“Sometimes they come back” Do you remember that infamous Stephen King short story from the Night Shift compilation? Well this article has nothing whatsoever to do with that story, but the title is fitting so I thought I would open with it. Anyhow onto what we’re here to discuss, breathing new life into old blog posts.

Why you would want to resurrect old articles

There are any number of reasons you might want to bring old articles into the forefront again. Some of them might include:

• The topic has become “newsworthy” to the major media and you’d like to capitalize
• You pushed the article before you had the “proper” audience to receive it well
• You’ve had an influx of new readers who will benefit from reading it
• It would rank well on a newly discovered social bookmarking site which would grow your audience
• It has begun generating discussion in your archives
• You’re in a slump and not producing much new content

As you can tell there is no shortage of reasons why you’d want to resuse your old articles.

How to do it

The best way I’ve found to get old articles off the ground a second time around is using social bookmarking sites. By that I mean submitting the articles to sites they haven’t been submitted too yet. Put it out there in front of fresh eyes. They’ll pass it along to their friends and family (if it is worth their while).

Another tactic I’ve used to good effect is to link the old article to my comments on other blogs. Instead of being taken to a front page the person is taken to a specific article. This alone will usually get a few eyes new eyes on the article. It’s really effective because you can target your audience. For instance on a blog talking about the stock market I might highlight an article I’ve written about floor trading. On the other hand on a blog about camping I can link it to an article about arctic expeditions. You get the idea.

What to look out for

Don’t just throw the article out there and hope people will come. At some point they will and you won’t like it. Unless you’ve taken time to put everything in order. Get into your favorite editor and give the article a through thrashing.

• Spelling and grammar – Yep these still matter. Double check that you’re original posting didn’t have these errors.
• Layout change – If your theme has changed since you original posted the article you might find things are “off” in the article. Take some time and fix them.
• Advertising – If you have advertising make sure it is up to date so you can capitalize on it
• Position – We all change out minds on things from time to time. Be sure the article accurately reflects your position.

Do you ever “resurrect” old articles in order to try and capitalize on them a second, third, or even fourth time around?