by Alan Rabinowitz
If you’re guilty of forgetting about your older articles — like many bloggers — you’re missing out on an opportunity for lead generation. Ignoring old blog posts is one of the biggest mistakes bloggers make, yet many still continue to short-change themselves and often overlook their untapped potential for lead generation.So, how can you drive more traffic to your older blog posts? Below we show you what has worked for us in the past, highlighting 7 easy ways you can drive more traffic to older articles. Take a look and let us know what you think in our comments section below.
Increase blog post traffic by updating your images
Finding the right image can be a daunting task for writers. However, the process can be less painstaking if they understood how image optimization improves overall blog performance.
Go through your older posts and optimize your images. Make sure you have a keyword in the image file name and also have added an alt-tag. This will increase your chances of pulling in organic traffic from image search and help drive more organic traffic to your website.
If you create your own custom images for blog posts, try to find them on the web using a tool like Tineye or Google Images. If you notice that another website is using one of your images, you can always reach out and request a backlink or source.
Also, you’ll want to replace landscape images with portrait images. This will help you promote your content on Pinterest, a website that boasts over 150-million users each month. Create a Pinterest board and post up your new portrait images on Pinterest to attract the attention of their fan base and then link back to your original post.
Boost organic traffic and add more words
Word count is correlated with social shares and organic traffic. According to Hubspot’s analysis of 6192 blog posts, articles between 2250 – 2500 words received more organic traffic.
So you’ll want to go through older posts and add more to the overall word count. When you add more content, you add more keywords. You’ll want to organize your top 20 keywords per blog post and see if you can add more to the body copy without butchering it.
An easy way to add keywords to your older articles without sounding ad nauseam is to add more words in your headings. For example, if you’re writing a how-to blog on generating more traffic to older blog posts. Instead of using a subheading like “Social Media,” use a subheadline like “Drive more traffic to older blog posts with social media” instead.
You can also add keywords in between paragraphs as well, hyperlinking relevant keywords to products and services on target landing pages. You’ll also want to make sure these keywords are synchronized with your title tag and meta data — make sure to stay within the character limit. You’ll also want to use Google’s Keyword Planner for more keyword ideas or review the LSI keyword list at the bottom of Google’s page for each query. If they are compatible with your blog post, weave them into your copywriting.
Add more value to older blogs and include a related posts section
An easy way to get more traffic to older blog posts is to add a “Related posts” section at the bottom of new articles. You are essentially creating your own LSI section at the bottom of each post. Here is where you add relevant hyperlinks to older content. Search engine spiders love to crawl links, so you’re likely to get more referral leads from the new post while also pulling in more traffic from organic sources, adding more words and key phrases to each post.
Improve post ranking with SEO-friendly titles
The most important part of any article is the title. David Ogilvy, arguably the greatest ad man to have ever lived, advises that businesses should spend more time on writing compelling headlines. He says that 8 out of 10 people will read your headline, and when you focus on writing an attention-grabbing title, you’ve spent 80% of your money.
Review your older posts and make sure they have search-friendly titles. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest to help you find the right keywords.
Drive more traffic to older blog posts using social media
There’s a reason why evergreen content is a best practice. Its timeless quality gives content marketers the ability to remarket it every marketing cycle. If you’re not re-marketing your older blog posts, you’re short-changing yourself. Try to organize all of your evergreen article posts in a spreadsheet with their links. Add relevant posts into your social media strategy and push it across your social media networks. You’ll also want to market your content on websites like Reddit, StumbleUpon and Medium as well.
Leverage hot spots and add older posts to your sidebar
The sidebar is a great place to fit in archived posts and other important calls to action. Typically, you’ll find social media links, email opt-ins, and archived blocks on the right side. If you’re using WordPress, you can customize each sidebar and display important topics featuring older posts. You’ll also want to customize the sidebar titles as well, giving you a new opportunity to feature older articles and keywords.
Use roundups to drive more traffic to older blogs
A lot of digital editors today create roundups. A roundup is a curation post that features a list of links to relevant stories. It’s a great way to draw more attention to any curated content each week, including older blog posts. All you have to do is think of a roundup theme, find posts that are relevant to that theme, and create a roundup post that highlights the posts within that theme. If you look around the web, you’ll find a lot of websites creating daily or weekly roundups featuring their top stories and articles from around the web.
Conclusion
Increase traffic and rankings, and improve overall lead generation by optimizing older blog posts. Take advantage of the work you have already done and schedule a day to optimize them. Update images, titles, and keyword count, review their overall design and ensure that your evergreen posts are remarketed on social media. When you organize and build up your older evergreen posts, you’ll be able to automate your content marketing and give yourself more time to come up with new in-depth articles.