The typical practice is that bloggers spend all of their brain and hard work on creating a new post and new topics and they should do it as that’s the right thing to do. At the same time, the posts that become old are quickly forgotten not only by the readers but also by the bloggers. New content on the blog will continue growing the archives where for many blogs, archives contain a treasure of important and useful information which is sadly not being maximized.
For many blogs, archives can be very useful depending on the content and can be helpful for selling products and advertising, attracting new subscribers and promoting your own blog, products or services. If you have a blog for quite a while now, chances are that they could be providing a lot of benefits to you and your readers. If you want to put your archives to use, there are two things that you can do:
- Figure out which of the posts are attracting the most visitors and;
- Which are your best quality posts that you want to have more exposure
Improve the Posts That Attracted Visitors:
A little bit of analysis may bring to you which is the post that attracted a decent number of views every month. It may happen that they are getting traffic not only from search engines but also from other sources. In most cases, you may not know that one of your posts is still getting a steady flow of traffic even if it’s in the archives. This traffic is great but what’s better is that if you can turn it into something special and use it for the benefit of your blog or a particular post.
You can get more out of such posts by following the tips mentioned below.
Consider Your Post a Landing Page:
Landing page is often the one where a visitor lands after clicking on an advertisement and is used for increasing conversions. The characteristics of landing page includes that it has a clear purpose and avoids distractions.
Although you know that the post is getting traffic, you need to know the source so that you know how people are getting attracted to your page. Are they coming through search engines or links given on other sites and posts. Also, what is the content or factors that is bringing a visitor to your site. Knowing all this information can give you an idea about how the mind of your average reader works and then you can work around it to make it better.
If you want something to be added for the conversion, you can do so adding a paragraph or two related to the product you plan to affiliate with the post and add buttons like “buy now” with the post. You can do the same thing with some other post as well if you don’t have one and add a strong call to action which works even if you haven’t put anything up for sale.
Another way of enhancing your post’s popularity is to add something to it which may be useful for your visitors, for example, a product or a service. This may be a good option where your post is already getting a lot of traffic and the search phrases to the post show that buyers are thinking of buying. The only thing you have to keep in mind while doing so is that it should justify the efforts you have put in developing and promoting the product.
One of the most important things that you can do to increase conversions is to decrease distractions. You can do so by limiting the navigation options so that a potential customer is not turned away even before he can make a decision on call to action. Links in the post are useful for the user but if there are too many, it might get overwhelming. Excessive ads and a lot of things popped in the sidebar are also unnecessary distractions. Try to eliminate them as much as you can. One way of limiting such distractions is making a separate template for your post and promote your own or a good-paying affiliate product there.
Notification Bars or Pop Ups:
Popups can get a bit annoying but can be helpful if used effectively. A popup on every page of the blog might not may not be the right thing to do but can work well if you use Popup Domination for the post that is getting traffic.
Less intrusive than popups are the notification bars that are helpful for increasing conversions. There are a number of such notification bars available for users, as well as the ones that can be customized.
Improving Traffic for Specific Posts from the Archives:
The above mentioned tips were for the posts that are already getting a considerable traffic but now I’ll tell you about getting traffic for a specific post from your archives. You might think of a post as a highly valuable one but it might not be getting any traffic as it is usually the newer posts that take away all the viewership. Mentioned here are some things that you can do to get more traffic for the posts.
The simplest thing that you can do to your post is to add links in it within the post. You can do so by editing the old posts or adding some at the end in the related links section. You can also link your post in the sidebar so that it’s visible on every page. WordPress provides the option for “sticky” posts that can show among the recent posts at the top and will have a priority over new posts.
You can also turn your post into a series by writing posts in continuation of the one specific. If the post holds a high importance, you can even add it to the navigation menu but that is not applicable in most situations. Another way of treating a post that have a high importance is to convert it into an e-book or a PDF file. Such a PDF can be given away to other pages or even on other sites. Moreover, such an important post can be posted as a single one or in combination with a few more of that sort.
Final Thoughts:
There may be a case that one of your posts is getting a substantial traffic but is not really important for your blog. In that case, you can funnel that traffic to a post that you want more traffic for. If one of your posts is getting traffic, you can make the best use of it by putting ads there to promote your product or services or even an affiliate product.
You can make use of all or any of these tips to enhance the usability of your blog. The more effort you make for bringing traffic to a specific post or making use of it by making it a landing post, the more fruit it will reap you. Archives can be a treasure chest for bringing your blog to the top and making the best out of it, you only need to know how best to channel your archives.
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