How to Recycle Old Posts For Traffic & Exposure

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Old Posts recycle
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I am pretty sure many of us, especially veteran bloggers would have at some time of our blogging life, written great posts.

Posts that your readers had enjoyed reading and had greatly appreciated the information within, and that new reader would benefit from it regardless of how many months later they see the post.

These timeless gems (Evergreen content) are worthy of being read by as many people as it can reach right?

Unfortunately, the way our blogs are structured, once these old posts leave your Website home page, they leave your visitors’ radar too.

That’s a pity isn’t it? But there’s something you can do about it. You can recycle these “old but gold” posts.

And you know what?

You can also apply these recycling techniques to other posts that may not be that popular but still a good read.

Why recycle old posts?

Still in doubt over why you should take the trouble to recycle old posts?

Let me see if I can convince you to do so.

Other than because some of them are your masterpieces, there are other reasons why you are recommended to edit old posts.

One is to overcome writer’s block.

On the days when you are having trouble coming up with a new article, than recycling earlier posts is a life saver.

Who knows, the readers’ interaction you receive now may even inspire new ideas or new topics to write on.

Another reason is by recycling older posts; you would be able to expose your articles to more readers now (assuming your blog is comparatively more popular now) than to the handful of visitors you had when you posted it previously.

You never know what it can do to that old post e.g. increase in domain authority or traffic hike.

Let’s see from a user point of view, you have written a blog post two years back, and it’s one of the top traffic posts on your blog, though in last two years many new features, updates must have happened related to that topic.

Once you update old blog post, with the latest information, it increases the value of the post and you will notice better user behavior on those pages in analytics.

Also, Google algorithm consider user engagement (Bounce Rate, Avg. time on page) and other factors to determine to rank. And if you are getting traffic on a page which is outdated, you might see a slip in ranking by next Google algorithm change.

The whole idea is to keep the old information updated and make it usable for readers. Also, in this process we will be promoting old blog posts to drive more traffic to it.

How can you recycle old posts for maximum benefit:

These techniques are tested by me, nd they work a lot.

Though some of the tips like reposting stays on the edge of ethics but I have my justification for republishing old blog posts, which I have explained below.

Reposting

There are two reposting technique which you can consider using:

  • Republish blog post
  • Reshare on social media sites

Now, when I talk about republishing blog posts, I don’t suggest you to simply change the date and bring it on homepage. Instead, add new information to that post and update it with latest data and stats.

If it’s a tip post, add more tips which you have learned over the time and then change the date to push it to homepage.

Make sure, you don’t change the date to some future date, as WordPress will republish the post with new permalink and old link will start giving 404 error.

Now, social media promotion is something which I suggest you to keep doing for your old posts.

It’s a good idea to promote old but evergreen content on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Pocket.

For WordPress you can use plugin like Tweet old post .  But, keep in mind that you need to update your post before you promote them, as no one like to reshare outdated content.

Do keep in mind, when you are editing your old post, make sure you take care of Keyword research and On-page SEO optimization to improve traffic to that post.

Link to A New Post:

Whenever it’s possible, do try to link your older posts to your new ones. Of course, you also need to make sure that it’s a related topic.

Take for example, if you wish to recycle an old post on “How to use Facebook to Get Traffic to Your Blog”, then perhaps you could write a new post on “How to increase Facebook fans” and place a link to the initial post.

Apart from improving internal linking structure, this will help in lower down the bounce rate and exit rate from the site will be low.

Moreover, this will also help in turning those one time visitor into a regular reader.

If you have too many posts (Thousand+ posts), I would suggest use Interlinks manager, which helps in auto internal linking of your WordPress site.

Read: Best WordPress interlinking Plugins

Use Related post below post:

related posts
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One of the easiest way to promote old blog post is by adding a related post widget after post. You can use any of these related post WordPress plugins to achieve something similar as shown in screen above.

Similarly, if you have multi-author blog you can also consider adding more posts via author widget after post, which is again helpful to get more views on old posts.

Write a Response Post

There are times when an old post no longer carries the correct facts or information. This may be due to changes in general or the availability of the latest findings that contradict your old post.

Does this mean that you have to delete the old post?

Nope. Instead, you could resuscitate it and write a response post. Start your new post with a summary of the old post and of course link it and then proceed to explain the current situation.

Recycling old posts

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This tip should be followed with great care. The idea here is to recycle your old killer posts to your homepage by changing the date.

This trick is not for everyone. For instance, if your permalinks have dates & times, you should never do it.

Moreover, this practice should be implemented only once in a while and not on a regular basis, as it might put your regular readers off.

In blogging, one should always try to make most of every single post they write. Any post which is not receiving traffic in time has become a useless post. Try to come up with timeless (“evergreen”) posts, and make sure your readers can always find their way to these posts.

Wouldn’t you say that this is a good idea to “green” the cyberspace up a little?

After all, it is consistently filled with junk posts too. So if you have a great post, albeit old, why not recycle it.

It’ll be a shame to let these posts be swept into the archive closet and forgotten when it can be revived, right?

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
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Jasmine is an experienced blogger, web developer and web hosting enthusiast. She has been blogging for many years and her latest blog is Best web hosts - a web hosting reviews and coupon site.

21 thoughts on “How to Recycle Old Posts For Traffic & Exposure”

  1. Imam

    Great article.

    I also have used this technique to take at home page to the old post that I wanted to make latest post. I just changed date and scheduled. and finally published. Now work done.

  2. Kevin Everett

    Great tips and very actionable. It is definitely worth refreshing old content. After all, you already put the work in to create it the first time, so why not refresh it once in a while.

  3. Ammara Khalid

    Informative post. From my viewpoint, resharing on social media and add a tab of related posts are the best options.

  4. Swapnil

    Hello Jasmine,

    These tips are really great, I agree with you that editing in your old post is important part of blogging. I have experienced it before few weeks and it is working good for me. all your points and might have to start going back to previous posts to update them. Thanks for sharing this useful and effective info with us.

    I hope you’re having a great week. Happy Blogging. 🙂

  5. Vishi Sharma

    Good Post.. but i have a doubt. I think Harsh will clear it.
    If i update my old posts with some of new updates, so after republish it should i change the publish date in wordpress?
    And after this should i fetch my updated post’s URL?

  6. saket Saurabh

    Thanks Jasmone,

    I was searching a pluggin for reposting my old posts from last 2 hours. Finally, Shout me loud came to my rescue.
    I have installed YARPP now. Will see how it works.

    Thanks for your help

  7. Linda

    How do I repost an old blog post, but keep the original version on the same posted date, while also having another post (updated info) posted now? I’ve done it before, but can’t remember how to do it. Google isn’t helping me either.

  8. Manpreet Kaur

    I didn’t understand about ‘not changing post date to future date’. What does that mean? For eg. I have a post published on say 12 feb 2012 and I want to republish it. Shouldn’t I change the date to today i.e. 20 feb 2015? Please respond.

    1. Naresh

      Yup You should change the date to latest date..but don’t dig and bring the oldest article because user may think you are lagging behind better to update previous date

  9. Steve Patterson

    I do this once in awhile, I thought about going through some of the older ones that I believe would be helpful and plan to reschedule them or post them as newer blog entries.

    1. rumah

      Hi MKH, I really love your plugin. It works very well…

      Btw is there any update since wp have updated many times?

      Your plugin is my secret weapon for my evergreen blog 😀 as long as we dont use permalink date

      Thanks MKH

  10. chamal

    recycling posts is a very crucial as we blog on a basis. These old posts have good page rank, so we can share the page rank to other new posts. This will increase the SERP ranking also.

  11. Cameron Smith

    Love this advice! When I recycle old posts, I like to put a blurb at the top stating that this post is from last year – this lets my readers know that I found this article particularly useful, or that it’s been a popular article. I think any time you can promote your own articles, that’s a plus. Nice post!

  12. Rafaqat

    This is a great idea to re write your old posts ,as a result it will make your posts seo friendly and will keep your blog/domain away from Google Panda update Penalty.

  13. Mehedi Hasan

    Hey,
    Have any idea to highlight older post when a visitor commented on a older post?

    advance thanks

  14. Radha Krishna

    Also, Interlinking old posts within the new articles will play a major role in proper indexing of those articles. It works most of the time.

  15. Naveen

    Really this post will be of great help to make the blog look and behave like a website so that the good content remained evergreen. Thanks Jasmine.

  16. Gaurang

    Great advice. I think Related posts and putting them on sidebar is the best option to get them noticed.

  17. rakesh kumar

    RE-writing of these old post and produce them into its equivalent powerpoint presentation can also boost your site.

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