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Don’t Abandon Your Posts Once Published

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I recently wrote a blog post that proposed that you should attempt to approach your blog from a new angle in order to better understand your readers and the journey they take on your blog.

In that article I stated that many bloggers approach their blogs through bookmarks or as their browsers homepage, this will undoubtedly take you straight to your blogs homepage or as some of my followers have noted straight to your admin panel. By doing this you are not following a true path through your blog like your readers do.

Your readers will access your blog through referrals or via a search engine, this will mean that they land directly on a post or page. With this in mind, bloggers need to understand how their visitors arrive at their blog and give them what they are looking for.

The best way of tackling this is to use the ideas I put forward in my previous post as well as analyzing your blogs stats to find your 20 top landing posts (The post a user first sees when they access your blog). Once you have your list you need to go through each of those posts and see if they meet the needs of your readers, are they still up-to-date? do they provide links to other related posts? Do they encourage the reader to stay on your blog or subscribe to your feed?

These are just a few of the things that you can look at to optimize old posts, there are plugins that can make things a little easier, such as the related posts plugin that can display links to related posts on all of your blog posts but my advice would be to read through your old posts every couple of weeks.

Many bloggers abandon their blog posts around a week after publishing them, they will usually spend a couple of days tweeting the link and driving some traffic to them but as they start to write new posts the older posts get left behind and forgotten about. Your old blog posts are just as effective as your news posts for generating traffic to your blog so they should not get left behind.

My action point to you from this post is: Look back over 20 of your previous blog posts and ensure that they are up-to-date and link to other relevant sources of information on your blog. Once you have updated the post, tweet the link on twitter and tweet me the link and I will drive some new traffic to it.

About

I am currently studying a BSc (Hons) Computing degree at the University of the West of England (UWE). I have been blogging for the last 3 years on many different blogs and use this blog to share my experiences of blogging as well as talking about the things that are currently going on in my life.

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{ 22 Responses }

  1. CJ says:
    Well said man, Google and other search engines are going to bring users back to your older posts on your blog whether you like it or not, so if you're not keeping them up-to-date, you could be missing out on returning readers. CJ CJ's last blog ..The Secret To Making $10,000 Online and Living The Internet Dream
  2. Ari Herzog says:
    Kudos! Aside from determining top landing posts is to see who is commenting on older posts (pick a time frame and focus on those written before the time frame). If the content in that post has been updated, edit it with a link to the new post! .-= Ari Herzog´s last blog ..Showcase Sunday: From Felicia Day to a Goat =-.
  3. lawmacs says:
    That is so true we sometimes forget about our old post quite recently i read an article about tweaking our old post i had one with no comments and i refresh it repost it and it paid of another good idea is to retweet of old post are refer to them in ou later post just to drive more traffic to them .-= lawmacs´s last blog ..Web Design Tips Page speed =-.
  4. Ms. Freeman says:
    That's a really good point. I wrote a few post a while back when I was first starting out and my point of view on some subjects have change. I definitely need to go back and do some updates on those older posts. .-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..Stun’em with an Elevator Pitch =-.
  5. Gordon says:
    Absolutely! You should go back to your old posts every once in a while and re-tweet them, link new posts to older and relevant posts. Some people have a rule where they promote every post until it gets a certain amounts of clicks/hits/visits. They say, ok 300 is the marketing goal I want for every post so the market it until they hit that amount of clicks and then they move on to another post that is low on hits. It's not a bad idea but remember, you don't want to seem like a spammy blogger. Don't let the dust settle on your old posts! .-= Gordon´s last blog ..Blogging On Autopilot During The Holidays =-.
  6. Dennis Edell says:
    You should always go back over old posts. Not only is is good to link new posts to old (deep linking) but it is also a good idea to do it in reverse. ;) .-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..UPDATED - Pick My New Domain Names With A chance To Win $10! =-.
  7. Sniff India says:
    i like to put posts as featured on the sidebar and other places of the blog, or link them from new posts and follow other such methods to give a new life to the old posts, its always good to recognize old posts and give them more visibility :)
    • David Shaw says:
      Sidebar is a great place to highlight previous posts! .-= David Shaw´s last blog ..Saturday Link Love 19/12/09 =-.
  8. Dana says:
    We also can optimize our old blog post to get some great earning. Yeah -- there are many advertisers want to advertise in our blog post. .-= Dana @ Online Knowledge´s last blog ..Create Blog Lab by use Sub-Domain Facility =-.
    • David Shaw says:
      Yeah, this is another benefit of going back over your old blog posts! .-= David Shaw´s last blog ..Saturday Link Love 19/12/09 =-.
  9. Deepika says:
    You are absolutely right David... Thanks for the tips...We should try to concentrate on every post in our blog... I update any of my old post daily in any of the social bookmarking sites. Through this traffic also increasing and they also reading both my old post and recent post... .-= Deepika´s last blog ..How To Comment On Other Blogs =-.
    • David Shaw says:
      Yup. Your blog is a whole collection of traffic generating posts. Not just your new ones! .-= David Shaw´s last blog ..Don’t Miss The Guest Posting Contest =-.
  10. a2v says:
    Nice one, this is what I am doing on my old post, i used google analytics to track my top 20 landing page then improve the old post to cater for my visitor need. Great post. .-= a2v´s last blog ..What to do if the Check Engine Light Goes On =-.
    • David Shaw says:
      Great. Let me know how you get on with it! .-= David Shaw´s last blog ..Don’t Miss The Guest Posting Contest =-.
  11. Willa says:
    hi, i got here thru FB and I think that you are correct, an old post should be more useful, that's why I think Link Within is a brilliant idea and I have it both in my blogs (WP,Blogspot) .-= Willa´s last blog ..Thank God On Friday =-.
  12. bbrian017 says:
    Hey David I'm live on DanBloggers live show and came to check out your article! I dugg it and engaged it! I'm bad for abandoning my posts. I was reading a discussion thread at the problogger forum and everyone was saying you should update your posts with relevant links and information ever few months. I'm great at marketing but blogging is a totally different ball game. I'm starting to grow into my spot but it's taking more time then I thought. I enjoy what I do and that helps keep me going. I love your idea about taking the top 20 traffic generating posts and review them. I will give this a go using Google Analtyics. Thanks for the info and advice. .-= bbrian017´s last blog ..50 USD Revenue Sharing Bonus from CrowdA =-.
  13. Blogger Den says:
    This is very true! Many people just run their Wordpress blogs like it's an automated process to post something and then traffic is just gonna find your site right away. It's good to see marketers pointing out this isn't how blogging works. .-= Blogger Den´s last blog ..WordPress 2.9 be rolled out soon =-.
    • david says:
      Many Thanks for the positive response! .-= david´s last blog ..Don’t Miss The Guest Posting Contest =-.