One of the dilemmas we all face as bloggers is constantly coming up with new ideas and fresh content for our sites so that our readers have new posts to read and so that the search engine spiders come back frequently. But while most (if not all) of us are always striving to be the first to post on a hot topic or issue and most of us are spending time to come up with that next great article idea, many of us are guilty of letting our existing content languish and grow stale. I think this is almost as bad as not creating fresh content.
Next great article idea ?
One of the things I do if I am having difficulty coming up with that ‘next great article idea’ is go into my old posts in Edit Mode and see if there is anything about them I can change and improve. You would be amazed at how your views on topics you have already posted about grow and evolve as you continue to blog. I cannot stress how important it is to periodically go through and update your old posts. When you save these new versions of your old posts, the search engines treat this almost as if it’s new content and send their bots over for a visit.
In addition to possibly having new points of view or additional comments to make in your old posts, perhaps you have joined some new affiliate programs since you first wrote those older posts and can now find key areas within your old posts to promote these new programs. Here is an example: Suppose you just joined a new affiliate program that sells health food supplements and, in the past, you wrote an excellent article about the benefits of taking such supplements, but at that time you did not know of this wonderful affiliate program. Go back into your old article and embed some affiliate links from them into your content.
Assuming that the older post of yours is already ranked and getting some traffic, you may be able to increase your affiliate sales by giving the people reading that old post the opportunity to purchase from this new program – an opportunity they didn’t have before. If you have an older post that is very popular or ranked highly, this tactic lone can really boost your affiliate sales. Plus, you’ve refreshed your old content and ‘got the attention’ of the spiders again, so to speak.
Linking opportunities on your blog
Another tremendously effective way to refresh old content is to add links to newer content as you go through your old posts. For example, suppose you have written a great post and in that post in a few places you mentioned the phrase ‘online marketing for beginners’ and somewhere else you wrote the phrase ‘beginners guide to affiliate marketing.’ Since then you wrote an excellent post that teaches beginners about online marketing and what you think really is a definitive beginners guide to affiliate marketing. Well, go back into that post and hyperlink those phrases to your new article. By using the aforementioned phrases as anchor text linking to your new post, you help the search engines ‘understand’ what your new post is about and your anchor text provides them with some potential keywords for which you feel your new article should be ranked. You also provide value to the readers of your old post who may need just such a guide to help them get started in this business, but may not know how to find it on your site. And you have helped yourself because you have updated your old content and refreshed it resulting in another potential visit by the search engine spiders to your website and possible increase in rankings of some of your old posts.
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