-by Sid Hale

I've always known how important my articles were as a way to create exposure to my website and increase its "stickiness" once a visitor arrived.  That's why I maintain an archive page on my website, with links to all past articles, and a "reprints" page to allow anyone to pick up my articles to publish on their own sites - but something happened this past week to drive the point home.

I'm in the process of starting a brand-new blog - a way to blast off something to my website visitors without having to put together a full issue of my newsletter, or even write a complete article.  

This is something I've thought about doing for quite a while but I had put it off because it hasn't been that long since I started a forum on my site, and it was just one more project that I didn't need right now.

Anyway, a free blogging service was just dropped in my lap as part of a new site I get with my membership at Affiliate Showcase, so it was just too easy to get started - and too hard to ignore.  Once I started playing with the new blog - posted a couple of entries and links to a couple of things I promote - I realized that it was still pretty bare.  That it would take a little time to enter enough posts to make my blog of any interest (or value) to anyone.

My new blog needed some content!

Enter my article archives.  Because I can easily post articles on the blog as well, it just made sense to go back through my article archives to see if there were any past articles that I could include to "beef up" the content on my new blog site.

Well, some of my older articles were nothing to be proud of.  I had weeded those out of my "reprints" page, but had retained them in the archives nevertheless.  As I searched further and further back into my archives, I got a real surprise. 

Sometimes what I write about is leading edge stuff, often it contains solid marketing strategies, or a good technique to execute a particular strategy, and sometimes it's just a rant about some current event that I feel strongly about.  But what I realized is that (more often than not), most of what I wrote 1-2 years ago is still pertinent today.  It's "evergreen".  I was able to use many more of my old articles on my new site than I would ever have imagined.

The immediate value in this is that one more site has my articles posted - with inbound links to my original site contained in the resource box.  In essence, I've become my own linking partner.  

This exercise also turned on more than one light bulb for me, and that's what I want to share with you today.  

1. First, I recognize the value of incoming links from the standpoint of increased rankings and from receiving traffic from other ezines, article directories, etc., and have occasionally posted my articles at other sites for that very reason.  But... 
   
   I haven't been religious about submitting all of my articles to get maximum exposure and inbound links.  
   
   If you write articles, don't miss an opportunity to submit them to as many directories as possible, and make sure that other ezine publishers in your field know that you will gladly make your articles available for reprint.
   
   

2. I also realized that many things don't really change that much.  That some information is just as valuable today as it was a couple of years ago - maybe longer.  That means that as I create my content for marketing courses, or ebooks, I can re-use a lot of what I have already written.  

I've seen a lot of ebooks that are simply compilations of other peoples articles, and that would certainly be easy to do, but I've never really liked the format. 

Somehow those have never seemed to be well thought out information products.  The various writers have different styles, sometimes different opinions, and the person compiling the collection of articles rarely does a good job of organizing the articles so that they complement one another.  They're just quick compilations, thrown together to create a product.  

So here's a third tip.

3. If your writing is true information (rather than a thinly disguised sales letter for some affiliate product), it'll have staying power.  
   
   It'll be "evergreen" and you'll find that it becomes a great source for a new product.  

Don't create just a compilation of your prior articles.  It will be only marginally better than a compilation of other people's articles.  It's almost as easy to cut & paste a lot of what you have written and re-use it in many forms.  In the process you can refresh the content with recent examples, organize it so that it "flows", and wind up with a much better product.  One that will be easier to sell, even at a higher price.