How to Bring Your Blog Archives Back to Life Again and Again

Every blog post that you write is saved in your blog archives, and those archives provide a deep repository of content that can be brought back to life again and again in a variety of ways. Not only does reviving the content in your blog archives give that content a chance at a second life, but it also saves you time and effort. That's because reviving blog archives typically takes less time and effort than creating completely new content.

In other words, creating new ways for your audience to see your best content from the past is great for you and your readers who may have missed that content the first time around. Following are five creative ways that you can extend the shelf life of your blog archives, particularly the best content in your archives.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620"] 5 Ways to Give Blog Archives a Longer Life[/caption]

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1. Add Links to Popular Posts in Your Blog Sidebar

Many blogging applications offer widgets and plugins that you can use to easily add an automated list in your blog sidebar of your most popular posts based on page views or your posts with the most comments. You can also create your own custom list of your best posts and add it to your blog's sidebar, so you can update it frequently and ensure the best content from your archives gets the additional exposure it deserves.

2. Include Related Posts Links at the End of Your Blog Posts

Many blogging applications offer tools and plugins to automatically add a list of related posts at the end of each of your blog posts. These related posts are typically found based on the context of your post. For example, the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin is free and easy to install on self-hosted WordPress blogs. LinkWithinis another third party tool that adds related posts at the end of blog posts in most popular blogging applications. You could also create your own custom list of related post links at the end of each of your blog posts.

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3. Include Internal Links within Blog Posts

One of the most effective ways to breathe new life into your blog archives is to include internal links within your blog posts. As you write new blog posts, think about content you've published on your blog in the past and link to relevant content whenever possible. Just make sure the internal links you include within your blog posts are useful or they could do more harm than good in terms of affecting the user experience on your blog.

4. Repackage Posts from Your Blog Archives

Read through your blog archives and look for posts about similar topics that you can repackage into a frequently asked questions page or a tips and tricks page. Get creative with repackaging the content in your archives. For example, create seasonal packaged content or a "this time last year" content bundle.

Roundup pages and posts are another great way to give blog archives a second life. For example, publish a roundup of links to your posts that were shared the most on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and so on during the past month, three months, or six months. You could do the same thing with posts that got the most comments or page views. Create a page filled with links to the posts you're most proud of and think deserve more exposure. Call it your "Best of" page and update it as you publish more amazing content that stands the test of time.

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5. Repurpose Content from Your Blog Archives

You can also repurpose content in your blog archives and turn it into a new piece of content. This is a popular trick among social media marketers and content marketers. For example, review your blog archives and look for posts that could be compiled and rewritten into ebooks or white papers. Are there posts in your blog archives that could be used as the basis of an online video or webinar? It's not necessary to re-invent the wheel. Use your blog archives as the foundation of additional content that you can share on your blog, and be sure to link back to your blog in that new content, too!