The answer to increasing your blog’s traffic is probably something very simple that you already have: old blog posts. If you’ve been blogging for awhile, you probably have tons of posts sitting in your archives that are just waiting for some TLC to bring them back to life. Imagine if each of your older posts received just 10 new visitors per day — that could add up to equal substantial growth for your blog. In today’s post, I’m talking about the tips and tricks I’ve recently implemented myself, which have been a tremendous help in getting TNC seen by more people.

Want to increase your blog traffic? Read on:

1. Add Pinterest-friendly images that match your branding

If you’ve had your blog for awhile, it’s likely that your design style and imagery has changed since you first started. You probably also know more about blogging, like the fact that you should use vertical, rather than horizontal images in order to be seen more on Pinterest.

The best way to update your images is to first start with your most popular posts of the past. To do this, I used Google Analytics to find out which posts have been bringing me the most traffic. Then, to start, I edited the first 20 old posts from that list in order to include new, Pinterest-friendly images that were consistent with our current color scheme and fonts. Finally, I pinned the new images to my Pinterest. This has absolutely increased my blog’s traffic!

Here’s an example of a post I wrote almost two years ago that previously had a pretty ugly, horizontal image. I updated it with a vertical image that matches my branding, pinned it to my “Blogging Tips” board on Pinterest, and have seen plenty of new click-through traffic.

2. Add keywords

Keywords are incredibly important for SEO. A keyword is essentially the specific topic of your post, or what someone might type into Google to find it. The takeaway here is that your post should mention your keyword several times within your content in order to rank highly in search engines and increase blog traffic.

For example, if you wrote a post called, “10 Ways to Travel on a Budget,” your keyword or phrase might be “travel on a budget,” as this is something one might search for on Google. By the way, the word “travel” isn’t a good keyword, since it’s not specific enough — you would be competing with an endless amount of other blogs. If your key phrase is “travel on a budget,” then you should incorporate this phrase into your post’s content several times.

There’s much more that you can do with keywords to improve your SEO and substantially increase your blog traffic. If you subscribe to our mailing list, you’ll get access to my free e-book with our top SEO tips. Boo-yah!

3. Add related posts + deep linking

If your post is old, it’s likely that you briefly mentioned something that you later wrote an entire post about. Go through your old posts to see if there are new posts that you can link to. This is great for your readers, as they are supplied with even more information about a topic they’re interested in, and is also great for increasing your blog’s traffic, since you’ll increase the number of people clicking around your site.

4. Rework old titles to be more SEO-friendly

While they may be cute, titles like “Recent Musings” or “A Few Fun Tips for Your Friday” will not help your search engine rankings. The title of your post is one of the most important parts of its SEO friendliness, so if you want to rank higher in search engines, it’s important to use titles that include your keywords and sound interesting enough to click. The best way to rework titles? Try to think of the exact phrases someone would search for in order to find your post and include them in your title.

5. Update + Reuse

Did you write a post way back in your beginning days that hardly saw the light of day because, at that time, you had an audience of…3? Well, it’s much easier to update old posts than it is to write entirely new ones. If you have some winners that don’t get any action, consider spicing them up and republishing them.

Related: 13 Ways to Drive Traffic to Old Blog Posts (Free Printable Checklist!)

6. Lengthen posts + update their information

You’ve probably learned a lot since the first posts you published. Utilize that knowledge by going through old posts and adding new information. Lengthen them (Google loves longer, highly useful posts!) and add up-to-date info. Perhaps you talked about a plugin that is no longer active or a product that is now outdated — whatever it may be, seek to add current, useful info to your old content if you want to increase blog traffic.

Related: 8 WordPress Plugins I Can’t Live Without

7. Increase blog traffic by deleting spam comments

There’s nothing like reading a stellar blog post and then scrolling down to see 47 spam comments about weight loss gimmicks. Bleh. Go through your old posts and delete any spam comments that are detracting from your credibility and your site’s aesthetics.

8. Proofread for mistakes and dead links

If you need to know one thing about SEO, it’s this: search engines are always on the hunt for the BEST content out there. Therefore, if a post has spelling errors or links that don’t work, you’ll lose some street cred in Google searches. Use a spell checker on old posts and read through them for obvious errors. Also, use a plugin like this one to find any broken links on your site. Then, of course, fix them!

9. Improve readability

Lastly, aim to improve your site’s readability. Blogs and websites do best if paragraphs are broken up into smaller chunks of text. Try to keep each paragraph to about 5-6 lines, rather than a huge block of 15 sentences clumped together. When readers click through to read your old posts, you want to maximize their reading experience with short, easy-to-read paragraphs.

Related: How to Develop Your Own Unique Blogging Voice

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Most of these tips are designed to increase blog traffic by optimizing your Pinterest and SEO power, but once you improve your older content, there’s so many other ways you can utilize it! You could share those freshened up posts in newsletters, add them to a “popular posts” section on your sidebar, use a re-worked version as a guest post, turn them into a free e-book for subscribers, and more. Be creative! 🙂

What can you do this week to spruce up your old posts?

p.s. Need help boosting your site’s SEO power? Subscribe below to receive a free e-book with my top SEO tips, plus access to our library of other free, blogging resources. Heck yes!