Making sure good posts dont get lost in your archives

Due to the nature of blogging, there is a tendency for posts to get lost in the blogs archives. It can be incredibly frustrating when informatitve high quality posts you spend a long time writing get lost in your blogs archives. This is particularly true for posts in the first few months of a blog. Some blog genres tend to get low traffic at the weekends too, something Brian Heys brought up in his ‘Do you blog at weekends?‘ post the other day. Certainly, web development and business related blogs like this should experience a slight drop in traffic at weekends since the core of its readers work 9 to 5.

There are a number of methods you can use to give more exposure to what you consider the best and most useful blog posts you have written. In this post i will look at some of these methods.

Most, if not all of your posts will get indexed by the search engines at one point and will get traffic to them through that. Though traffic coming through your home page will drop as time goes by. Lets fix that!

How to give more exposure to your good posts

Here are some methods i suggest :

• Featured Posts Box – A featured posts box in your sidebar which recommends some of your best posts will display the posts on all pages of your blog and ensure that they get a lot of traffic. The box doesn’t have to be on the sidebar. Have a look at ProBlogger for example. The 3 info boxes at the top of the site are a great example of how you can drive traffic to the posts you want. You could extend this idea and link to a popular post with a banner or image and place that somewhere on your header or sidebar as well.
• Mentioning the post in your other blog posts – This is one of my favourite methods. Whenever i refer to an older post of my mine i always make sure i link to it. Little things like that can make sure that useful posts you wrote a while ago are still getting exposure. A few weeks ago i wrote a post called ‘Win a Domain Name from 815Domains‘ asking for competition ideas for Blogging Tips. The best idea would win a domain name. Did it generate any interest? Did it balls! I stupidly posted it on a Sunday which is a day i have since realised gets less traffic. By linking to the the post in this article i have increased the chance of someone viewing the post. Well, what are you waiting for..go and try and win a domain name Seriously, this example is crude but it highlights how simple and effective the method is for linking to posts you want people to read.
• A dedicated page displaying your best posts – I created a best posts page for the purpose of this article. The idea is simple. I simply created a new page and then linked to what i considered to be some of the most useful posts i have written so far for the blog. All i have used on the page is basic HTML (if anyone wants a copy of the code let me know and ill post it in the forums).
• Top Posts Statistically – There are a variety of plugins and mods available for all blogging standards which display the most visited posts on your blog. Check out my top posts page to see what i am talking about. The page is powered by the Top Posts By Category plugin.
• Search Box – Some bloggers completely forget how useful a search box is to readers. Put your search box in a prominent position on your blog and make it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
• Newsletter – If you offer a newsletter on your blog then dropping the odd link to one of your posts will regenerate some interest in them. Easy as pie!

Summary

The more you blog and the more you establish your site, the greater the need for you to make it easier for readers to find your best content. My personal advice would be to find a good ‘top posts’ type plugin, add a top posts box, make sure your search box is visible and try and link to some of your older posts whenever you talk about them.

Good luck,
Kevin

Written by Kevin Muldoon from Blog Themes Club
Posted on May 1st, 2007 and filed under Blogging
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