously published articles, where appropriate.
Not only does this help with search engine optimization, but it can also lead your readers back into your archives.
#4 – Do Themed Guides Or Resource Pages
You can set up resource pages on your blog which do nothing but link back to relevant blog posts, all centered around a particular topic.
For example, if you look at the membership sites guide on this site, you’ll see that it is a page which links to blog posts I’ve written about the subject of membership sites. You can set up these pages as landing pages, target the HELL out of them with SEO, and it can work wonders for blog traffic.
#5 – Create a “Getting Started” Page
This makes sense from a couple perspectives:
- You can link back to past posts.
- You’re solving the “what do I do now?” question that often happens with new arrivals to your site. When people ask themselves that question and they don’t see an answer, they’ll often merely bounce off the site. Hello, bounce rates.
You can see the page I have for this purpose: Getting Started With Making Money Blogging. It guides them through several things, including getting on my email list, reading some of my posts, a word on mindset (so I don’t attract the “get rich quick” seekers), and connecting socially.
#6 – Repurposing
You can re-use blog posts in a variety of ways, including:
- Spinning and re-distributing in article directories.
- Re-stating the same information in a different form of content (i.e. a video, podcast, etc.)
- Compiling old posts into an ebook
- Doing a webinar on the same topic.
#7 – Integrate Into Your Autoresponder Sequence
Using your autoresponder sequence to build a solid relationship with each email subscriber is a SUPER good idea. Obviously. 🙂
Well, a great way to do this is by pointing them into some of your best stuff on your blog. You can either tease them a bit then link them to the post itself, or you can simply swipe the post and essentially email it to them (so the email itself is valuable).
Essentially, then, you can turn your list into a form of “drip feed” of your best stuff to all new subscribers. Aweber is, by far, the best tool to set this up with.
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So, anything I’m forgetting?
Got A Question? Need Some Assistance?
Have a question about this article? Need some help with this topic (or anything else)? Send it in and I’ll get back to you personally. If you’re OK with it, I might even use it as the basis of future content so I can make this site most useful.
