How To Find New Readers For Your Older Articles

Republishing is dead since Medium banned this practice. But there is a better way to resurrect your old articles.

We all know this — we have many more followers today than we did a few months ago. So our new articles get a lot more attention from the start than they did in the past.

But even a few months ago, we already published articles that we are still proud of today.

If only we had the opportunity to show these works to our current, much larger audience. An article that might have gotten ten views in the past would probably get fifty or more views today.

The old practice that was banned by Medium

If a medium author didn’t know what to write in the past, there was a simple trick not to interrupt the publishing routine anyway: Take an old article, delete it and republish the exact same piece again.

Besides having a “new” article, there was another significant advantage: If the article was not curated on the first attempt, it could happen that the republished article was curated this time after all.

This, of course, led to many authors making enthusiastic use of this option.

For the curators of Medium, this was obviously too much at one point. I don’t think that the mass of articles became too much for them, and Medium stopped this practice for that reason.

But the practice of confronting the curators with the same articles over and over again, instead of accepting their initial judgment, could have been the reason.

Republishing old articles to get a new chance with the curators was considered an abuse of the system. I understand Medium’s point of view, even if I do not share it.

In any case, this practice is no longer allowed today, and I advise everyone to abide by this ban.

Another way to reuse old articles

It is no problem to write an article in which you refer to another item.

If I read an article that I like, I can write an essay myself and mention the other piece in mine. I can even write a simple shoutout and refer my readers to this article with a few lines and link to it.

What works with other people’s articles, you can, of course, do with your own.

For a couple of weeks, I publish every day not only a new article but also a reminder article. This refers to one of my old pieces.

You can find an example of how such a reminder article looks like here:

Basically, this reminder is just an extended teaser for the article linked at the end. But it is also a completely new piece of content. Duplicate content, which Medium prohibits, is thus avoided.

Furthermore, this way, I don’t give the impression that I want to foist an old article on the curators again.

The reminder article is not eligible for curating from the outset, and the linked article will not end up in the curators’ editing mailbox.

How to write a reminder article

Everything that applies to a recent article also refers to a reminder. You need a compelling headline, an appealing title photo, and a text that makes readers curious and encourages them to read on.

The reminder is designed to generate traffic for another article, but it must itself be of high quality to do the job.

The headline

It should, in no case, correspond to that of the linked article. This would confuse not only your readers but also the internal search engine of Medium and, finally, Google.

Reread your old article and think about what important statement in the text the original headline did not take into account.

Use this point as a hanger for your new headline.

You can also use a strong subheading from the old article as the leading title for your reminder. I often do this when I find that one of the subtitles is particularly useful.

The Teaser

Although the whole reminder is a teaser for your old article, it is also an article that needs a teaser as well, of course.

Just writing the headline and placing the link next would be too clumsy and would not lead to success.

The readers already want to be wooed a little bit, so we better make an effort.

I write my teaser as h2-headline directly below the main headline. In the teaser, questions are raised which demand an answer and tempt to read on.

The teaser should draw the reader further into the article after the headline and lead him to the following text.

The text

The topic covered in the linked article is explained in more detail. Additional questions are raised, and the need to learn more is aroused.

Only if the text builds up suspense and grips the reader is there a chance that he or she will then click on the link to the older article.

The link

Instead of having the text immediately followed by the link, I guide the reader to the link with a final sentence and thus create a CTA (Call To Action).

The pattern looks something like this: “If you want to know xxx, read my article XXX”

Afterward, the link follows.

Conclusion and one last note

Reminder articles are a compliant way to introduce old pieces to your new followers.

A reminder article must meet the same quality standards as any other article. Headlines, cover images, and suspense are crucial.

If you want to work with reminder articles, you should already have a vast archive of publications. Promoting materials that are only a month old in this way is not a good idea. They should be at least three months old, better even older.

Reminder articles are an excellent tool that, when used correctly, can generate additional views for your old articles.

One last, important note: The reminder has only one purpose — to redirect readers to the article linked in it. Additional CTAs (like newsletter links, links to other articles, etc.) have no place in it.

The reminder article ends with the link. Anything after that would weaken the effect of the reminder.

And now, you can start writing your first reminder article. I’m curious about your experiences with it.

René Junge a published author writing on ILLUMINATION.

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