How to Make an Old Blog Post New Again
You know what I hate? I hate it when someone gives me advice that I don’t know how to follow.
It reminds me of the time I was standing there staring at my smoking car engine while on the phone with a friend of mine who knows a little something about cars. He says, “Oh, no problem. All you need to do is change out the spark plugs. You can do that in five minutes.”
Um, no. No, I cannot. He can do it in five minutes. I don’t even know what a spark plug looks like. I assume it looks like a cross between the plug on the end of my computer’s cable and a child’s Fourth of July sparkler, but I am probably dead wrong and I know it.
This is the long way of saying that last week I advised recycling an old blog post and making it new again as a way to get rid of the shameful inferior blog posts from your past.
I’m willing to bet some of you thought something like, “Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot. And how do I do that, exactly? Humph.” Let’s talk about that, shall we?
First of all, go to your archives. Browse around your old posts. Try not to cringe if they suck. Find a topic that still interests you. Maybe you wrote the most boring post ever on this topic before, but now you know a little more about it, you’ve got a good anecdote to use, and if you were talking about it with a friend, you know you’d have them in stitches.
Great. Now you have a topic.
Let’s figure out why it was so lousy the first time around so that we don’t make it lousy in your rewrite. Two lousy blog posts on the same topic is double lousy. Not good.
Here are some problems your old blog posts had, and here’s how to fix them:
You didn’t have a thesis.
Every blog post has a thesis. That’s just a fancy word for having an opinion around which your post revolves. My opinion for this post is that an old blog post can be made into a shiny new blog post. Everything in this post should incorporate that topic. (Except for the mechanic part. But that was an allegory, so it’s okay.) When you write your new post, come up with a coherent thesis first and make sure everything relates back to it.
You were boring.
This is a big one to avoid. Maybe your last post lacked humor, or insight, or handy information that would make people go, “Ooooh.” Maybe it was boring because you didn’t grab your reader right away with an impactful statement. Maybe it was boring because you didn’t know the value of adjectives or analogies back then. Figure out why it was boring. After you’ve written the new post, go over it several times looking for those same boring traits.
You were wrong.
This is kind of an embarrassing one, but sometimes you write a blog post before you have all the information on the subject. Now you know better, and you realize your old opinion was just flat-out wrong. The fun part is that acknowledging this in the new post makes you likeable. We all change our opinions when presented with further facts. ‘Fessing up about being wrong makes you human, and it also means you’re confident enough to admit your mistakes.
You didn’t say enough.
Sometimes an old post sucks because you stopped too soon. You didn’t put enough information in the content, or you didn’t think about a different angle on it. There are two ways to tackle this: either use the old information again and add new stuff to it, OR simply write a post solely focusing on the new stuff. Then link back to the old stuff so your readers get the full picture.
No one commented on it.
Sometimes you simply want to revive an old post because you know it was good, but not enough people were around at the time to discuss it. Now you have tons of regular commentators, and you want to hear what they have to say. If that’s the case, brush off that old post, tweak it for accuracy and any new information you have, polish up the grammar, and just repost it. Tell your readers you’d love to hear their thoughts. They’ll respond.
There you go. Five reasons your old post sucked, and what you can do about it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go change out my spark plugs.
27 Responses to “How to Make an Old Blog Post New Again”
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I’m so glad that I found this website a few weeks ago! You always have great posts. I’ll have to use this advise to spruce up my blog! Thanks for the good advice!
Paige´s last blog post…Just joined Technorati
Riffing on old articles is a great idea.
Point #4 is important – it’s easy for bloggers to “waste” their content by tossing it up once and leaving it there in the archives, never to be discovered by new visitors.
Whenever you touch on an old topic, make sure to backlink to the older articles so your readers can dig into more of your content. If they’re interested in your new post, they’re likely to click through to related posts.
The backlink to other posts is very important – there’s a plugin that does that for you. It’s at
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin/
Enjoy,
Barbara
Barbara Ling´s last blog post…A Critical Must Have Tool For Marketing
I rewrote about a dozen old posts this weekend. Changed a few keywords and sharpened the overall language. It was on posts that already do decent in searches, but now they have more of a focus. It felt good.
Writer Dad´s last blog post…An Exclamation Point is Like a Promise
Strikes me that this would work with posts that aren’t boring as well. One of the problems with blogging is what I said a year ago is really hard to find for many.
BTW, even though I know what a spark plug is that doesn’t mean I know how to change it. Heck I don’t even want to know how to change ‘em. Loved the pix… reminds me of the smoke theory of electronics. http://users.hal-pc.org/~little1/funny/SMOKE.TXT
Anne Wayman´s last blog post…Freelance Writing Jobs Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Because my posts have always been infallibly awesome (just take my word for it, please don’t go through my archives and check), this post is interesting to me for a different reason.
The majority of my writing is for other people. Usually these people have a website that’s not working as hard as it could for a number of reasons, but one of the big one is that their content isn’t doing anything.
If you’re a copywriter, you can offer the additional service of going through their old content and sprucing it up using these tips. I sell that service as “optimization.” I may just use this as a checklist of what to look for.
Henry Bingaman´s last blog post…Prescription Cheerios (Marketing Isn’t Easy)
In general, I find my older posts are verbose. They need pruning.
Having a thesis–just one–is an excellent reminder; something I need to work on.
Thanks!
Kaushik´s last blog post…Awareness Now – 4th Awakening is Simple book excerpt
The archive area on any blog is a missed opportunity for creating some great posts, it is full of hidden treasures that will only be found again if you follow the advice that you have given in this post.
Good work.
James Chapman – A Passion For Writing´s last blog post…Even More Writers Resources
@ The Other James – I have a short memory, so every now and then I find a great article and say, “Oh, huh. I wrote that. Awesome.” Then I get all sad because it’s all in the past in the dusty archives where no one will ever find it! *sobs!*
Ah, but now I’m going to polish the good ones off, make the crappy ones better and create more awesomeness.
@ Kaushik – Yeah, Taylor’s liking that ‘thesis’ keyword. Apparently I don’t have enough thesis in my life these days
@ Henry – Totally amazing writing in your archives. I didn’t even have to look. I just *know*.
It’s a good idea to offer that service. We have that ourselves, though we call it something different (and less awesome. I’ll have to fix that). Great tip and thanks!
@ Anne – I have posts that aren’t SEOd, that are dated, that could be just a little better… yeah. It’s not just about the boring ones, but making the good ones better!
@ WriterDad – There’s a lad, following good advice. Cheers!
@ Barbara – I tend to prefer opting for an in-text link with awesome anchor text. But yes, that Related Posts is still important!
@ Dave – Riffin’ away
Good to see you here, btw!
@ Paige – You’re welcome. Cheers!
Sometimes I leave bad posts just as they are just to remind me of what a flop I was back then
Ninah´s last blog post…Five Tips to Buying Contact Lenses Online
I write restaurant reviews and the way I recycle an old post is to do monthly lists highlight good places to go.
I thought long and hard about how to rejuvenate old stuff and I have lots of pictures to go with my reviews, so I decided to start a new photoblog, with just the juiciest pictures Ive ever taken. Different blogs, different niches, different ways to spruce up old stuff.
Kang´s last blog post…National Geographic Cafe: Pinch me [Invite to Review]
This is great stuff! I just stumbled on this site recently and I have to say I really love the posts here. As someone who is usually on the hiring end of freelance writers, this gives me new appreciation for the amount of blood, sweat, and creativity that goes into something seemingly as simple as a blog post.
I give my first month of blogging a wide berth. Reading those early attempts freak me out…This is a splendid idea. Just might be able to breathe life into those so-so posts.
jan geronimo´s last blog post…Guess My Last Nominee in Top 10 Influential Blogs to Win Free Cell Phone Airtime Credits
@ Dave Navarro made an excellent point…
I like to “deep link” back to older posts from within newer posts not only to give search engines another path to dig into, but more importantly, to prompt readers to explore older posts even more.
“Deep Linking” is an excellent way to shine a little new light on an older post that never quite seemed to get its due share of exposure. Y’know sometimes the blog entries that you’re most proud of are the ones that can seem to go by unnoticed…
And I’d argue that it can sometimes be legit to edit an older post to provide an additional link forward from it to a newer, related entry. I’m not talking about doing a George Lucas-style overhaul, just a minor tweak. I haven’t done this often, but on most of the posts where I’ve done this, I’ve indicated it with a little red “Update” notation, so it’s more apparent. (You can take a look at my FiveFingers For Your Ten Toes article for an example. Oooh, see that? I just “deep linked!”)
Rob O.´s last blog post…Scroll With It, Baby!
@ Rob – Nicely done. You’re not… link baiting are you? No. Couldn’t be. Looks like it, but… nah. That *can’t* be link baiting. Not on our blog, with all those nice tools we already give our commentators, like Twitter ID and website links… Nahh. Can’t be.
(But nicely done, I’ll admit!)
Ooof, sorry, I did get a little off-topic there, dint I? But it was in the spirit of your idea of rejuvenating an old post by referencing back to it from a newer post.
Blogging is purely a hobby that I do with whatever little spare time & energy I can eke out. So probably the most frustrating thing for me is when I do manage to craft (IMO, anyway) a really well-turned blog post and then it just seems to fall flat, stirring up no reader response, prompting no commentary, zilch. So, I’m always looking for ways to breathe a little new life into those old gems.
Rob O.´s last blog post…Texas Road Etiquette
@ Rob – I hear you on that one. I’ll spend days on a post and… uh… comments? Anyone? Then I spend 20 minutes on a post and the friggin’ thing goes viral. There’s no rhyme or reason! argh!
This is a great site. I started blogging at the end of January and have over 50 posts and a half dozen Ezine articles. It isn’t easy for me to write partly because I never finished high school and I lack some grammar and punctuation skills, but sites like this help me through some of these problems. In spite of that I have received an invitation to speak at a seminar and also have received some positive reviews, and some not so positive.
My area of expertise is residential remdeling and I combine information based on my experience and use some of the ironic situations in a breezy and conversational style that is enjoyed by some readers. I appreciate your breezy and tongue in cheek approach to educating some of us who write.
Great site!
Paul Lesieur´s last blog post…Hot kitchen, or not?
Now there’s some food for thought! I’ve got a lot of old posts. People ‘back then’ liked them, but there are more people now. I’ve not really considered sprucing up old posts as an option — but now have much to consider.
Thanks!
All the best!
deb
Deb Owen´s last blog post…leading a life of quiet desperation? (finding purpose & passion)
I just stumbled onto this site and I am glad I did. Thanks for the great advice on reusing old posts. I think that this is great information.
I really enjoy reading your posts! Always so useful and interesting. Loved your list of causes for lousy blog posts. My favorite? The one on boring content. For sure nobody wants to read something that’s boring. That’s why good content is always something that is valuable, interesting, and helpful to the readers.
Can’t wait to read more of your posts! Keep up the good work. Thanks
I found you because I was googling “should I rewrite my blog posts with new keywords?” I am glad I stuck with my search for more than an hour tonight!
I have been pondering what to do about my posts.
I have 33 niche blogs on Blogger.
a) fix them with low-competition keywords (long tail)?
b) forget the old posts.
c) create only new posts with long tail keywords?
d) am I in need of medication?
e) best out of three?
f) all of the above?
Jim ´s last blog ..10 Great Tips To Radically Improve Your Internet Marketing Success!
I think these are some great ideas. I think a thing to keep in mind is to rewrite posts that may have gotten you some traffic in the past. I always check what kw drew some traffic and either rewrite, elaborate or add more related to that topic.
rollingbed´s last blog ..2009 Top CR Rated Wireless Networking Printers
Another idea is to re-post the old post but with additional comments added in using italics. This way you can add it what you have since learned or just generally give yourself a hard time for writing such a boring post!
Thomas´s last blog ..The Stinky Corpse Flower: Ideal for Valentines Day?
Great ideas. I have been employing some of these techniques and it works great. Of course some blog posts are just hopeless so its best to pick some with potential or that got you some trickle traffic.
OK!
so, that will keep me busy for the next 2 days! hehehe
thanks a lot…
this is another good idea of having/making a post. its like arguing or agreeing to yourself or maybe being a critic to yourself
helen´s last blog ..Computer turns itself off after 2 seconds. Why?