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This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:
See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project
Previous article: Your blog needs tipping points.
BLOGTASTIC!: Older blog posts go dead fast.
Articles on news websites, like CNN or the New York Times, have naturally short lifespans. In most cases, bloggers create posts that are interesting for the moment but also decay rapidly. Don’t expect your audience to keep browse back to your first blog post. Old posts will die faster than you think.
There is hope though. I prefer to create timeless content that stays relevant for quite a long time. Think about what you can do creatively to ensure that some of your best posts stay alive. Here are a few ideas:
1. Create highly-relevant timeless content;
2. Categorize your posts and highlight the most popular ones;
3. Create a series of posts and number them—if one post in the series attracts attention, then some readers will seek out the rest of the series;
4. Create collections of related blog posts on your blog elsewhere (eg: Squidoo); and
5. Publish an e-book (or a manifesto on changethis.com) with excerpts from your favorite posts for a topic.
6. Publish a book based on the collections of blog posts. Seth Godin’s book “Small is the New Big” and Guy Kawasaki’s book “Reality Check” are examples here.
Invent your own ways to keep the posts alive.
Fair warning: You should only link back to your best posts. Don’t try to trick your readers by linking to posts that will waste their time. They’ll quickly get the impression that all of your posts are empty tricks. That’s a sure way to drive readers away from your blog.
Blogging Tip: Age can be an advantage if used right
In life and on the blog, age can denote experience and provide you an advantage. You can use this technique to your advantage—whether you are young or old yourself.
Blog posts “go grey” quicker than humans. If you’re one of the first people to write authoritatively on a topic, then you’ll gain many links. People will soon regard you as the go-to expert. However, you need to be more than “first.” You have to be the one who brings real thought and insights to the conversation through an early post.
You might be a senior systems architect interpreting complex issues, or you might be teenager blogging on a new trend within teen culture. In either case, explain your position as an early-adopter or evangelist.
Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow