Blog Tipz

Whenever you publish a new post to your blog, you are encouraging your readers to focus on your newest content more than older content. If you were to slow down posting, the visitors would begin to discover your older content, if it is still relevant. However, this isn’t ideal, as you want to maintain a relevant blog with new content as frequently as possible.

There are a few simple ways to encourage your readers to visit your older content (say from last month or last year). mOst people would rather not visit the archives page, so we have to leave that out of the picture.

1. Use a Related Posts Plugin or Widget

Most blog platforms have some method of creating an RSS feed or random posts into the sidebar. Utilize these. Usually, they will greatly work. By random, they are simply looking at the post(s) that are being displayed and then they generate a list of links to older posts. Often, they can be customized to not display really old content or to display posts by relevancy.

2. Link Back to Older Content

This is often the preferred way to increase readership of older content, although it is often more difficult – you have to search for content that directly relates to what you are talking about. The long-term results may be better, as people will stay on your site for a longer period and visit older posts as long as you are linking to them.

3. Integrate a “Random” Post Plugin

Using this method, you want your visitors to “browse” your site, discovering new content that they may not have seen before. It may not be the best idea for sites with a large number of “random” content, as al the content may not please all the readers. For example, this plugin will place links to random posts on your front page.

4. Ensure that Your Readers Share Content

Find a social bookmarking plugin that works for you. There are plenty out there and they are usually easy to integrate and include within your site. What they’ll do is encourage your readers to share content, no matter how old it is. Often, content doesn’t become discovered until much later down the road, when there has already been newer content published.

5. Share Old Posts

Once a week, create a roundup of news stories as well as articles from a “year ago,” for example. This will encourage visitors to review old content, as well as learn more about how you’ve grown and progressed.

6. Use Twitter

Twitter will continue growing. Continue utilizing the service for your blog. The Twitter Tools plugin is great as it can create roundups and collections of content. If you post links to your site through here, you are creating another “archive” of your site, ideal for sharing at a later point. Although you may temporarily be diverting traffic from your site, the roundup posts will keep it on your site, as people will be able to revert to either your Twitter stream or this collection post.

Conclusion

It can be difficult at times to direct traffic to older posts. Search engines do help to some extent, but in general, people will flock to your newer content first. Keeping your visitors on your site for as long of a period as possible is your goal, and by following the few simple steps above, you can ensure that they do this.