How To Get 1000’s Of New Views From Old Articles (With Updates)

It doesn’t take much to give them a second chance to shine.

Writing is a skill that improves with time, and in the world of Medium, we have a safe space to grow and evolve.

Evolution is a marathon, not a sprint, and as we improve, we leave behind some of the best of ourselves in past articles.

Everything from your headline to your tagline counts, and with every article you write, you read ten on how to improve, over time that research pays off. But what of our previous pieces?

I wondered what would happen if I went back to a piece I thought deserved a better reception than it got and re-worked it.

I opened it up and read it.

From the level of writing I was putting out at the time, I could see why it didn’t get curated. The formatting was clunky, and there were typos.

Even though I thought I’d done a great job, my early writing was too wordy and complicated. I could see that through these new eyes.

So I cut and pasted it into a new document, took out all of the pictures and links, and started again.

I deleted the old piece, and I started over, ruthlessly re-working the article.

And what happened was miraculous. It got curated! I’ve achieved curation for many re-worked pieces, and some of the recycled ones have become my best performers!

Here’s what I did:

I re-read with new eyes.

Don’t be too proud to give old pieces a critical once-over. There are probably things that don’t make sense.

Perhaps it’s redundant, so cut, cut, cut.

Take out extra words, — that, then, probably, might, just. Just is a terrible word for writers! I use it way too much.

Combine words: you are= you’re, was not=wasn’t, etc.

Those words take up a lot of mental space; combining them also makes your article more personable. By cutting back extraneous words, it becomes easier to read.

Here’s one of the first ones I decided to try, it got great results right away:

Here’s that re-worked article:

I re-read with a fresh brain.

When you’re writing, it’s easy to get so involved in what you’re trying to say that you can’t quite say it.

The creative process is messy, which is why you need to edit ruthlessly to clean things up. When I go back to an old piece, I’ll see paragraphs or sentences that seemed relevant when I wrote them, but a month later, they’re awkward or out of place.

These extras might not make as much sense as you think they did. You’ll realize this when you read it farther down the road.

This is another one that got nothing the first time around but did pretty well after the rework:

I got to the heart of the matter.

I’ve noticed when going back over a few articles that I missed my original point. I realized that I wasn’t saying what I thought I was.

In this case, I went back and cut out everything that strayed from my point and build it back up from there.

Sometimes you don’t have the perspective you think you do the first time around.

I changed the headline.

Your headline might have been what tanked it in the first place, so this is important.

It might not have said anything, or it might have said too much. It might have been too clickbaity, or too bland.

I have a whole slew of articles that I refer to that I’m sharing with this link. I use these articles every time I write a piece now, and my curation has gone way up.

You read it everywhere that a good headline is vital, and people are saying it for a reason. Read these articles I’ve linked to; you’ll be glad you did. Save them and use them every time.

I changed the tag lines.

I used to have vague tag lines, and some of my earliest pieces didn’t even have them.

In my mind, they were clever or cute, but they didn’t’ say anything. Then I started learning how to write better ones, and as with the headline, everything changed.

There is a definite purpose for tag lines. They’re your second chance to get people interested. There is something you need to convey with that second line, learn what it is, so you can give readers what they need to get stuck into your piece.

I gave this a complete overhaul and then it got accepted into a big publication and got curated right away. I didn’t give up on it because I really believed it would be helpful to a lot of people:

I looked at my intros.

In my first pieces, my intros were long and rambling. I realized this when re-editing them.

I would end up cutting out the first 3 or 4 paragraphs because it wasn’t until the 4th or 5th that I made my point. Now when I write a piece, I automatically take out that first bit and voila, there’s the meat.

For me, it takes a few paragraphs to get warmed up, so now I try to save my reader from rambling through those weeds and take them directly to the real starting point.

I looked at my endings.

Much like the intros, my conclusions felt scattered.

Your ending should wrap up your piece in a neat little package, so people have something to linger over.

I like to put a short positive message at the end of every article, so my readers have a pleasant after-taste in their brains. For me, it’s about subtly leaving them with a lesson that they can use that makes them feel good.

That might not be your thing, but if you can sum up everything leaving your reader with a takeaway and an emotion, it might make people explore more of your work.

I added links and quotes.

These are nice extras that seem to have an overall positive effect.

In a lot of my writing, I touch upon self-help, in my newer articles, I’ve been adding links that back up the things I suggest. It adds another deeper level to your work and doesn’t take that much more effort.

I’ve also started adding quotes. I think they provide a little breather and can also act as simple segues or reinforcements for your message.

This one was one that missed the mark the first time around but did much better after I tightened it up:

Now I’m re-working old articles that have had moderate success as well.

The ones that I’ve pulled right down and wholly revamped are the ones that didn’t get curated and weren’t in a publication.

It’s a little trickier to do that to newer articles because they get published to Illumination now, and you don’t’ want to pull down anything curated even if it’s not performing well.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t go back and improve them.

Tightening up pieces that are already out there can make a difference.

It can enhance your reader’s experience, which might lead someone to delve deeper into your work and follow you if they’ve stumbled upon your work by chance.

I recommend working on old pieces, even if you can’t completely re-do them.

Sometimes you nail it the first time you press publish, and it catches fire instantly.

Curators love it, your audience applauds, and it takes off.

Sometimes you pour your heart into something expecting to make a splash, and it barely makes a ripple.

There are times when it’s explicable, maybe bad timing or an influx on the same topic.

But there are times when you just haven’t nailed it as much as you think you did. The good news is, you can always go back and try again!

If you have some old articles that you think deserve a second chance, use this guide to revive and recycle them. Bookmark it so you can refer back to it and try these steps.

I have done it several times, and the success I’ve had the second time around has convinced me that sometimes when something gets passed over the first time, it’s just because it needs a little work and a second chance to shine.

Thanks so much for reading!

Click this link to Sign up to Medium for more articles like this by thousands of fantastic writers for just $5 per month, or better yet, sign up and become a writer yourself!

If you want to be a writer but don’t know where to start? Check out my book on Amazon: How To Be Wise AF: A 30-day journalling adventure to your inner Guru to help you get started.

If you enjoyed that, here are a few more from me:

If you’d like to read more articles that uplift and enlighten you, join us here on ILLUMINATION. Here are some more excellent writers to check out: George J. Ziogas, Tree Langdon, Jessica Cote, Kevin Buddaeus, Chris Hedges, Roxanna Azimy, Bill Abbate, Dr. Jeff Livingston, Dr. Kylie Harris, Aurora Eliam, CMP. Why not write for us? Bring your talent, courage, and insight, share your story, and let’s do something great!