If you've built up a good wealth of blog posts either on ActiveRain or on your website, it's not a bad idea to bring some of those older posts back to life, especially if they have great information that is timeless.
This can also go for annual events. Let's say you had a post on Halloween events last year. Rather than writing up an entirely new blog post with new information, go back to that older posts, update the information, and republish it as a newer post. This is pretty easy to do on websites such as Wordpress because you can just change the publishing date. However, you don't want to change the URL structure if you have links to it from various places unless you have a redirection tool in place.
But you have to be careful when republishing older posts that specify certain events and dates.
In our own town, a real estate agent republished an older Easter event blog post on her website and then promoted it on social media, however, current Easter events didn't match up with past events. This agent simply republished the same post with a different publishing date. The previous post stated that a very large Easter egg hunt was to be held at our church but this year, we decided not to have the event ourselves but instead partner with our city. The agent didn't correct current events or verify them so there were several people that showed up to our church the day of the Easter egg hunt even though there was no hunt actually going on. Clearly, this made some attendees upset, but because the event was completely out of our hands and technically the agent's fault for not verifying current dates, there really wasn't much we could do.
I will oftentimes pull up older posts on events whether it's for Christmas, Halloween, Easter, or New Year's but you have to check the date and the accuracy of the event. The event may still be going on but the times may have changed and the dates will usually change as well, unless it's something specific on that holiday such as on October 31 or on December 25. If you can't find anything online about up-to-date events, simply call the previous event holder and ask if the event is still going to be held. You may find out information that maybe nobody else has online and be the go-to person for the most accurate and up-to-date information on the event.
But, this tactic isn't always just for events. Perhaps you did a kick'n, 2000 more blog post that's timeless and should be brought back to life. Go ahead and update some information on the post, add in related posts that maybe you've done in the meantime to give them more authority, or link off-site to related and relevant information, websites, and topics. Google will see that this timeless blog piece has some life left in it and may increase the entire ranking on the website as a whole.
Just because you wrote about it once doesn't mean you can't add to it, update information, and resend it out into the inter-webs. It's a great thing to do when you've got writer's block and can't think of a new topic for the week but you know you have a little bit more experience on that older topic and can add more value to it as a whole.
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Tim and Tammy Emineth have owned Personal SEO since 2004. We focus on SEO first whether it's blogging, images, website design, IDX solutions and calls to action. We operate with a Storybrand philosophy to encourage more traffic to your site, more eyes on your content and more leads to your business. Call us or email us for a free website audit.
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Hello Tammy, great suggestion and one that sometime I think I should fine the time to do. Thanks!
Hi Tammy,
I have done this in the past and will do it in the future on my website. I do not change the url but do update the info. This is good info for those who didn't realize they can do this.
Good morning Tammy Emineth - this really caught my eye because I keep my posts in Word docs. I do bring them back but do tweak them.
Great cautionary warning to check links and dates when refreshing old blog posts.
Aloha Tammy, I always enjoy your impute. I have been thinking about doing that lately.
As usual good advice on how to leverage work already done.
I am going back and updating all the condo posts that I had done previously. We switched MLS providers and all the links to mls listings (which were supposed to be evergreen) were broken! Now I am regrouping posts, linking them to each other and building more material. Geographic posts that are a few years old are interesting to read and realize how many restaurants and stores have gone out of business since the posts were originally published.
Hi Tammy- glad this was featured because it's a good idea to repurpose and resurrect older posts.
This is great information and advice, Tammy. We have all heard about the value of evergreen posts, and reposting posts with some edits, but it's certainly wise to keep mind what you said about accuracy and other issues!
Congrats on the feature...so more can see and be aware!
Jeff
They can always be room for modifications but yeah, there’s nothing like an evergreen post to really get folks coming back a little bit more often
Yes, for those who have poured out their hearts with wisdom and frivolity, reblogging your own material with some changes is not a bad idea! New blood probably hasn't seen the older stuff. And some of your earlier blogs were probably not even seen. Thanks!
I can't imagine not checking thru the dates .... disappointed kids. It's still hard for me to write 1000 word posts.
Tammy Emineth great idea takes only a few minutes to update the older post to something new. Have a great day Ma'am
That's pretty careless to publish a post and not update dates and critical info!
I wish that Active Rain would allow us to repost with a new date - I'm always adding "UPDATED" with the new date at the top of posts that I update.
A well deserved feature!
I had quite the routine going for awhile...updating old posts and making them new again. I somehow fell out of that routine and really need to pick up where I left off. Thanks for the reminder.
Now...to just get myself motivated to start blogging again.
Since I can no longer come up with new topics to write about I have started to breathe life into old posts. I feel guilty but it's better then just writing a post to write one.
I'm wondering what is the proper way to do this. I've copied and pasted old posts, made changes and republished. However, I lose all the views on the original.
Tammy Emineth
Always so much to learn from your posts. Hannah Williams does the updating AND she changes dates, etc. --- people still call her --- she has lots of funny stories about that. Hope your family is well. Lynn
Thank you for the good tips about updating older posts.
the old posts home.....May all our visits there be productive
I borrow from my old posts fairly often ... and update others consistently, as nothing in the lending industry is stagnant and rules/regulations change often, Tammy Emineth. I appreciate the reminder to perform the updates on dates, etc. greatly. Thank you,
Gene
Thank you for letting us know about the importance of updating your posts.
So a friend recently told me that if you change the title, the main photo, and the first paragraph, you can post it as a new post. Thoughts?
Good evening Tammy Emineth - I am a fan of redoing older posts and re-purposing them.
Yes, good advice on best ways to go about re-purposing posts!
I'm interested to hear your thoughts on Mimi Foster's question.