Improving Blog Value by Writing Ageless Content
15. Jun, 2010 
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Whether you published that article on your blog five minutes ago, or five years ago…your content should be just as valuable years ago as it is today. There are obviously some topics that you may write about that require some date specific information, but the goal is to only allow your content to be aged using a publish date and nothing more.
Your readers may come and go, but whatever path they took to originally find your blog in the first place should practically be a dartboard of useful information no matter when they ended up. When posts are consistently tied down to a time specific agenda, the subject matter may only be relevant for a very specific and limited about of time.
Keep Content Fresh, But Timeless
Sometimes, we can’t help but run into content staleness, such as the blogging world gets turned on its ear and things bloggers did last year may not be done the same way that are done today. However, blogging is still an art form tied to the power of writing and whether you are typing your posts, making podcasts or video blogs, the delivery of information is to be treated with the same respect no matter what avenue is taken.
Some of the awesome bloggers out there stick to this rule on a consistent basis. I’ve been able to read their current articles and gain value from them just as easily as I have from the articles in their archives. Let’s say that you’ve come across a very useful article that helped you solve a long running problem and made your day. Then, you realize that the original post date of that article was posted well over five years ago…that information that was just utilized today, was relevant five years ago and should remain relevant ten years from now.
How to Keep Your Content Sturdy Through the Years
Just writing content that can withstand the test of time is not enough, that content needs to be available and useful to your readers no matter when they find it. Try to apply some of the following tactics on your writing:
Solve a Recurring Challenge: Find those challenges in your niche that tend to keep coming up over and over again and write a solution to that problem. Push your information out there, keep it general but detailed enough to where that solution can be used at anytime.
Offer Structural Advice: Most new bloggers are looking for ways to structure their blogs and pages. Since the overall structure is mostly static, keep focus on those topics that are more than likely going to be set in concrete and not fluctuate much.
Aim For the Heart Strings: Content value is measured by how much of a connection you make with your readers. Go for the emotions as human nature typically does not change regardless of whatever next version of WordPress you run on.
Quit Showing Your Age
It’s good to let the newer bloggers see that you’ve been around for awhile in order to build credibility and trust due to presenting your own experience. Again, it’s perfectly fine to promote older content if you like to re-tweet an article from your archives once in awhile, but ensure that the article you are breathing life back into is just as valuable as a brand new post would be.
What Say You?
How often do you read other bloggers and tend to either find useful or dead information in the archives? How do you ensure that your own content is keeping up with the test of time?
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