Struggling with blog traffic? We’ve ALL been there. 

You may be working tirelessly creating new content every day in hopes to increase blog traffic.

Sometimes you may be seriously struggling to come up with a new idea you haven’t already covered.

What you may not realize is you already have a really simple solution to more blog traffic sitting right there in front of you.

I’m talking about your old blog posts! The ones that you have already done the work for.

If you’ve been blogging for a while then you literally have so much potential to gain more traffic sitting right there in front of you. You could have hundreds of old blog posts — so much potential!

Maybe when you first wrote your older content you barely had any readers. But now, you may have new readers who haven’t seen your old posts. Your readers will thank you for revealing your older content that they may not have ever found on their own. 

How do you decide which blog posts to update?

Use Google Analytics to determine which posts are your most popular already.

Those popular posts have already gotten you some traffic, so you know the potential to bring you MORE traffic is right there.

By simply giving your old posts a little-deserved love and attention you are guaranteed to see a spike in traffic.

Even if you’re new to the blogging community you still have the potential to increase your traffic by implementing a few changes to your already published posts.

Ready to increase blog traffic?

Read on and find out how EASY it can be with 4 simple steps!

1. Update Pinterest Images

When you first started blogging you probably had a vision of what you wanted your blog and brand to look like, right?

After some time in the blogging world, that vision may have changed.

After all, you’ve grown into your blog.

You now have a clearer image of your blog style and how you want to brand yourself to readers.

This can be something as simple as the font and colors you chose to use.

Having all your content match with the same font, colors, and image style can really make you stand out and look like you truly have your blogging game together (even if you’re not quite there yet).

Take your older and most popular posts and give their Pinterest images a well-deserved update.

As always, make sure you are using vertical images with the title clear and easy to read.

My favorite tool for creating Pinterest images: Canva!

2. Rephrase Titles and Increase SEO

Having attention-grabbing titles is always best for gaining the most attention from readers. 

No one is going to click on your blog post if they feel like they’ll have nothing to gain from it.

Maybe you have an old post titled something like “My Favorite Pie Recipe.” That’s great and all, but it’s not really SEO friendly and getting you the traffic you deserve.

No one is Googling to find out YOUR favorite recipe – they want to know THE best recipe available online.

Instead, try rephrasing it to something like, “The Best Homemade Apple Pie Recipe.”

Always write to benefit your audience.

Rewrite your titles with SEO friendly keywords that someone will actually be searching for. And while you’re at it, add those SEO friendly keywords throughout your post as well.

Take the keywords you use in your title and try to incorporate the same keywords multiple times throughout your post.

It is always best to use those keywords within the first 200 words of the post.

But as always, make sure you are writing authentically. Do not just insert your keyword all over the post and ruin the readability. 

3. Lengthen Post

Did you know most blog posts are only about 300 to 500 words?

I know I’ve had plenty of posts that fell into that category.

300 – 500 word posts are super easy to pump out in bulk. Publish five 300 worded posts or one 1,500 worded post. The former sounds better for traffic, right?

Once upon a time ago, short blog posts were the content goal to rank the highest in search engines.

But since SEO is constantly changing, as a blogger its best to change your content strategy accordingly.

Do you know the minimum word count of posts that rank highest in search engines now? Wait for it…

2,000!

Now, I know that may seem like A LOT, and it is especially if you’ve only been publishing smaller 500-word posts.

But this is totally doable.

Look back at your old posts and see if you have gained more knowledge in any particular topic you’ve already written about.

I’m not suggesting you go back to older posts and add in fluff after fluff just to hit a higher word count – let’s not forget, content is just as important, not just the word count.  

By adding useful insight into older blog posts while increasing your word count you can do wonders for your traffic!

4. Improve Readability

Do you ever come across blog posts where there are spelling mistakes and endless grammar errors?

We’ve all been guilty of writing and not noticing a simple error at the time.

Read over your old posts and check for possible mistakes that may be turning readers off from your content.

Most common mistakes are:

• Grammar
• Punctuation
• Spelling
• Style

One really great writing tool all bloggers should be using: Grammarly.

What is Grammarly? It’s truly your new best friend.

Grammarly will check your writing for those most common mistakes and make you look like a writing pro, even if you are far from it.

You can check out Grammarly for free here!

Readability isn’t just perfect grammar and punctuation, it also includes how well your content flows for readers.

For example, make sure your paragraphs are broken down into smaller segments.

Find long and never-ending paragraphs in older posts and break them down into smaller sections. This makes it so much easier for your readers.

How small is too small? One sentence per paragraph is actually an appropriate length that helps your readers.

However, if needed you can have a few (1-4) sentences in one paragraph that will still be visually helpful to readers, as opposed to 15 sentences and one giant paragraph.

So, now that you know just how to update your old posts, are you feeling excited about the EASY possibility of more traffic? 

By incorporating these four updating strategies into your old posts you are guaranteed to increase blog traffic.

Your blog can start seeing the traffic you want and deserve.

You work hard on your blog, why not get the most traffic? 

P.S.

If you are just starting out blogging, make sure you check out the BEST blogging tools and resources.

You can find that article here!