For anyone who’s been blogging for several years, you may look back at your old blog posts and wonder, “What was I thinking?” Did you know how to research keywords back then? Were your photographs too small, poorly lit or out of focus? So much has changed in the blogosphere in the last few years. Photography and SEO are more important than ever for traffic. With a little work, you can go back to fix old blog posts to drive more traffic to your blog. This can be a difficult, lengthy process. You may want to start by updated your most popular blog posts – first. Or hire someone to take on the task of optimizing your old blog posts.
How to Fix Old Blog Posts to Drive Traffic to Them
1. Update your keywords. If you started blogging by properly using an SEO plugin like Yoast, you’re in luck. The plugin gives you an SEO checklist. It helps you target a keyword, use it several times throughout your blog post and even feature the keyword in your URL. Old blog posts may need a second look to make sure they’re optimized to show up and rank in search. We also like free SEO tools like Cognitive SEO to research what words and phrases you should use in your blog posts.
2. Change the URL for SEO purposes. Did you update the URL to a blog post? Do you have broken links? Plugins like Redirection are designed to make sure that if you change the URL to a post. Instead of visitors finding an empty or dead link, your visitors will be redirected properly to the new URL.
3. Update your Photos. When most bloggers are getting started, they have a passion for writing but not the photography skills to share high-quality images on their websites. Go through those old blog posts and update your photos. Maybe now you have a better camera, or you use stock photos. If you have a blog post with great content and lackluster photos, don’t be afraid to take the photographs again. Even stock photos can help breathe new life into a poorly photographed blog post.
4. Create pinnable images. Have you been blogging since before Pinterest existed? Clearer, labeled photos have a better chance of being shared on Pinterest. Thanks to the improved photography mentioned above, you can a new featured image, edit/update it on Pinterest, as well as add it to new Pinterest boards. We have even more suggestions on how to build Pinterest traffic to your blog.
5. Embed related YouTube videos and Instagram photos. Look at your YouTube video list and see if there are related videos to topics you’ve covered on your blog. Embedding YouTube video or an Instagram photo can increase your credibility as an expert. For even more ways to get traffic from YouTube, read how to maximize the YouTube description box.
6. Deep-link with related posts. Go back into your dashboard and look at some of your early blog posts. Link together similar or related blog posts. Are all of your recipes linked together? Chances are if someone likes one of your recipes, they’ll like another. Keep readers on your blog longer by showing them your related content.
Once your most popular blog posts are fixed, reshare them on all of your social media channels. Don’t forget to update your blogger bio as well. Include your new ambassadorships. press tours and projects.
Comment below: Have you had success updating your old blog posts to drive traffic to your website?
