This is coming from someone who has done exactly that: dusted off old blogs and niche sites that I had given up on at some point and have now gotten them to a great point.
In 2023, I had three of my blogs pop off and two that responded well to my efforts.
I’ve shown them off all over but I’ll show you one, for now:
We are talking about decent affiliate revenue and around a ~1,000 clicks per day.
This blog is one of two niche blogs that I had started years ago and then kind of gave up on.
Perhaps you’ve done the same: started a niche site a while back but abandoned it for one reason or another: full-time job, stress, kids, no progress, etc.
You stopped working on it actively and yet your little heart remained emotionally attached to these sites as you re-register the domain and hosting every year.
Well, it’s time to inspire you and talk about the two blogs that went from zeros to my little heroes!
My Little Zeroes that Became My Heroes!
If I’m being a 100% honest, the reason I returned to these particular blogs was because of emotional attachment.
Years ago, when I didn’t have much, I registered these two blogs and gave them what I could in between 12-hour work days (I was making minimum wage).
At that time, I was learning SEO and when I saw small gains, I felt super encouraged.
But the full-time job (making minimum wage, eh) was taking up ALL of my time and I started finding myself too tired from that job to invest time in my blogs.
Later, when I started an SEO agency, I became extremely busy with my clients’ sites and making them a success so I spent time on only one of them on and off.
Thankfully, that effort paid off when one of the blogs started making around $1,000/month through affiliate products I was recommending.
It took two years of on-and-off efforts to lead the blog there.
But it was enough for me to have an epiphany.
So instead of registering two new domains and setting up two new blogs, I recommitted to these two niche blogs.
One of them just broke the $1,000/month mark last month while the other made over $5,000/month.
So why don’t we talk about what all I did to get these blogs to where they are today.
5 Important On-Page SEO Changes to Make to Old Blogs to Make Them Thriving Stars of Tomorrow
If you are dusting off your old bloggy poo, grab ya (green) Windex and a soft cloth, wipe off the cobwebs, and then implement the following list:
#1. Delete Old Content That Didn’t Fit in With My New Vision
Blogs that were started years ago have a fair amount of old content that may not suit your current vision for that blog.
Some articles may still get a bit of traffic but if it doesn’t fit in with the vision, let it go.
It might hurt your soul a little but trust me when I say, it will pay off.
Delete the old content and make sure to implement redirects to better content on the blog. Either that or implement 410s.
#2. Update Old Content
Updating old content isn’t fun but the payoff sure is!
You can spot outdated content like you can spot a fly on a white wall: it can be super short, contain outdated information, doesn’t read well, doesn’t contain a proper keyword cluster, screams at you in the form of giant walls of text, and I mean, if you’re lucky, it won’t make you cringe.
If you know you can make it better, add it to your list of content to be revamped!
Content that is only a few months old shouldn’t need to be updated but can be dependent on the industry.
If you’ve had a few blogs like me that are a few years old, then this could be a months long project but one worth tackling!
#3. Explore Missing Content Clusters
Y’all.
I used to think I was doing a thorough job with content clusters.
Oh, how wrong I was!
Even though my skills are much more refined now, this doesn’t mean that I was using the skills at the level I am at now when I created these sites.
With older niche sites and blogs that are less than 200 articles, it’s easy to comb over and find some subtopics.
Once you find the subtopics, you should be able to see some missing pieces.
For instance, if you have a tea site and only one article on matcha tea, or hell, three, you can easily find 10-20 content pieces to write about matcha tea.
Once you find those missing pieces, plug them into your favourite keyword research tool and start digging for golden keywords to match those content pieces so you can optimize them super sexy.
If you don’t know the magic of zero search keywords or long-tail keywords or how easy they are to rank for, then make sure you read these guides.
#4. Add More Images and Replace Shoddy Quality Images
When I say I looked at my old ass images and did a double-take, I’m not exaggerating.
The first thing I noticed was that I wasn’t breaking up the content enough.
I don’t know if it’s because my vision is weaker now or what, but reading through my old articles was hard.
Most articles needed 2 or 3 more images to be added for the article to read well.
The next thing I noticed was the shitty quality of the older images.
No, sir, no! How could this happen?!
A subscription to Canva can easily fix this for you.
A lot of people don’t put this level of care into their articles and the internet has evolved a lot.
People don’t want to look at crappy, low-quality images or walls of text.
Bring your pride back and update your poor articles.
#5. Publish New Articles
Perhaps you started off your niche site in a moment of excitement.
Or maybe you were targeting keywords you had no business targeting.
But a fair amount of times, people sort of just… give up publishing new content after 20 or 30 articles!
Most people never published a decent amount of content to start getting decent enough traffic.
Get back to work!
In Summary
Making a niche site into a successful one that gets hundreds of clicks and earns a full-time income for you is a full-time job.
It’s very doable but you need to set aside 1-2 hours a day or hire someone and grow your blog over the next two years like I did with this slow burner.
I hope this inspires and motivates you to blog your heart out and if it does, come join me in the Affiliate Phoenix FB Community and say hi and watch me build out my new site!