10 Ways To Make The Most Out Of Your Blog Archives
After you've been blogging for a while you'll probably find yourself with an awesome backlog of posts and previous content, and one of the biggest mistakes we can make is not making the most out of all the awesome previous content we've created and shared with our readers. You are way more than just your latest blog post, so today I wanted to talk you through 10 different ways you can make the most out of your blog archives and not let your previous awesome content get lost in the crowd:
Re-share on social media channels: One of the easiest ways to promote old blog content is through the wonderful medium of social media. Whether it's sharing a link on Twitter or Facebook, or a visual on Pinterest; social media is a great tool for driving traffic to previous content. My best advice is not to just spam your audience with self promotional links and instead share old blog content when relevant and useful for them!
Create a follow up post to a previous topic: Maybe you've had a previous post go down really well with your audience and you feel like you have so much more left to say on the topic; following up to a previous post can help new readers discover the old post and add more value to the topic for your readership.
Link to old posts in fresh content when relevant: I do this often when and where it's relevant as a lot of my content tends to tie in with other posts. Add in links to previous posts when it will add extra value to your readers experience - sometimes I even include a little P.S at the end of posts for further reading!
Build an engaging and easy to navigate archive page: I love blogs that have super easy to browse archive pages and that's why I spent a while creating and updating mine. You are way, way, more than just your latest content and creating a super easy and aesthetically pleasing way for readers to browse your previous content is one of the best ways to not let your old blog posts go to waste. My best advice is to separate it into categories if you focus on various topics, so if someone just wants to browse a certain topic from you they can!
Promote popular archived content on your sidebar: Your sidebar is a great place to re-promote previous content and direct any new readers to the specific type of posts you want them to associate with your blog. If you do promote previous content on your sidebar, my biggest advice is to make sure it's the kind of content that will attract your ideal readers and really define what your online space is about.
Create a mailing list and share weekly and/or monthly round-ups: My mailing list will be back up and running in the new year which I'm super excited about, and although I plan on using mine as a weekly letter from me to you type format; newsletters are an awesome way to share previous content and drive traffic back to old posts. Whether you want to have a weekly or monthly round-up, if you're serious about blogging and connecting with your audience a mailing list is an awesome addition to your online presence.
Direct readers to previous content when it answers questions they ask: There is probably a wealth of awesome knowledge and expertise hidden within your blog archives, and whenever a reader leaves you a comment, drops you a tweet, or sends you an email full of questions, one of the easiest ways to help them is to direct them to an in-depth post that tackles the topic they're curious about.
Create a series using your blog archives: Maybe you share a lot of recipes, or niche specific advice, or maybe you're a digital nomad travelling the world and sharing your adventures. Whatever it is, if there are blog posts that can be grouped into a series you can re-share this content in a round-up style format to make it easier for your readers to digest a particular topic.
Build a 'If You're New Here Page' for new readers to discover your most read content and find out more about you: This is top of my to-do list for the new year as I really want a place for any new readers to go to really find out what this online space is about. You can share your most read content, and any posts that really share who you are and what you're creating with your online space. This also would work perfectly in mini-form on your sidebar as well.
Update old posts where needed (headlines, grammar, visuals etc): This is a very time consuming task but if you really want to take your archives seriously, updating any grammar mistakes, sprucing up any visuals, and tweaking any headlines to make them extra catchy is a great way to get them ready to share.
And if you want a super easy way to remember all of these I created a little cheat sheet for you guys to print or save!
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