As bloggers, we strive for residual income. We want to put in the work once and reap the rewards for years to come. You may have put in a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to create that evergreen, comprehensive, monetized post. But once the traffic runs out, so does the income.
If you have a few posts on the shelf, don’t we all, here’s how to brush them off and polish them up for new visitors. Here are several ways to get more traffic to your monetized posts.
1. SEO
I’ll be the first to admit search engine optimization can often be an afterthought. I get so excited to write and publish something that I don’t do much for keyword research or optimization. But, that’s okay! It’s never too late to revisit a post and make it search-worthy.
Change the title. Include keywords in the content. Make sure your images include ALT descriptions. If you are using a plugin like Yoast make sure your have filled out the meta information.
You can also change the URL if desired, BUT ONLY if you know how to perform a redirect so you aren’t losing any traffic should someone arrive via the old URL.
2. Social Share It
This is often the first thing we do when we want to get more traffic to a post. If a post is well-monetized and still relevant, create a few new images and get it shared on Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter again. You may even want to create a few different images for Pinning to see which performs better.
3. Send an Email
There will always be some churn with email lists. New people sign up each day and other people unsubscribe. There is a 99.9% chance that 99.9% of your subscribers have not read every post on your blog. But there is probably a lot that they should!
So many of my newsletters are created around previously published but still useful posts. This is a great way to answer questions you know those new subscribers have while still driving traffic to oldie-but-goodie posts.
4. Run an Ad
You can buy an ad almost anywhere these days; Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Google, other blogs. I would not recommend a spaghetti-at-the-wall tactic when it comes to ads. You have to make sure you are getting a good return on your investment or it’s just a waste of time and money. Take the time to learn about ad best practices for your preferred platform or hire it out. You can waste a lot of money in very little time if you don’t know what you are doing.
5. Run a Giveaway
Who says you can only run giveaways in new posts? If you have a great post that could use a little rejuvenation, consider republishing it to your homepage with a short-term giveaway included. Most giveaway software offers extra entries for social sharing so this can be a great way to get extra eyes on even an evergreen post. You can sponsor the giveaway yourself or reach out to an advertiser that you had mentioned in the post letting them know how well the post is converting now and that you believe you can boost those numbers with additional traffic in the form of a giveaway. They may be willing to contribute a prize or special discount.
6. Link to it Often
When we link to another post on our sites from within a post it’s called an internal link. Internal links have so many benefits. They can drive traffic to related posts. They can keep visitors on your blog longer allowing you more time to gain their trust and get them to take action whether that be making a purchase or signing up for your email list. Internal links can also increase search rank as you signal to search engines which posts are most important on your site and what they are about.
I keep a big list of my important posts and link to them often within other posts, on resource pages and roundups, on “start here” pages, on archive pages, and more.
7. Repurpose It
The more I implement video into my blog marketing plan, the more it becomes apparent that those watching my videos are not my regular blog readers. Each of us prefers consuming content in different ways. I, for one, prefer reading to watching or listening. I don’t have the time or patience. Just give me something to skim. 😉
But, the statistics tell me my preferences may not necessarily be the norm. And, video continues to outperform on social media than text and links:
- Videos receive an average of 135% more organic reach on Facebook than photos.
- 4x as many people would rather watch a video about a product than reading about it
- Companies who use video in their marketing grow an average 49% faster year-on-year than those who don’t
- Companies which use videos in their marketing enjoy 27% higher CTR and 34% higher web conversion rates than those which don’t
- Online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2020
More awesome statistics:
- 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.
- One-third of online activity is spent watching video.
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
- Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs.
- Adding a video to marketing emails can boost click-through rates by 200-300%.
Crazy stuff, right? Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, however, repurpose some of your greatest post hits into video. In your video description, link back to your blog post. Embed the video in your blog post for those who prefer watching over reading. Upload your video to both YouTube and Facebook. It’s win-win. Get the most mileage possible out of everything you create.
A blog post is never “one and done.” To create the income we all desire, you have to include a little maintenance and upkeep in your daily routine. See how I’m using Airtable to manage my content here and download my free resources for performing a blog audit here.