Seth Godin on The back list

Seth Godin had a really interesting blog post recently ostensibly about How often should you publish? but it's actually about recognising the importance of the backlist - or the blog archive as we might call it.

What actually happens to all those pearls of wisdom that you laboured to produce and which then disappeared into your blog's archive?

How can they be shared, again and again, with people who might value your knowledge and expertise?

New Hampshire Apples
4" x 3", coloured pencils on film
copyright Katherine Tyrrell

Mine all go into my various squidoo lenses. I've set various ones up - each with a very specialised focus - you can find them all in one of two sites.

• Making A Mark on Squidoo - which lists all the separate information sites on Squidoo and has sections for different aspects of my interests
  
• Who is Making A Mark? - this one shows how all my interests link up across all my sites - including the portfolio and publications one.
  

It's then possible to group lenses according to broader topic areas and then open these up to squidoo lenses made by other people who reach the sort of quality standard I'm looking for - for great information sites! So, for example, I've recently developed groups for:

• Great Women Artists - I'm currently thinking along the lines that they might be a theme for next year.........
• Great British Artists
• Great American Artists
• Really Great Sculptors
  

That way it means that the content keeps being read by new people - and I get quite a lot of traffic and quite a few new subscribers this way too when people find the information sites first and then find the blog.

However it really doesn't really matter where people start. Whether they come to the blog first and then find the information sites or vice versa - this approach means that everybody gets to access 'stuff' they want to know about - and posts with good and enduring content that I've written in the past don't get lost. (You may have noticed some of my category labels now have in excess of 100 posts - so they've no longer useful for finding posts).

So - how do you keep good content from the past or backlist available to new readers?

[Note: The drawing comes from two years ago and relates to a visit to New Hampshire and this blog post on my sketchbook blog - Monday 18th September: Apple orchards, maples and a chocolatier I'd lost the drawing and the other day suddenly found it in the 'safe place' that I'd put it! Sitting with Nicole Caulfield that evening was the first time I'd drawn a nearly ACEO sized drawing!]