Yesterday I wrote that if you’ve been blogging for a long period of time, you might find yourself getting burned out or running out of things to blog about. But benefit of regular blogging is that you also have a large archive of previous posts stored on your blog. And there’s a lot you can do with those old blog posts. Here’s a few ideas to try:

1. Promote your old blog posts- If you’re already tweeting about your new blog posts, how about also tweeting about some of your older posts too? This is something that I try to do a couple times of week. I’ll pick a couple of oldies, but goodies and tweet out a link to them to my Twitter followers. A lot of times I do get some fresh traffic to an old post that might otherwise be buried deep in my blog. I’ll also link to these older blog posts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and discussion forums to catch the folks I’m connect with on those sites.

Have an email newsletter? Suggest some of your best blog posts in your new subscriber welcome message to get them further acquainted with your blog.

2. Update, expand, or collect- You can take an old blog post and write a follow up post, expand it into a larger post, or you can organize related posts into collection or roundup post. I wrote more about how to do this in a previous blog post.

3. Turn your old blog posts into articles- If you have a particularly popular blog post, why not turn it into an article or a guest post? There are a lot of blogs out there that are looking for people to some guest blogging on their blogs. Take one of your popular posts, update it or polish it up and offer it as guest post on another blog. Or open an account on Ezine Articles and post your articles there. Provide a link back to your blog at the end of each article to get interested readers back to your blog. Or you can approach a print magazine or ezine and offer your article to appear in their publication. Make sure that each guest post or article includes a brief bio about you and a link to your blog or website.

4. Turn your old blog posts into a report or ebook- If you have a nice collection of related blog posts like tutorials, how to’s, or other information that your readers like, put them together into a really nice free PDF report or ebook to give away to visitors to your blog. Can’t readers just read those posts on your blog? Sure they can, but putting them into a nice downloadable PDF makes it easier for them to read all at once and to pass along to others that might interested. Don’t forget to add information about yourself, your work, and your blog in your ebook.

Get some extra traffic out of your ebook by putting it on a document sharing site like Scribd so folks there can read what you wrote…and maybe visit your blog for more!

5. Reformat your posts into a different format- Take a blog post and turn it into a format other than text. Why not make your blog post into an audio recording for a podcast to share on iTunes? Alyson Stanfield does this with her weekly newsletter, she offers it as an email, written blog post, and as an audio recording.

Or you can make your blog post into a series of slides and share on Slideshare or YouTube? Not everyone likes to read and if you post your audio, slides, or video on sharing sites, you might be able to get some traffic back to your blog.

6. Make your blog into a book- Well, it’s been done before. A lot of authors got their first book by making a collection of their best blog posts into a printed book. Or they create a blog with the express purpose of writing a book, one blog post at a time. You can DIY this yourself by using self publishing services like Lulu or Amazon’s CreateSpace. Why wait for a publishing house to discover you?

These tips came from my free e-course “50 Blogging Tips for Artists “. To get more free blogging tips like the ones I just shared simply click here to sign up.

So now your turn! What do you do to get more mileage out of your blog posts? Leave a comment and let me know!

So now that you’ve shot your video for your website, it’s time to put a little editing magic to it!

This week’s newsletter article is fourth part of a five-part series on “How to Use Video to Promote Your Art Website“. In this fourth article, I share some video editing tips that will make your first video look professional looking and fabulous!

To read the article, sign up for the Crafted Webmaster Newsletter for free here: http://www.craftedweb.com/subscribe.html. If you subscribe now, you can get my free audio download, “10 Steps to Getting More Traffic on Your Website” and get 10 powerful tips on how to increase traffic to your art website.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already March and that time of year is here already. Daylight Savings Time starts tonight. If you’re in an area that follows the Daylight madness, don’t forget to set your clocks forward tonight!

To all my U.S. readers…have a great Thanksgiving today!

Okay, so it looks like the dreaded “R” word is official. Whenever economic trouble rears its ugly head, we artists always give a collective shudder, because the conventional wisdom is that no one buys art when they’re worried about keeping or finding a job, keeping a house, or even keeping food on the table.

But this isn’t the first recession that artists will have to survive and it won’t be the last. When faced with a financial downturn, here’s a few tips on just how to survive, but to thrive.

1. Don’t hunker down- When hit with the possibility of financial difficulty, your first instinct maybe to batten down the hatches, cut what you can, and just try to survive…and the first thing that artists usually cut down on is their marketing. Don’t do it! Your marketing is the thing that helps you sell your work and if you cut it out, you cut out the lifeblood of your sales.

Instead, find more creative, less expensive ways to get your message out there. Look into co-op advertising where you and a group of artists share the cost of your ad. Check into advertising on blogs like Rare Bird Finds, Modish, and Scoutie Girl. These venues can be very economical and effective. Try some free marketing ideas like public relations, blogging, podcasting or becoming a guest blogger. Use social media like Twitter and Facebook as a free way to market yourself.

2. Offer little luxuries- Did you know that the cosmetics industry was born in the middle of the Great Depression? Inexpensive luxuries like lipstick, eye makeup, and rouge was a way for Depression era women to escape the trials of the financial worries. When times are hard, everyone wants to find a bit of affordable luxury to get them through it.

Find ways to satisfy this craving to escape…even for just a moment. If your artwork is expensive, find ways to create a pared down, more affordable line. If your artwork is already reasonably priced, add a bit of luxury with small free gifts, more luxurious packaging, or added services. Keep an eye out for opportunities during the holidays. Gift giving still goes on even during tough times. Christmas is an obvious one, but don’t forget to look for gift-giving holidays throughout the year; Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, graduations, Father’s Day, retirements, birthdays, anniversaries.

Entertainment is also a way to escape tough times. If you can find a way to combine your work with entertainment, you make your work that much more appealing. Think about doing home parties and workshops where people can gather together for fun and learning, and possibly to buy.

3. Keep in touch with your customers- Your customers need to hear from you now more than ever…through email, direct mail, social networking, and blogging. Now this doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to bug them about buying from you at every turn. But if you can keep in contact with them and give them something of value on a regular basis, like tips, information, entertainment, they will remember you when times get better.

4. Take the opportunity to expand or retool- While a lot of artists fret at the slowdown in business, such a slowdown can be a great opportunity to work on expanding or retooling your business.

I recently attended and presented at several conferences last month and one of the presenters made a terrific analogy to illustrate economic cycles. She said that economy was like a clock, when the hands are at 12 o’ clock, that represents an economic boom. When the hands are 3 o’clock, that’s when the economy its beginning it’s downturn. At 6 o’clock, you’re at the lowest point in the economy, and at 9 o’clock, the economy is beginning it’s recovery.

So at what point in the cycle do businesses make the most money? When the hands are between 9 and 12 o’clock…right between economic recovery and economic boom. When’s the best time to prepare to take advantage of the upswing? That’s right, between 6 and 9 o’clock or between the low point and the coming recovery.

So use the downturn as a time for preparation. Do those things that you’re always too busy for while business was good. If you don’t have a website, build one. If you haven’t started a blog, start one and write in it regularly.

Use this time to dive into social networking…Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

If you already have a website, optimize it for search engine traffic. Work on building traffic to your website. If you haven’t listened to my free audio on how to build traffic to your website, you need to download it now and get to work.

Expand into new areas or new products. Take some classes to learn new techniques, to improve on your current techniques, or to get inspiration for new work.

Experiment with new online sales channels, like Etsy, Mintd, or Trunkt.

Develop new lines of income, writing, speaking, teaching, presenting, and creating how to videos, etc.

Start a reading program where you read more books or blogs on business management, finance, or marketing. Don’t restrict yourself to just resources related to art, there’s plenty of small business books and blogs that can give you great ideas how to run your business more effectively or how to market more effectively.

By retooling now, you’ll be prepared to profit from upcoming the recovery. So get to work!

5. Some useful links- Here’s a round-up of some useful recession-proof reading.

• Blog Round-Up: Prospering in Economic Uncertainty
• Modish Marketing: Free (and cheap!) advertising ideas
• Can You Afford NOT to Advertise?
• How Artists Can Market Themselves on the Internet
• VIDEO (EDUCATIONAL) – Start & Grow a Healthy Business in a Recession
• The Economy Sucks. Finally!!! It’s Time to Start a Business!
• You think being an artist is scary now?