Yesterday I wrote that if you’ve been blogging for a long period of time, you might find yourself getting burned out or running out of things to blog about. But benefit of regular blogging is that you also have a large archive of previous posts stored on your blog. And there’s a lot you can do with those old blog posts. Here’s a few ideas to try:
1. Promote your old blog posts- If you’re already tweeting about your new blog posts, how about also tweeting about some of your older posts too? This is something that I try to do a couple times of week. I’ll pick a couple of oldies, but goodies and tweet out a link to them to my Twitter followers. A lot of times I do get some fresh traffic to an old post that might otherwise be buried deep in my blog. I’ll also link to these older blog posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and discussion forums to catch the folks I’m connect with on those sites.
Have an email newsletter? Suggest some of your best blog posts in your new subscriber welcome message to get them further acquainted with your blog.
2. Update, expand, or collect- You can take an old blog post and write a follow up post, expand it into a larger post, or you can organize related posts into collection or roundup post. I wrote more about how to do this in a previous blog post.
3. Turn your old blog posts into articles- If you have a particularly popular blog post, why not turn it into an article or a guest post? There are a lot of blogs out there that are looking for people to some guest blogging on their blogs. Take one of your popular posts, update it or polish it up and offer it as guest post on another blog. Or open an account on Ezine Articles and post your articles there. Provide a link back to your blog at the end of each article to get interested readers back to your blog. Or you can approach a print magazine or ezine and offer your article to appear in their publication. Make sure that each guest post or article includes a brief bio about you and a link to your blog or website.
4. Turn your old blog posts into a report or ebook- If you have a nice collection of related blog posts like tutorials, how to’s, or other information that your readers like, put them together into a really nice free PDF report or ebook to give away to visitors to your blog. Can’t readers just read those posts on your blog? Sure they can, but putting them into a nice downloadable PDF makes it easier for them to read all at once and to pass along to others that might interested. Don’t forget to add information about yourself, your work, and your blog in your ebook.
Get some extra traffic out of your ebook by putting it on a document sharing site like Scribd so folks there can read what you wrote…and maybe visit your blog for more!
5. Reformat your posts into a different format- Take a blog post and turn it into a format other than text. Why not make your blog post into an audio recording for a podcast to share on iTunes? Alyson Stanfield does this with her weekly newsletter, she offers it as an email, written blog post, and as an audio recording.
Or you can make your blog post into a series of slides and share on Slideshare or YouTube? Not everyone likes to read and if you post your audio, slides, or video on sharing sites, you might be able to get some traffic back to your blog.
6. Make your blog into a book- Well, it’s been done before. A lot of authors got their first book by making a collection of their best blog posts into a printed book. Or they create a blog with the express purpose of writing a book, one blog post at a time. You can DIY this yourself by using self publishing services like Lulu or Amazon’s CreateSpace. Why wait for a publishing house to discover you?
So now your turn! What do you do to get more mileage out of your blog posts? Leave a comment and let me know!
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
There are some great tips here. I will definitely be putting these to work asap
Thanks
Rob
#blog30
It never occurred to me to tweet out old blog post! You have some awesome suggestions here. Glad to have found your blog on the #blog30. Thanks!
Thanks for this- such great ideas here and lots of food for thought. As an artist having a break from my art I love that I have found your blog- what makes # blog30 so wonderful. Have added you to my reader
I followed you on Twitter after reading your post and came back. When I saw your title the second time, knowing you’re a crafter, I could see a crafter’s mindset at work. “What to do with old…” has sparked many a creation in art.
Thanks for this list. It makes me smile to think of reworking old posts like I’m knitting recycled yarn into a new sweater. I’m more likely to actually do it! Intention and should are only good for so much. Creative interest is so much more inspiring!
My captcha words are heck cases. Huh! Oddly likeable.
Nicolette ~
Whoa, Nelly! You’ve got a fabulous list of recycling suggestions here. Very impressive!
So glad our paths have crossed through the 30-day challenge and I’m looking ahead to paying more visits to your blog.
Melanie
#blog30
This is a great list. I am not sure if you know who Alex Mandossian is but he is a big proponent of re-purposing content.
There are many out there who do not know that they have the option of re-purposing past great posts into something else of equal or greater value.
btw I copied and pasted this into a doc so I can have something to refer to
Thanks for these great tips. I will be sharing them with my clients. What is it about blogging that strikes such featr into people’s hearts??? LOL! Re-purpose, republish, recycle!!!
Thanks for the great ideas. I done a few of these tips already but you’ve give me additional concepts that will make re-purposing my information easier.
Great ideas here – always looking for new ways to re-purpose content. For those here who are eBay sellers – many blog posts would make excellent Guides or Reviews on the eBay site to draw more traffic to your items.
What a great idea. To take old blog posts and reuse them, in innovative ways – well done