Revamp and Republish | Old Posts Shouldn't Be Forgotten

Recycling old content is frowned upon when it comes to blogging and it really shouldn't be. Why should we use time and effort putting together content that will probably get lost in our archives if we didn't stay on top of promoting them? It makes no sense, therefore recycling, or at the very least, adding to previously published content is a great way to draw attention to a topic that newer readers may have missed. Here's how.

Add updates to previous posts

You can almost guarantee that when a blog publishes a tutorial and it has an 'updated' section, they've updated the post and republished it as a fresh new piece of content, and guess what? It works. New readers and subscribers who may not have seen that content before get the juicy details other readers have before, as well as keeping your more loyal following in the loop with the newest information. If you're going to be revamping a post with new information, I would advise you make it one that's over 6 months old.

Create a follow-up complimentary post

Written a post about a subject that you could expand on, or a post that you've had a change of heart about? Have you written something that you create a catch-up or update version with new information? Do it. I've done this many times with my Commitment to Series and my Series Relationship posts, recapping the last year and creating new challenges for myself when it comes to series. People like to know what you've been up to and it's always exciting for you to see how you've changed too.

Combine content into an ebook

If you've written a number of posts about a certain subject, or you have a blog series that's buried beneath new content, it's pretty easy to produce an ebook and combine these posts together into one easy to read format. You could make the book available for new subscribers, giving them a quick snap view of the type of content they can come to expect from you, while also getting use out of your older worthy content. You could also sell the book if you fancied making a few quick bucks.

Switch up the format of your post

Got an old post that could be transferred into an infographic for easy sharing across Twitter and Pinterest? Switch it up. Got a post that you could vlog about instead? Switch it up. Got a post or tutorial you could turn into powerpoint slides? Do it. Keep content fresh and looking good is something all bloggers struggle with and strive to be better at - by switching up some older content and making it look brand new can give you a new lease of life, and if all goes well, it might inspire you do it again.

Link up related posts below new content

Those widgets that appear below other peoples posts showing you similar content or posts you should check out. They not only help your bounce rate, but they can direct readers to older content too. Many people recommend using LinkWithin, and personally, I've never had much of a problem with it myself, although I do prefer to link up my own recommended posts similar by categories or type of post, or if it's reviews, by author or genre. Pointing out content that people will love is one of the easiest things to do, and once you've somebody clicking around, chances are, they'll explore your blog further.

Link up content in your sidebar

I tend to focus on sharing the posts readers like most at Nellie and Co. but generally, you can link whatever takes your fancy in your sidebar and people will check it out. Want to get more attention to content you loved, or content that refers to subject that's 'big' in the news lately. Link it up. Want to show off posts your readers loved to draw new readers to? Link it up. Shake things up every now and then so your readers can constantly be impressed and surprised by the content you have, and make sure you have some graphics that help with linking up any content. Visuals gain more attention than simple words, make your content work for you.

Share a round-up of related posts for specific audience

Have a collection of posts that would be perfect for new bloggers? Create on big post and share your links in a giant link-up. Same can be done for any content you have a think would not only be helpful for your readership, but positive for the content in itself. Something similar to my giant monthly link-ups I do with community content can be done easily for your own content. Take two or three times in the year to refer to older content of different subjects, for designers, for bloggers, for reviewers, for authors, for whoever your target audience is. People like things handed to them, give them what they want, and they'll lap it up.

Stop letting your old content get lost in your archives, get creative and find ways to bring them out of the dark depths and into the light of your new readers and across the board of social networks. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, so get thinking, there's bound to be many many more. Do you revamp and recycle your content, and if so, how do you do it?

Google Search Tools | How Find Time Restricted Tutorials

Whenever I'm searched for tutorials, one of the first things I check is the date in which the tutorial was posted. Nobody likes searching for answers only to find that, low and behold, these answers are years old, and you've wasted half an hour looking for something that's hidden amongst fossils. That's because Google finds webpages related to your search based on SEO, not by recent date or when it was published. Did you know that you can narrow your search down to a specified time period? Perfect if you're looking for a tutorial that isn't time friendly. Here's how.

When searching for anything in Google, you have Search Tools..

Search tools can be used to narrow any type of search down to a more specified search. As you can see, the current search results are ordered in terms of best match or most related to the subject you've searched, and that's great, but we want to specify a search time in order to find time restricted blog tutorials.

Click on 'Search Tools' and an extension will appear;

You now have different options to search either by country, which would order the search results in terms of country you specify, and by time, which is the option we're focusing on today.

Click on 'Any time' to be given more options like the following:

This is where Search Tools comes to life. You can now specify any time period you would like to search within. For blog tutorials, I usually use the 'Custom Range' feature which allows you to search within a period of time, for me, that's 6 months, and if that doesn't provide results I want, I search for within a year, in order to keep myself updated as close as possible. In this example, I've chosen 'Last Month'.

Click on a time period to search. Your search results will reorder.

See how the posts have changed now you've searched within a time period? You can still change how the results are shown by choosing by relevance or date, however, I usually stick with relevance. With the internet and everything on it changing by the day, it's sometimes hard to find tutorials that are up to date, recent and actually related to what it is your searching, and this is the best way I've found to locate time restricted articles. The Search Tool's feature can be used for almost anything - it's worth taking a look and seeing it if can benefit you.

Did you know about Google Search Tools and it's features?

5 Things I'd Do Differently If I Were Creating My Blog Today

It's only natural that after a specific length of time, bloggers come to look back on their journey, the highs and the lows, the good and the bad experience and consider what they may have done differently now they've already done it, or what you could have and should have changed early on in order to positively benefit yourself, and I am no different.

I'm coming up close to two years blogging, and there's been a lot of upheaval in my life lately, whether that be emotionally or mentally, online or in real life, and it's encouraged me to take a serious look at what I would have done differently with my blogging experiences if I were to start over tomorrow. After much thought, I established that these changes may just benefit others considering starting a blog, so here's 7 things I'd do differently I started a blog today.

4 Ways Your Blog Can Benefit Your Résumé

We all have CV's and résumé's, most of them are more than likely a little out of date, not very exciting and lacking in what could be deemed as interesting information about ourselves. God forbid we actually shared a little something personal about ourselves when applying for a job, employers are much more interested in why we enjoy socialising with friends lazy nights in with our cat, or actively seeking out new and exciting opportunities doing whatever job will hire you until you get bored and find another.

If you run a blog, you're missing out on great résumé content!

You Should Celebrate Milestones - Promotion Party!

When I first started out blogging, I never for one moment considered that I'd have achieved as much as I have. After all, blogging was just a way to kill time, a shout out to the void in the hope that somebody, anybody would care to notice, so to have a reached a point where I can fill both hands with achievements I couldn't be prouder of, that's so much more exciting. I love seeing what other people have accomplished and what people are proud of, and I've never not considered sharing my experiences or how proud I am to be a blogger, but some people fear sharing their achievements, and they're missing out of easy promotion..

I'm Proud To Be A Blogger

Blogging for some people is the method used to escape reality. It's a hobby that allows you delve into a deeper, sometimes more hidden area of yourself that you don't particularly show off in public. A blog for some people is an output in which they can share this other side of their personality and feel free to talk about their loves and hates, there joyful moments and in my case, books.

But how many of us don't talk about our blog outside of blogging?

I imagine there's a lot of people who blog that don't actually tell anyone about it. It's like a little secret, something only they know, something just for them, something that is theirs and they have all the control over, a space to be used when connecting to people of your choice rather than just anyone, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, in fact, I understand why you'd want to keep something so precious and important to you away from the preying of eyes of people you don't know or don't particularly like, I really really do, but your blog is something you should be proud of.

Take me for example..

When I started out blogging at Book Badger, I never for one minute considered not telling people. Blogging was to me, the same as after school football is to the kid that likes sports, or the film buff that's always looking for the next film to check out at the cinema, blogging was a hobby (and still is) the same as any other hobby in the world, and I was good at what I did. I was proud of how good I was, and I wanted to share with this is with the people in my life. Was I scared that people I didn't like or didn't know would find my blog? Yes, a little. After all, the internet is a big and scary place with a lot of people we don't know and may never know, but it never stopped me being passionate and sharing my passion.

4 Things That Make Me Click To Read Content

One of the misconceptions behind blogging is that just by putting your content out there, people will see it, and that's not true. If you want people to see your content you've been working on for hours, you need to do more than just press 'post' or 'publish', you need to promote it, because without promotion, you'll have no readers, and without readers, you'll have no views, and whether we like to admit it or not, views are important, they define you, they make you aware of what you're doing, how you're doing it, and allow yourself to ask questions. The most common of the questions I ask myself regularly is 'would I read this if somebody else wrote it?' It's what encourages me to strive for better content, it's what reminds me that I need to promote, that I need to make everything I write appealing to you, otherwise you'd never read it, and I'd have wasted my time entirely.

Blogging Doesn't Cost Me a Dime!

Talking about the things that go on behind the scenes when blogging is something many bloggers feel wary of, and I, like many, tend to keep what happens behinds the scenes away from my content - people don't usually want to know how difficult it is, they just want your voice, your thoughts and your words, but there's been something that's been mentioned more within the last 6 months than has ever mentioned before, and that's how much it costs to blog. I however, have a confession.

It costs me nothing more to blog than it would to not blog.*

*Not inclusive of giveaways.

Bookish Musings - Why Stacie Turned To Blogging

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Stacie is talking about why she started blogging, the difference in her expectations when she started to those she has now, and what she hopes for the year..

All Blogs Change Over Time

A while ago, and I do mean a while ago - last year in fact - a favourite blogger of mine was in a bit of a personal rut. She co-blogged on a blog focusing primarily on books, but she no longer felt she wanted to blog books all of the time, and she felt a little lost.. It got me thinking, how many of us started our blogs with books in mind, talking about books, loving books, ranting books and showcasing books who now run blogs that aren't solely focused on that anymore? How many of us just blog whatever comes to us, whatever we want to share or talk about? How many of us have changed, and in turn, changed our blogs?

Bookish Musing - I'm Just Being Honest

Bookish Musing is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk or discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related conversation. Today, Stacie is going to tackle an issue that has be bothering her for sometime, the fine line between being honest and harsh in review..

Personal Pickings - Harassment, Stalking, Refusing To Stand Down

Personal Pickings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to approach subject personal to us that has no link or connection to our bookish endeavors. Today, Amanda is talking about are personal battle with depression, how it's affected her life on the whole, her deepest, darkest moments and what keeps me going.

Personal Pickings - A New Perspective

Personal Pickings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to approach subject personal to us that has no link or connection to our bookish endeavors. Today, Amanda is talking about the stress she puts on herself to read, blog and - well, you can guess the rest..

Bookish Musings - NetGalley Negatives

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about Netgalley and the negative things that she personally has against the site. Does it mean she won't use it? Of course not, but it's not a perfect formula. See why..

2 Things That Make Me Follow or Unfollow You

I'm an avid blogger and that fact isn't something that's new to you all. I can spend anywhere between two hours to nine hours on both my own blog and other peoples blogs a day, and today, it's not my own blog I want to talk about, it's other peoples. I know that sounds like a very dangerous and possibly very controversial subject, but lets face it, as bloggers, we spend a dedicated amount of time visiting fellow bloggers and friends, but we don't follow every blogger in the community, not only is that impossible but it's extremely impractical, and so in a very different type of conversation today, I want to talk about what keeps me going back to somebody's blog and why sometimes I will say taddie ho to someone else's. This post hasn't been created to hurt or upset anyone in anyway shape nor form, neither has it been written to encourage bloggers to change, so please remember that while this may be the honest truth, it's not written to insult or directly hurt anybody's feelings. Do keep this mind. (This is also going to be an extremely long post, I advise tea and biscuits before you start.)

Book Blogger or Booktuber

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about the Pro's and Cons to starting a Book Blog or a Booktube Channel. Many people consider which would be best for them and I've known a few people, including myself, whom would have loved to know the pro's and cons before hand, so lets takes a look.

From Hobby to Snobby

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about admiting to wanting to change things she's been on her blog. The post that inspired this one was on Cuddlebuggery by Steph, and she talked about how blogging has become less of a hobby and more like an unpaid job, catered to entertaining other bloggers, which reminded me of my blogging journey, which reminded me of something I did as a child and it's heartbreaking to see the resemblance between the two..

Peoples Opinions on My Book Blog

Bookish Musings is a feature here at Beautiful Bookish Butterflies that allows one of us to share our thoughts and opinions, talk and discuss things happening in the book and blogging community or share a personal book related issue we have. Today, Amanda is talking about Book Blogs and the judgement we get running them.