Your Old Blog Posts Aren’t Dead. They’re Just Sleeping.
Post by Judy Dunn
We’ve been tricked. All of us.
That freshly baked, piping hot, sweet-smelling, pie called Original Content grabbed us by the collar. Assaulted our nostrils. Made us salivate.
This pie was made just for me. It’s fresh and juicy. No one else has had a bite. I want the first piece.
We bloggers know this pie well. We should, because we baked it.
As we create the content pie that becomes a new blog post, someone is standing over our shoulder. Maybe it’s that Internet marketer who sends us their weekly newsletter. Or that hot-shot author whose book, “Create Original Content or Die,” is on the bestseller list. And they are whispering:
“Say something new! ”
“Write with your own voice!”
“Be original. Be Cree-A-tive.”
Why Bringing Back an Old Blog Post Can Be a Good Thing
Attention spans are murderously short on the Web. Plus, you are always collecting new readers.
So you have your memory-challenged regular readers. And you have a brand new audience that has never read your old posts. That means that with just a little tweaking (or a lot, if it makes sense), you can get more google juice.
Of course, if you just start republishing old posts randomly, without choosing carefully, you’ll just be rehashing stale, boring ideas. But done right, you’ll get a surge in traffic and, very possibly, some new subscribers.
5 Steps to Waking Up an Old Post
- Revisit your older posts often. Your goal here is to find which posts were the most popular. If you see a certain post being viewed again and again, this is prime content to bring back. Sometimes it will be a post that had a lot of reader comments and sometimes not. Pay particular attention if the referring site (where the reader came from) is Google. If people are searching for help with a certain problem and they keep finding your blog post, you have a winner and you should consider republishing it.
- Look at your title, sub-heads and formatting with a fresh eye. Reworking the title just a little bit could make your post even more popular in a Google search. An added benefit: Google will look at it with fresh eyes, too. Google Analytics even tells you what terms people were using in their search when they found your post. Adding intriguing sub-heads also helps—to break up the text and draw the eye to the important parts of your post. And check your spacing. Do paragraph breaks often to help readers skim and scan. Sometime my paragraphs are just one sentence long, especially if I want to add emphasis to a thought.
- Consider updating the content. Your most popular posts got to be that way for a reason. If you can add new content, or rewrite, you’ll capture more readers, people who wanted to know more about what you were talking about. So think about the new things you could add.
- Add new tags. A tag is merely a keyword or category used to describe the topic of your post. Tags are indexed by Google and Technorati, so someone doing a Google search is more likely to come across your posts. Revisit your tags and think about whether adding a few new ones might help more people find your post.
- Think about adding a new image or two. If you are like me, you didn’t give much thought to images when you first started blogging. But images can be very powerful, hitting the part of the brain that triggers memory and emotions. The result: You attract more readers—and keep them engaged in your post. For more advice on what the right image can do for your post, read 5 Ways the Right Photo Can Get You More Blog Readers. For some good sources of photos, see my recent post, How to Find Spectacular Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Post.
What about you? Do you republish old blog posts? Do you think it’s a good strategy?
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Where Are the Visitors?: 5 Ways to use Google Analytics to Increase Your Blog Traffic
Ever wondered if it’s worth it to track your blog traffic? Google Analytics makes it easy. If you are already a user, here is my list of the five most useful things to do with it. And if you are not, here are some reasons why maybe you should.
Substitute the word “blog” for “website” here if you wish. Because most of this, except for, perhaps, the bounce rate advice, applies equally to both
If you haven’t registered yet, just go to Google Analytics and follow the steps to install it on your site. It usually takes 24 hours for the data to start rolling in.
5 Ways to Use Google Analytics to Increase Your Blog Traffic
- Get the big picture with the dashboard overview. A quick view of how you’ve done in the last month: number of visits and pageviews; bounce rate (% of visitors who leave right away without going on to other pages); average time on site; traffic sources and content overviews. Useful for: Pinpointing the main problem areas and accessing data for improvements.
- Study your visitors. I look at new vs. returning visitors because one of my goals is to increase the number of returning visitors from month to month. To grow my readership, I also want a healthy number of new visitors. And I watch visitor loyalty, which counts first-time visitors, all the way up to the percentage who have visited 200 or more times. Useful for: Analyzing your content to see what types of posts are bringing readers back.
- Keep an eye on your traffic sources. Track where your visitors are coming from: direct (typed your blog URL directly in); referring sites (visitors coming to you from other sites); and search engines (people googling terms/keywords to find your post). The keywords section shows the top 10 terms people googled to get to your blog posts. Useful for: Analyzing your blog promotion (how many people are coming to you from other sites). Top keywords give you ideas for writing more posts on the topics people are searching for.
- Look at the popularity of your content. I love this section. It not only shows which posts were most popular (content by title), but which pages were viewed the most and the average visitor time on page for each. Also shows you the top landing pages and the page visitors most frequently left your blog from. Useful for: Determining reader interest. Sometimes an old post will be on the most popular content list and you might want to revise, add fresh content and repost.
- Set goals and track results. Create a goal and track your results. For instance, maybe you want to increase the number of subscribers to your e-newsletter. Name your goal “e-letter signup” and identify a URL for tracking, for instance, the thank-you page when someone signs up.
Google Analytics is coming out with some more sophisticated tools that are especially useful for measuring results for your website. But these five strategies will get you on your way to tracking good, basic information on your blog (or website).
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Should You Redesign Your Website?: 5 Signs That It May Be the Right Time
You thought your site was working fine. You were in love with the original colors. Man, that bright yellow text on a black background was eye-popping. Back in the 90’s, that is. Okay, that’s an exaggeration.
But have you been wondering lately if your website is pulling its weight? Bringing you leads (and sales), getting visitors interested in your other cool stuff, like your blog or e-newsletter?
Maybe you know that something is not quite right. But you can’t put your finger on it. Your business might have changed. Or you might be trying to attract a different kind of client. The copy may be stale and unappealing. Or you don’t feel like the real you is showing up online.
5 Signs It May Be the Right Time for a Website Redesign
- You have changed the focus of your business. Could be that you have added or deleted products or services. Or maybe you are laser-focused on a new kind of client. If your site doesn’t represent what you do anymore, it’s time for a change.
- Your site traffic numbers have gone down. Are people landing on your home page but not going any deeper? If Google Analytics or another traffic measurement service is showing a decrease in viewer engagement, you may need a site fix
- Your content is stale. Your tracking data may show that you are not getting repeat visitors. If you provide fresh content (changing testimonials in and out, announcing workshops and other events, providing new rich content, etc.), your visitors will keep returning. And it’s easier to do that with a WordPress design.
- You don’t have a unique online identity. Your “About Us” page is normally one of the top two most viewed pages on your site. That’s because your online visitors are craving to know who you really are. Because people do like to do business with people, not robots. How many visitors are going to your “About Us” page and how long are they staying?
- Your website is out of synch with your other marketing materials. Your website should be consistent in look and feel to your blog, your e-newsletter, your business card, and your other offline marketing and sales materials. It should get an immediate reaction from your reader, “Oh, yeah, I know these guys.” Having a personal brand and staying consistent builds customer trust
A website redesign is all about giving some thought to what your visitor sees the instant they land, what you want them to do next and how you are going to get them to do it.
And it’s not as expensive as you think. If you need a fairly simple site without e-commerce and other complex components, WordPress is an easy solution. You’ll be able to create new content anytime, add widgets and plug-ins for more fun, and-best of all-not have to be at the mercy of your webmaster when you need changes.
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RSS Feeds on Your Blog – A Goldmine!
When I create a website or blog, it’s second nature to me to add an RSS feed, as with most people. But often I do get the question asked why should I do this?
What ends up happening is some short education for the client. What is a RSS feed? Who uses them? Why should it be on there?
In one of my beginning blogging classes I first tell everyone that they need to make it easy for a visitor to sign up for their feed. Then I ask how many people understand RSS feeds. Normally only one or two raise their hands. This is followed by a short introduction to RSS readers, etc. But in the end my comment is, “You may never choose to sign up for feeds yourself, or implement a reader, or really understand them, but there are a lot of people out there that do.” And that’s why you need it on your blog!
Note on the left upper hand side of this blog, you will find two options. 1) They can sign up for the feed via a reader. Or, 2) they can sign up for the feed via email. Give them both options. A lot of people still want to be notified when you publish a post via email.
So if you don’t have both, go to feedburner.com and burn your feed!
As SEO expert Barry Hurd of 123 Social Media once said to me, “Every time someone signs up for your feed, that is worth it’s weight in gold”. Just think, the person who does sign up for you feed wants to be contacted whenever you do a new post. It doesn’t get better than that!
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Changing Your Page Title in the Nav Bar
You create a page. You title it “About Joe Smith,” which is what you want it to say on the page. But in your nav bar, you just want “About”. Here is a simple way around this problem.
First you will need to install the plugin All In One SEO Pack. This is a great plugin and one you should be using anyway. I’m not going to use this post to tell your all it’s features, but do check it out.
Once installed and enabled, you will find this box at the bottom of every post and page you create. But you will only see this line for your pages.
Menu label:
Simply type in what you want to appear in your nav bar, save and presto!
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Grade Your Website
Recently a colleague suggested I check out the site Website Grader. It’s a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Interesting results. Out of 100, our site was graded a 92. Whoopee!
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SEO Tools – A Must for WordPress
The All in One SEO Pack is probably the most used and well known admin plugin for WordPress. The All in One SEO pack allows you to give your post or Page a keyword rich title, different to the post/Page title, a meta description and keywords. This is a must have tool especially for Pages and when you are running your site as a content management system. Click here to download the All in One SEO Pack.
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