Today as I was digging through my archives, I found many posts I had forgotten about.
Here’s a recap of my favorites in no particular order.
Today’s Lesson In Self Promotion
Funniest Picture In A Post: “Do You Walk Your Talk Or Are You Just Blowing Smoke?”
Most Controversial PostL (Created motivation for other bloggers to write their own posts on freedom of speech) Blog Losses Massive Traffic Due To Profanity
Highly Visited Post: (according to statistics) “Blogging Etiquette – The Unwritten Rules”
Post Receiving The Most Comments (105): :Four Day Open Mic 8/21 to 8/24/08
My Corniest Post (it’s a poem):“I Love To Blog”
My First Post: My Blog Had A Baby”
Most Misleading Title: “Blogger Exposes Herself, Traffic Soars”
Most Gratifying Post: Join Me In Helping A Fellow Blogger
Post With The Most Links: : 1066 Links, Lessons or Tips For Bloggers
Most Educational Series: Interview With Lorelle VanFossen – Part 9 – A Recap Plus A Bonus
Today’s Assignment
Knowing our archives are often forgotten, how do you self promote ensuring your previous articles get more attention?
Photo Credit: sh0dan’s photostream
Thank you for this list of useful information, Barbara. It is so helpful to be reminded of where to find your excellent resources.
Personally, whenever I visit a blog I do like to have a look through past articles to get a sense of what it’s all about.
It really helps when the Archives are signposted well.
Now… I’m off to explore… 🙂
Hi Scott,
You’re welcome.
Yes, often bloggers best work gets buried in their archives. If the articles aren’t linked to, unless we remind our readers, they may never be seen again.
Enjoy digging!
Hi Barbara – I have to say that picture is one I’ll never forget.
I’d missed a couple of these due to being ill or away. The poem was one of them. It’s really good and very true.
Also – I hadn’t seen your first post. It’s interesting how learning how to set up your OM blog inspired you to create this one.
Hi Barbara – had a laugh at the smoking hen.
And I thought I’d amuse myself by looking at your “corniest post” poem – and I found it inspiring!
For my own blog, I link to old posts now and then when its relevant, I use the random posts plugin after the comments and I have a “featured posts” page. Cheers!
good day barbara, i don’t resurrect my older posts much, unless i’m talking about something in a new post and i use an older post as a reference. i probably need to do that more…but once the post is done, i guess i consider it done to a point.
maybe it would be like an author who goes on a book tour to promote a book he or she wrote 5 years ago. it’s a wrap already, but there is a page in their latest book that lists their previous written books just in case you’re interested. an archives page helps on a blog.
so with new posts, i would link them in as a reference and for further understanding of my current post.
have a good one.
I try to link within my blog. It’s difficult sometimes to self-promote. I guess it also depends on your goal whether you blog for fun or blog professionally.
Thank you for bringing these articles to my attention.
I have not read any of these Barbara. Thanks, Now I will.
Reminding people to self promote is always a great idea. So often we forget to shine outside of our shells.
When appropriate, I reference and hyperlink to my previous posts. I also have a “Check Out Other Posts” plugin at the bottom of every post to encourage my readers to go to previous articles.
Stacey / CreateaBalance’s last blog post..Arriving at the Moment of Your Dream (Wordless Wednesday)
Hey Barbara,
You are a funny woman – especially exposed! 🙂
I think if I don’t link people to older posts, why would they want to read them. In other words, if I don’t remember them, who else will?
Of course, searches take people to older posts. I am amazed how often I am reading a post that I get all excited about and then realize they wrote it two or three years ago. Sometimes the sites are even ghost towns when I snoop around.
Thanks for being here.
Harmony’s last blog post..IF YOU HAD A CHOICE WOULD YOU SUCK LEMONS
Barb,
I, too, link to “strangers'” posts before commenting…I just want to know a bit about them.
Regarding Archives, as I stated yesterday, I go through my Archives once a week – just to make sure that comments = responses. Then again, each week the task takes longer, as my Archives build!
You DO realize that you are now going to get many comments on the blogs you mentioned today, right? I hope you plan to take a week off for responses, as it is going to take a LONG time!
Great post – and thanks (I think…) for adding to my “must read” list of blogs!
Rita
Rita’s last blog post..Contest Time: Blogging for Prophet – a Quiz
I installed the “similar posts” WordPress plugin.
http://rmarsh.com/plugins/similar-posts/
It does seem to create more traffic for older posts.
On my to-do list is to create two short lists for the side-bar. One for most popular, and one for “best of” — the second is my own list of what I consider the best/most important posts. Obviously it won’t match the first.
My posts are linked to each other A LOT. Sometimes I feel like I’m not writing a blog — but one of those game books, where you read a chunk and you have make a choice of where to go next? It’s like a serial story with multiple entry points and endings.
ari
Ari Koinuma’s last blog post..Why You Can’t Do What You Love (Digest)
Man, that poor chicken!
These are good links, Barbara, and I will have to visit them. I just popped in on the smoking chicken and briefly scanned the post about helping a fellow blogger.
Once in awhile I will link back to older posts when they fit within my current post.
I try to link contextually when I can.
I do like the approach of putting up “related articles” at the end of a post though – and I know some blogs do that.
Bamboo Forest’s last blog post..Wikipedia: The Holy Grail
Hi Catherine,
Like you, every time I see that smoking chicken, I have to laugh 🙂
Yes, the first post of mine is the beginning of it all. Who knew where it would take me. It’s been a wonderful journey.
Hi Natural,
Good day to you, too. Having read your blog for a long time, I know you have some wonderful posts in your archives. I say, “dig them up” and showcase them. Your readers would love to read some of your earlier work.
Hi Robin,
The chicken is funny, isn’t it? Like you, I also use plugins to get more attention to older posts. I think they work pretty good, but sometimes it’s good to “toot our own horn”, too.
Hi Chris,
Oh my gosh! You have some great reads in your archives. I love your car chronicles series. You should do a post of your favorite ones.
Hi Writer Dad,
You’re welcome. I hope you find a favorite one, too.
Hi Stacey,
Welcome to the BWAB community.
Yes, we do need to self promote more often. Using the “Check Out Other Posts” is a great way to shine some light on our earlier work.
Hi Harmony,
You’re welcome.
Yes, that was a misleading title, but it got people’s attention. 🙂
Who wants to read your older posts? We all do. You have some great stuff going all the way back to when you first started your blog. Dig them up.
Hi Rita,
You’re welcome.
I was thinking of that as I linked to these posts. I wasn’t sure if readers would comment on those, or here. I’ll have to stay on top of it so I don’t have any hanging chads.
Hi Vered,
The similar posts plugin you linked to is another great one for showcasing other articles of ours. I know it does a good job on your site.
Hi Ellen,
It sounds like everyone is enjoying the smoking chicken. 🙂 Don’t forget to do more linking as your archives have some great reads.
Hi Bamboo,
Yes, the related posts plugin works good, too. In fact, I use that.
Hi Marelisa,
Yes, when I was learning about blogging, I felt like I was in school, taking notes as there was so much to learn. Who knew it would be the start of this blog.
Listing old posts is a great way to let our readers know of our previous work. Often they don’t take time to dig through our archives.
Hi Ari,
Having the lists in our sidebar(s) works great. We can only hope our readers will click on those posts. Internal links (in our posts) works good, too.
That’s interesting how you worded that, “It’s like a serial story with multiple entry points and endings.”
Hi Davina,
Glad to hear you liked the poem. I thought it was kind of corney, but at the time that’s how I was thinking.
I haven’t really thought about this – you’re good at making me think about possibilities Barbara! I’m thinking maybe linking within my posts – I’ll have to experiment with that.
On the topic of your links – I loved the poem! And, I now also have some more things of yours to check out (I need more time!!!!).
Hi Barbara: I read your first post. That’s great that you kept a journal of everything that you learned about blogging, and then that learning process gave birth to this blog. I think putting together “compilations” every once in a while is a good idea. It allows readers to go back to things they might have missed or re-read old favorites.
Marelisa’s last blog post..30 Ways to Increase Your Creativity
Hi Lance,
Yes, that’s my goal; to make you all think of the possibilities. Like all of the other BWABers, you also have great articles in your archives. Don’t forget to showcase them from time to time.
Time? What’s that? I wish I could bottle it. 🙂
Hi Barbara. I enjoyed that poem 🙂
I recently created a page to highlight my favourite posts. My blog isn’t heavy on the archives yet, but when I’m witing a post I will occasionally find the opportunity to link back to one of my earlier posts to showcase the point I’m making.
Davina’s last blog post..Does Misery Really Love Company?
I use the following technique to link old articles
– In my new articles, I will try to manually link some of the old relevant articles either within the main content or at the end as Related posts.
– I have a footer section that I manually update and this has two categories – Most Popular Posts and Suggested reading for beginners. Again, I manually update it once in a while after doing some research on Google Analytics traffic on what people read the most and the pattern of reading.
– There are some good posts from the past that have attracted absolutely zero comments! I am trying to do something about them. At that time I had only ten or twelve readers a day. Another thing to do is to open up those posts for editing, change a word or two and ‘Publish’ again instead of ‘saving’ which will tell search engines and services like technorati to ping and index the post again! (A lot of people do a repost with the timestamp changed, I am not a fan of this idea)
Cheers,
Ajith
Ajith Edassery’s last blog post..Blog Monetization – Is Pay-Per-Read (PPR) the next thing?
Barbara – I always wondered how to promote articles of the past. I wonder if anyone knows about any plugin that can help promote hot articles in the archives.
It’s nice that you are digging up these favorites for my attention. I’ve only been a recent reader and missed out a lot on your earlier posts. I don’t have time to plough through all your archives, so your highlighting them is helpful! Thanks!
Evelyn Lim’s last blog post..68 Seconds Of Pure Thought: Visualize In 4 Creative Ways
Hi Barbara – these were some cool articles! The funniest picture made me laugh, the first post was fun to read in retrospect, and I nominate “I Love to Blog” as the official post for all bloggers!
Al at 7P’s last blog post..The Criminally-Minded Approach for Achieving Goals
Hi Ajith,
That’s a good idea to check your statistics to see what your visitors are reading.
For those older posts, do a little self promotion and create a post to highlight them. That way they don’t stay buried.
Hi Shilpan,
I think I may have found a plugin that will let us manually input our favorite posts. I yet have to test it, so as soon as I do, I’ll write about it.
Hi Evelyn,
You’re welcome. That’s one thing we do need to think about. As our readership grows, we end up with posts others don’t know about. By showcasing them, they get more attention and our readers can read more of our work, and hopefully learn in the process.
Hi Al,
You’re so kind. I agree, the funniest one, is pretty funny. I still laugh when I look at the picture.
Now that I have built up an inventory, I am starting to add related posts links at the bottom of my posts. Also, if I reference a previous post, I always hyperlink to it. Not sure if people actually go there, but I suspect they do, because the visit times are increasing.
Urban Panther’s last blog post..Cut and run
Hi Barbara
this is my 1st visit to your blog and i am really glad i came here on time (Thanx to Bloggerslab.com’s Blogroll)
and this post will guide me through your blog
you have really wonderful blog and i must say i am really impressed with your writing style count +1 in your long fans list (subscribed to your blog feed)
Sara’s last blog post..Successful Ways to Communicate with Your Teenager
Hi Urban Panther,
Yes, linking to our previous posts will drive traffic to them. New readers love to find of our writings.
Hi Sara,
Welcome to the BWAB community.
Thank you for your kind words. I’m hoping you won’t be sorry you subscribed. The community here is a group of wonderful people who also have great blogs well worth reading.
I’ll be over later to check our your blog too. Your current post looks interesting (our kids are all grown…whew…. 😉 )
@Barbara Trust me i am not at all sorry for subscribing to your blog, and as you said your blog is really wonderful. i like the way people interact with each other and welcome new members.
i hope one day my blog will have such wonderful peoples too
****smiles**** Thank you Sara 🙂
Building community takes time, but as you can see it’s well worth it. All of the bloggers who participate, keep me motivated and grateful I started blogging.
I’ll definitely enjoy seeing your future comments.
You may call this self promotion Barbara, but I think it’s an excellent refresher style post for any blog. Love the format – may actually borrow it myself in the future if you don’t mind.
Also some good links here for me to catch up on.
Kelly
Kelly@SHE-POWER’s last blog post..A Weekend Funny: My Living Will
Hi Kelly,
Feel free to borrow any idea you like. I’ll be watching for the recap of your archived posts, as well. 🙂
Hi Craig,
Welcome to the BWAB community.
Yes, unfortunately most new visitors don’t take time to dig through our archives. By showcasing some of our older posts, it helps to bring them to the forefront and will hopefully help new and recent visitors see our “old favorites”.
Thank you for the compliment. 🙂
Well, if I hear about a new blog that I like, I will comment and read the first post, then browse the next few, to see if there are any others there that interest me, and if so I subscribe so I can get future posts. But I don’t really look through the archives, which is a bad thing, because I am missing out on some great posts but with all the different blogs I end up reading, it is to much hassel.
Nice blog by the way.