Turning a Failed Post Into a Success

This is a guest post by Steven Snell. Steven designs websites and maintains a blog for Vandelay Website Design. You can read more of his writing and see his portfolio at vandelaydesign.com.

All bloggers at some point face disappointing results with a post that they believed would make a big impact. It may have underachieved in terms of page views, comments, or inbound links. Whatever the case, the opportunity hasn’t been lost for the post to succeed.

But what should a blogger do to spark some excitement into the post? Read it again. Edit the post to make sure that it is useful to readers and consider adding more if it seems incomplete. Take an objective look at the post. If you still feel that it provides quality information that would interest people, take some further steps to draw attention to it.<

1. Link to it in the first paragraph of an upcoming post

Links higher on blog posts have a greater chance of being clicked. Most RSS subscribers scan through their RSS reader, only reading posts that catch their attention. By placing a link high in an upcoming blog post it will be seen by more subscribers as they scan. You can implement this by writing a follow up post, or just by writing a post on a related topic and mentioning the other post.

2. Announce that it has been updated

The majority of blog posts can be added to or improved in some way. Take the time to see what was missing the first time around and make some improvements. Once the changes have been made, write a brief new post announcing that updates and additions have been made, and if possible explain what has been added.

A great candidate for this is a post that contains a list or even just links to resources. Add more and then announce the improvement.

3. Add inbound links to the post throughout your site

Increasing the number of internal links to a post should improve the number of click-through visitors to the post. Those internal links may also help to increase its search engine rankings, as it now looks like a more important page.

4. Look for forums on the topic where you can present it as a resource to people

If your post is truly a helpful resource for others, you may be able to find some forum discussions on the topic. If so, join in on the conversation and include a link to your post.

5. Use comments on other blogs

This is basically the same idea as #4, except with blogs instead of forums. Do a blog search (try Google Blog Search, Ice Rocket, or Technorati to find other posts and discussions on the topic. Participate in the conversation, mention a few points from your post, and leave a link. You can also leave the link by using the URL to that specific post rather than your homepage URL when you are filling in the comment. This way if someone clicks on your name in the comment it will go directly to the post.

6. Use comments on your own blog

Most likely the topic of the post is relevant to a number of other older posts on your blog. Find posts that are related and leave a comment with a link telling readers that they can find more information on the subject by following the link. This is especially effective if you offer a subscribe-to-comments option on your blog. In this case your comment will be emailed to readers who have already left comments on the related post.

7. Mention the post at the bottom of your feed

Another place to promote your post is at the end of your RSS feed. WordPress users can choose from several different plugins, including Sig2Feed and PostPost, that will allow you to include anything you want at the end of your feed. Consider leaving a link and a brief description of the post to try to generate some clicks.

8. Submit the post to social media sites

Maybe a post that have not drawn much attention from your regular readers will catch on at a social media website. Try submitting the article to Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon, or any number of the smaller niche sites out there.

Sometimes just writing a great post isn’t enough. By trying these methods you will have given your post the best chance to be seen by interested readers. Find a few that work well for you and implement them in the future when you think a post hasn’t reached its full potential.