timeless posts - what are they and how to write them

Since today was a day of great achievements ( I cut my own hair and I did a pretty damn good job at it ) I decided to post another thought on blogging .

In fact this came to me because I stumbled upon a nice article on timeless posts ( you can read it here ) . Timeless posts are great , aren't they ? The more , the better . It keeps new visitors reading . And instead of having 10 great articles on your front page you get a full archive of great articles . Now don't get me wrong . Just because an article is 6 months old doesn't mean it's not good . It means it's not great because , if it's not a timeless article , the information in it is no longer relevant to potential readers .

So I read this good article on timeless posts and ask myself : 'What exactly are timeless posts ?' .

In a nutshell they are articles that maintain their relevancy through great periods of time ( from 1 month to ... forever if possible ) .

The next obvious question was : 'How do you write these kinds of posts ?' .

In the pursuit of finding the answer to that question I wrote down a couple of qualities that a timeless post has :

Not software/hardware dependent .

A timeless post has nothing to do with some piece of software that will eventually be replaced by another version or , sometimes , a whole new software . Or that may become obsolete . An article on the latest video card from Nvidia is not timeless . An article on the best brakes on the market is not timeless . They will eventually be replaced by a newer , better model .

Not the next big thing . 

A timeless post has nothing to do with what's hot or with what's the next big thing in terms of ... anything . By definition the next big thing will eventually be replaced by ... oh well , the next big thing .

Not event related .

Most definitely not event related . Sure , you can write a great article about the monthly bloggers meeting . And sure , this article may be valid for the next month . But , eventually , that meeting will stop . Or it will become something else . Or ... whatever . The point is that events are ... as the title says , events . One time occurrence's .

These are , I think , the key elements to a timeless article . Basically it's an article that has little to do with the present in terms of facts , people , dates . 

Not all of your posts will be timeless . In fact , chances are very few of them will still have something to offer a month or a year after they we're published .

So what can you write about that's timeless ?

Just people ( unless you have a blog about astronomy and stuff like that - the universe is , I think , timeless - at least for us , humans ) .

Thousands of years of evolution and we still love the same way . Sure , we manifest differently but we still feel love the same way . We still hate the same way . We still feel the same way .

How can you apply this to your posts ? You can't write a post about love on a blog that deals with Wordpress plugins . Or can you !?

I can't tell you exactly how to create timeless posts on your blog because it's all very topic dependent . But I will give you 2 examples . One of them you are reading at this very moment . This post is a timeless one . These ideas will still be valid as long as we don't invent some time machine .

Another one is a post I recently wrote for Site Sketch 101 . These are timeless posts . Blogging will always need passion , no matter the size and shape it is delivered in ( be it podcasts , text , video or holograms ) .

Another tip is to always promote your timeless posts . The ones that proved to be successful .