The ability to create a comprehensive archive of your published content is one of the most powerful tools that the WordPress platform gives you. WordPress templates usually build upon this even more by giving you specific page templates for archives that keep things consistent between your archived content and the rest of the content on your site. The technical aspects of a WordPress archive are easy to understand. WordPress allows you to create archives organized in as many ways as you want. The tagging system provides an easy way to organize your content. Building up an archive, however, can take a lot of time. Here are four ways to get great content for your archives.
1: Write for the Archive
If you regularly update your blog, don’t be afraid to do a bit more work. Write an extra article that, even though you post it as a normal article, is more intended for your archives. Consider writing articles that are very technical or that are more informational than entertaining. If people are looking for information on those subjects, it will be useful if you have articles about it in your archive.
2: Tag
Tag your posts and don’t skimp on the number of tags you use. You don’t get charged per tag, so there’s no point in only using a few tags on each post. Think of every possible subject to which the article applies and make sure that you add the appropriate tag. WordPress makes it easy for people to search through your content by tag, so you want to make certain that it is labeled appropriately and that they can find the article when it suits their interests.
3: Guest Bloggers
If you’re having a hard time generating enough content to build up a good archive, consider having guest bloggers write articles for your website. As a bonus, you can add tags that include their names, which will make it easy for fans of that particular blogger to search through your archives to find articles that the blogger in question has written for your site.
4: Encourage Comments
Remember that readers will sometimes leave interesting information in the comments section. Open your blog up to comments. Having comments on your blog doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to interact with the readers who make them. It does, provided you require approval before the comment is posted, provide an easy way for you to add more information about your post to your articles and, therefore, to archive more relevant information on your site.
Excellent tips. By adding an archives page to your website you are giving your readers and search engines more ways of finding your best content.
Hi Monica, I also think it is a good way to organize and improve your website.
This is really informative post for me, I had never really thought about using archive pages in such a way. I use the catalyst theme which makes it easy to set up archive pages I will implement this right away. Thanks
Archived contents are the real assets of a blog that are a source of attraction for users and search engines
Of course, guest blogging that is combined with communication with readers can become the pledge of your business’ success
I have to admit that I lack a lot on tagging, but what you say makes sense. I usually use 2 or so tags, but I can see it would be very useful to expand on that… Thanks!
Hi Petra, I’m glad when readers find useful information in my posts. That’s really a pleasure for me.
I agree that tagging your posts is so important. The more tags you use, the easier it is for your readers to find you! Using the appropriate tags, though, can be tricky sometimes.
Creating articles is just the beginning of a successful blogging. But it is really all on the extra things that we do that leads us to success. Like putting relevant tags that can totally relate to the article. And of course, the comments that adds more relevance to article. Gladly, there are tools that can better help us distinguish the spam comments from those that are not.
Linking back to old articles is also a good idea, and updating your old post as well.
I’m not sure how do you properly tag a post and how many acceptable tags should you use for a post. Sometimes the tags could also help you be discovered in search engines.
Thanks for this informative post, I think that employing guest bloggers is a very good idea to sustain an archive.
I make it a point to tag my posts too and it has done a brilliant job in generating traffic to my site. Thanks for sharing these pointers.
Don’t think it’s a good idea to write an article for the archive. It will confuse/annoy your regular readers and in addition, it will disappear from the top of the archive at one point (which means nobody will read it)
Your article makes me think that, people posting comments or reviews on blogs should be rewarded in some way. Indeed they pleay a major part in making a blog lives. I also think that in order to do so, blog authors should be given the possibility to reward reviewers and such…
Hi Michelle, I think that leaving comments is a natural way to express your opinion about the written post, so it shouldn\’t be rewarded somehow. It is very useful when you can add more ideas or tips that complement the main idea of the article. So you add more value to same readers as you.
This was a greatly informative post, and it is much appreciated. I have been wanting to do guest blogging for a while now but I have been hesitant or afraid for some reason. It seems all too easy to get someone to write and article in return for a promotion of themselves and their offer. Anyway, great post. Thank you very much.
These are great methods to employ in building a great archive, I’m very much open to the idea of guest blogging and encouraging my readers to leave comments. Just remember to supplement this engagement by generating relevant, timely and solution-oriented content and you’re well on your way to having a “killer” archive. Thanks.