Blogging 201, Branding and Growth: Day Five: Make the Most of Your Archives
“I think I am about 5 for 500 when it comes to successful ideas vs flops” Jeremy Schoemaker
Blogging 201, Branding and Growth: Day Five: Make the Most of Your Archives, Part One
The internet is ephemeral — you publish a post, and it sinks to the bottom of your blog before you know it. You’re competing with breaking news and dealing with short attention spans.
Readers and search engines love seeing new content on your homepage, but you can keep things even fresher by highlighting your archives: your best posts, hidden gems, and timeless content. After all: if a reader just found you, it’s all new to them!
Today’s assignment: integrate a feature to draw traffic to your older content like a widget, related posts, or a “Best of” page.
Why do this?
* Because a go-to page compiling your best posts is the simplest way to get readers to your content — you never know which post will pique someone’s interest, so make the good ones easy to find.
* Because while your About page does a great job introducing you, a curated selection of posts further illustrates your perspectives.
* Customizer to promote older work in your sidebar and footer, including the Top Posts and Page Widget, Archives Widget, and Categories Widget. These widgets automatically pull in archival and popular content — they’re quick, easy additions to drive traffic to older work. Each widget has configuration options, so you can control how much real estate they take up.
* Activate the Related Posts feature, which analyzes the words in each post, searches your site for similar posts, and displays related content at the bottom of every post.
GO TO: Previously on Rantings Of A Third Kind…
Rantings Of A Third Kind 
