First I want to apologize about the 12 Month Internet Millionaire Series. I will get to it soon - as you can see I am busy with contest and projects - I will try to get to it real quick! 🙂
It is getting chilly here in New Jersey, and before the winter winds and snow fall comes I went ahead and rotated my tires. Spent 14 dollars just to move the rear wheels to the front and vice versa. I was looking at my tires and saw my rear wheels were much cleaner and had more tread than the ones in the front, the reason why I am rotating them.
I thought to myself - I am just reusing the tires in a different position, the front. This came to a shock to me because I was thinking about what to write on my blog when suddenly this has a great role in playing with blogging, especially with my new theme. If you look at the bottom left column, you will see a short category called "Read of the Moment." This little area simply choses a post at random and publishes it, go ahead hit refresh, you will see a brand new post.
The reason I think this is beneficial is because yesterday's post is old news. It just gets pushed back as the more your write. The reason why I chose Brian Gardners' New theme, it provides exposure to my posts and it does not get pushed back at the end of the line never to be seen or read again.
Most blogs work in a chronological way, putting the most recent written posts on top of the other. Everytime a new post is written it simply pushes the previous post below it, constantly - I bet your first post you have written has never been read since the first day you have written it!
Fix this issue by rotating links either doing the following:
- Rotating links within your posts that are relevant to the old posts
- Rotating posts within your sidebar
- Plugins to display popular posts, most commented, most talked, discussions, etc
- Trackbacking within your posts, similar to #1
- Random posts on the front page or sidebar
There are numerous ways to recycle or have your old posts put to good use and see the light of the readers. You want to give more exposure to your post, make sure they are being seen and read, no matter how old they are. Let's discuss about the first 3 topics..
Rotating Links within Your Posts
When you rotate your links you simply just want to reference it. Recycling these links will prove that you can share old content and still talk about it. This is a good way of writing if you have writers block.
Authors will simply reference to an older post and go more in depth than what they have talked about in an older post. This simply provides a window for the old post, but you want to state saying something a long the lines of "As stated in my previous post about..." you would want to insert a title and link it to that specific post.
This gives another chance for the old post to be reborn and viewed, maybe even bookmarked. I try to link most of my posts within my new posts as I write. I just feel bad my old posts are not being read, :(.
Rotating Posts within your Sidebar
This can be links as well. This provides a more "READ ME" action to the posts. Instead of having the most popular or most discussed, you have "Read of the Moment." This will randomly pick a post at random and display it on your blog. Every page will have a new post at random, or every refresh/impression.
Your sidebar is usually a last resort for readers; they will go to your sidebar if the article they are reading is of no use or they have finished reading and want to read more. It is a last pit stop for your readers before they X out of your website.
When they view Random posts or maybe even a Related posts - they will view older material, giving another chance for your posts to be viewed one more time!
Plugins to Display Random/ Most Commented/ Related/ etc
Plugins are a great utility for WordPress blogs, they provide ease and simplicity for first time bloggers. With plugins that can posts new posts, random posts, most dicussed posts, etc will help give more visibility to your blog entries.
They are simple and straight to the point, with the new WordPress 2.3 its even easier - it uses widgets. Simply just drag and drop and your done. Lorelle has a great list combined at her website for such plugins and navigation. Here is a quick snippet from her blog:
...been digging deep to find some great WordPress Plugins to help you increase the navigation of your WordPress blog.
Navigational tools include showcasing recent posts, related posts, most popular posts, posts by category, breadcrumbs, tags, and so much more. I’ve come up with some gems, but there are a lot of options out there...
Giving more exposure to your posts gives them another chance to be read and be commented on. Every post has its history and importance; you do not want to play favorites when it comes to your post. Even if a post was a paid review, link back to it explaining what happened 6 months down the line, has it improved or plummet.
Show some love to the older posts and use the 3 Rs: Reuse, Recycle, Remember <- I just made that up.
