Older Articles: Dead in the Water or Traffic Magnets?

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Older Articles: Dead in the Water or Traffic Magnets?

Posted on March 12th, 2009 in Online Writing by Athlyn Green

Have your aging articles “grown whiskers” or “gotten legs”? Are they “snoozing” or “earning their keep”?

Many writers write for fun and enjoyment; other writers write and earn a living from it. In either scenario, writers want their work to be read. What’s happening with your older articles? Are they dead in the water or traffic magnets?

In a recent article, I discussed evergreen articles and why these earn more over the long-term.

While it is true that some articles die a quick death, this doesn’t have to be the case. Older articles that aren’t necessarily evergreen can still generate earnings.

Revamping Older Articles

Triond offers authors the handy Fix button, which means that if an article isn’t performing as anticipated, we can easily go in and make certain changes to make that older article more relevant to readers.

Ways to Make Older Articles Shine

Add links to helpful/popular Internet sites
Add pictures
Add resources for further reading
Add toll-free numbers to help lines (if applicable)
If you are quoting authorities or studies, link to same, so readers can verify the information or read more about the subject
Do a check of keywords you can insert into your article to make it search engine friendly. Use the Google AdWords keyword tool to generate additional keywords
Add these keywords into the tag line in the Online Editor

To sum it up, make your dated articles richer in content.

Another Neat Trick for Older Articles

Once you’ve revamped your older articles, make sure to link to them in newer articles. Do you see how this works? Someone reads your new article, then clicks over to an older article. Article recycling is always a good idea.

How Triond Authors Can Do Their Part in Relation to Others’ Older Articles

The next time you decide to comment on someone’s articles, why not take the time to visit their profile page and select one of their older articles? Why is this important? In doing so, you bump up views of that particular article but also of related articles that appear below that article. This has a domino effect, assisting all of us.

Image via Wikipedia

If your older articles are languishing, now is the time to subject them to “article bootcamp.” Your efforts to breath new life into them will be rewarded.

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Tags: aging articles, article rec, article traffic magnets, dated articles, neat trick for older articles, older articles, older articles can still generate earnings, revamping oldeer articles, ways to make older articles shine, what's happening with your older articles

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22 Responses to “Older Articles: Dead in the Water or Traffic Magnets?”

Michael Degenhardt
March 12th, 2009 at 1:23 pm

Awesome advice for all of us. It is very well thought out and communicated to us lay people that even we can understand. Michael
Athlyn Green
March 12th, 2009 at 1:37 pm

Hi Michael,
I just finished reading one of your awesome articles about creating an article content base. I think we are on the same wavelength!

I really admire your work. Well-crafted and insightful.
Peter Cimino
March 12th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

As always Athlyn…very informative and great advice! I have often thought about updating one or two of my old ones. Now I will probably do it.
Thanks so much!
Athlyn Green
March 12th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

Hi Peter,
Thanks for the compliments. If we’ve taken the time to write an article, we should take the time to make it work for us over time.
Annie Hintsala
March 12th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

Good article. Already doing a lot of this and it does help.
Patrick Bernauw
March 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

It’s great to have some articles you can sing that old Neil Young song with: “Long May You Run…” – I’m on Triond since September, and there are some articles dating from September that do it better now than they did it then! Keep refreshing, I say… it pays off!
Athlyn Green
March 12th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

Hi Annie & Peter,
Great to hear that others are making Triond work for them.
Rana Sinha
March 12th, 2009 at 4:15 pm

Great advice. Thanks. I’ll start to check my old articles right away. My article on Billionaires
http://www.socyberty.com/People/How-to-Become-a-Billionaire.136732
is doing much better now during this financial crisis than in last June.
Athlyn Green
March 12th, 2009 at 4:48 pm

Hi Rana,
With the current financial crisis, I can see why your article strikes a chord with a number of people.
Dee Gold
March 12th, 2009 at 6:29 pm

nice article as always
Darla Smith
March 12th, 2009 at 7:05 pm

This is a very helpful article. Thanks for the info.
seeingrhed
March 12th, 2009 at 9:48 pm

Just a great article, I enjoy reading all the advice you give. My articles will no doubt be better off because of them.
jo oliver
March 12th, 2009 at 11:07 pm

Another great article, Athlyn. I really like your “domino effect” idea.
kate smedley
March 13th, 2009 at 3:33 am

Excellent useful advice as always, thanks for sharing.
CutestPrincess
March 13th, 2009 at 3:47 am

that was an awesome advice… im always looking forward to your tips…
BC Doan
March 13th, 2009 at 6:16 am

Very helpful article, Athlyn!
Michael Eboh
March 13th, 2009 at 7:02 am

Nicely put. Thanks.
John McDonnell
March 13th, 2009 at 9:22 am

Okay, Athlyn, I see your point. I commented on one of your other articles about making money on Triond, and I said that after the first two weeks an article is posted, page views go down dramatically. I have an article that got 800 views in the first few weeks, but it got exactly one page view in the last two months. Now I see there are some things I can do to remedy that. I have one question: when you say a writer should link to older articles within each new article, do you mean to actually put the link in the article? I don’t understand how to do this.

Good advice.
Athlyn Green
March 13th, 2009 at 9:46 am

Hi John,

Your article that got so many views may have been Dugg or Stumbled, which would have resulted in the rapid views. I’ve had this happen, too, and when it does, sometimes there’s a peak in reader interest with many commenting–especially if it’s the type of article that may be somewhat controversial.The article makes it onto Triond’s Hot Content list, which also results in a flurry of views. Once it is no longer on the hot list, the article may not pull as much traffic later, simply because the initial interest has waned.

Other articles gain steady views month after month. These are the evergreen articles that wear well.

Other articles just don’t really do much of anything. Sometimes, it is simply that they might do better in a different format, say such as HubPages, where you can include polls, product capsules, etc.

Other times, an article can be revamped to make it more appealing to a wider audience, which I’ve discussed in this article.

To link to your other articles, you simply grab the article URL (copy), then hyperlink it (paste) in either the body of your article or at the bottom. You’ll want to link to similar articles. Use anchor text: Run your mouse over the words before clicking on the chain icon in the Online Editor. That way, the URL is embedded under the words. You’ll notice links in my articles because they are a different color.

For everyone who is unsure about how to add links, please see my article about adding links to your Triond articles or email me with any questions. It can seem confusing but is very easy to do, once you get on to it.
Jeffrey B. Merrow
March 15th, 2009 at 4:07 pm

great tips
Jeffrey B. Merrow
March 15th, 2009 at 4:08 pm

great tips and very usfull thanks for the info
Uma Shankari
March 19th, 2009 at 10:13 am

Useful tips deftly compiled into a neat package. Great read.