By reusing your old blog posts, you can get new traffic without writing more.
How often do you blog?
Three times a month? Three times a day?
You have put great time and effort into those posts. A post done right takes hours.
A commenter recently wrote and said that you can never get time back.
That may be true, but you can extend the time you spent researching, writing, and promoting your posts if you repurpose them.
For example, if it takes you two hours to write one post, and you are able to bring that post back again and again in order to get new audiences to read it, the value of that same two hours will have been increased.
This post will explain how to extend the life of each post you write.
Repurpose means you are going to find other purposes for your posts. You are going to take a piece of content and change it so that it can get new audiences.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” is an expression that normally relates to the environment. You are going to reduce the time you spent blogging by getting extra value to those hours. You are going to reuse your old posts by recycling them.
In blogging lingo we talk about Return on Time Invested (ROI). This post will show you how to maximize the amount of time you invested in a post by using it again for a different purpose.
Tweet: You can easily get new #blog traffic to old posts. http://ctt.ec/07Tk2+
How to Get New Value to Old Posts
1. Add a new picture.
A link to a pin of mine broke. I fixed the link and put the corrected graphic back into Pinterest. Within minutes, my old graphic had many new repins on Pinterest, and a percentage of those clicked my article and read it.
Infographics count as pictures too. They are “graphics” after all. I always post my infographics on Pinterest first since they get they get the most attention. If you didn’t have an infographic accompany your post when you originally published it, include one now. Your post will get new attention when your new infographic is greeted by the Pinterest crowd.
2. Link back to your old posts.
I do this so often, readers write asking how it’s done. I think my maximum is ten links back to old posts. Concerned, I Googled how many back links are okay if we don’t want our SEO ranking to fall. The answer was 100!
I wrote a guest post about technology, so I backlinked to an old 2014 invention post I wrote. Since the guest post was published, that old post has become my top receiver of page views.
Under my post, WordPress will put three related posts of mine. However, I don’t want to count on that. If I have written a post that gives more information about what I’m referencing in my current post, I seize the opportunity to get new traffic to that old post by linking back to it.
If you care about your SEO ranking, you need internal links back to your old posts. I want increased blog traffic, and I want to enable Google to find me, so I link back to old posts.
Did you see what I did? I have a post that gives more information about how to enable search engines to find your posts, so I linked back to it using the hyperlink.
See? I did it again.
There are two ways to embed your old posts in the new post.
- Link the context of your article back to an old post using the hyperlink which these examples show.
- Embed the name of the article using the hyperlink.
For example, instead of writing “I want to enable Google to find me,” I could have written, “My post 7 Warning Signs That Google Can’t Find You” explains the importance of backlinks.
I would advise using the first method. The second is an obvious sign of self-promotion, and you don’t want to be considered a spammer.
3. Change the date and republish the post.
I have never done this. However, I know of a blogger that republished an old post. Since I followed his blog, I knew I had read it before.
If he had gained new blog followers since the post’s original publication, this would definitely be a way to get the eyes of his new audience on the post.
This is where you would go to change the date on an old post.
4. Embed a Tweet in an old post.
Click to Tweet will enable you to do this.
5. Rerelease with a new tip.
You could also rerelease an old post with an update.
6. Rerelease to a new Pinterest group board.
Many of those group boards each have thousands have members pinning to them. That’s how many people will be able to see your graphic. A good percentage of them will click the graphic, come to your site, and give you traffic.
7. Turn your blog posts into a book.
I plan on turning my posts into three books–beginning blogging, intermediate blogging, and advanced blogging.
8. Turn your book into a series of blog posts.
I have many followers that promote excerpts of their books in their blog posts.
9. Modify your posts and use them as guest blogs.
I have many posts about how to make infographics. I combined my Canva post, my Easel.ly post, and my Piktochart post into one guest post for Basic Blog Tips.
In those guest posts, make sure you link back to related articles at your site.
10. Turn your post into a YouTube video.
Here is mine if you would like to see an example.
By taking a video with your smartphone, you can easily upload it to YouTube.
11. Put old post’s graphics on top of new group boards at Pinterest.
Go to PinGroupie to find group boards for your niche.
12. Promote old posts on new social media sites.
Just Retweet and Viral Content Buzz are great choices if you haven’t used them to promote the old post yet. You don’t have to limit yourself to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, or LinkedIn.
**Bonus tip: 13. Have a Related Posts section.
I put mine at the bottom right under the call to action.
In closing, many bloggers erroneously think the only thing to do after publication is promote the post. Don’t let all that effort fall by the wayside. Repurpose your previous efforts, and let them get appreciated by new audiences. This post contained thirteen ways for you to get new traffic without you having to write any additional articles.
Readers, if you think other bloggers can benefit from these how-to-recycle-your-posts tips, please share.
How do you repurpose your old posts? Do you have any additional tips you use or can think of? I look forward to your views.
Related Posts:
How to Build the Perfect Blog Even if You Don’t Know How
How to Write a Killer Blog Post
