Timeless Content Means Always Relevant

One of the first things I learned about blogging was that content should be timeless.

At first, I didn’t understand why that was important. A few years later, I knew exactly why it was important.

I started writing and publishing SlingWords in 2005. To date, I’ve written well over 3,000 posts. A few times every month, I get a comment from posts written years ago.

That’s why you want your content to be timeless. So it will always be relevant and read “fresh” to someone who comes across it years later.

Tough Trick

That may sound impossible to you. Admittedly, it’s a hard thing to manage with every single post, but it’s possible to create timeless content that will always be relevant with more posts than you might think.

1. Don’t use words and phrases that “date” the post.

Words like today, tomorrow, yesterday and phrases like next month, last year, etc.

Okay, that’s fairly easy to do. However, some posts are written in response to things happening in your life or in the world about which you feel compelled to blog.

For instance, next month my new holiday collection Love, Christmas 2 will publish. I’ve blogged about that using “date” expressions and words. That’s understandable so don’t twist yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid using a “date expression.”

2. Remember the phrase: add value.

When you write a post, think about how it will read a year from now. If I wrote a post about something happening in the news, I might say, “yesterday in Houston there was a bank robbery that resulted in a shoot out.” How can you make that post timeless so that someone coming across it a year from now would be interested in reading it?

You add value to the current event reporting. You do this perhaps by giving your personal opinion on (1) the increasing number of bank robberies in hard economic times (2) the quality of the law enforcement response and why it was good or bad (3) perhaps put the incident into context with similar incidents like the famous shootout in Los Angeles several years ago when the police were outgunned by robbers wearing body armor and determined not to go down. In other words, do a deep analysis of the situation and possibly cross reference it to another event that resulted in changes in police arming, response, etc.

3. Remove obvious “date” signals.

Get rid of calendars in the sidebars. If the date of your post appears right beneath the post title, move the date so that it appears below the post.

4. Blog about things you’re passionate about.

Most things we’re intensely interest in and passionate about are timeless. I’m an author so what I say about writing, publishing, books, movies, and music is as relevant now as it will be a year from now.

If your blog is about fashion and style, you’ve got a tougher job, but then your readers probably age in and age out of your target audience as fast as styles change so you’re not as concerned with archived posts.

Takeaway Truth

Check comments on old posts. If your old posts aren’t getting read, maybe there’s room for improvement going forward in making your content timeless.

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