Repurposing Blog Content – Why you Should!

Anyone who writes a blog knows that it takes time and effort. But, long term a blog can reward you with website traffic, an increased number of leads and potential conversion of these leads into sales and ongoing customers.

So, having created your content once – why not get the most from it? This is the principle behind blog repurposing and it makes sound business and financial sense.

First, a word about Evergreen content….

Reasons to Rewrite or Refresh past Blogs

In creating blogs around Evergreen or Cornerstone content your aim is to attract and ultimately convert visitors to your blog/website long-term. So having created this content – why would you revisit it?

1. Changes in the topic or your industry

It’s a fact of life that things change. Even researched and best-practice advice and information can become outdated or irrelevant.

Updating an old blog with new facts, figures, and advice is a good way to keep your information current and factual.

2. Your blog is Relevant to a new Service, Product or Offer

If you’re changing or adding something to your business, it’s good practice to look at any information you have published around that subject and see if you could improve them and – of course – add the new call to action!

3. Improving a Good Idea (+/- a poorly written blog)

As time progresses your blogging ability will improve so it makes sense that some of your first efforts may benefit from an objective reassessment. With time and distance from the piece you can easily spot errors or bad sections of writing. You may also be able to expand ion the piece with the benefit of time and knowledge since the original.

The Benefits of Repurposing

1. Helps SEO

Yes, you guessed it!

“When a SEO and content marketing strategy work together, repurposing content means additional SEO assets to attract search traffic on many different variations of a theme.”

Lee Odden, author of the book “Optimize”

You will gain a boost to your SEO as multiple pieces of content around the same topic can generate additional opportunities to target the desired keyword. Also, if you link your content across different sites outside your own you can generate quality with a bonus of controlling the anchor text in the link.

2. Increase Your Reach

Sharing the same content presented in different ways can reach more customers across different mediums but it may also reach the same customer multiple times. This can help with the marketing concept “Rule of 7”

“The rule of seven is one of the oldest concepts in marketing. Although it is old, it doesn’t mean that it is outdated. The rule of seven simply says that the prospective buyer should hear or see the marketing message at least seven times before they buy it from you…. The important thing in the rule of seven is not the number, but the message…. Buyers just can’t trust you and make the buying decision at the first time you show your message… The hidden message of rule of seven is the continuous and repetitive effort that should be put in for marketing.”

The Rule of Seven

“Multi-channel marketing is the 2nd core piece of Content Strategy, which seeks to provide the content our audiences are searching for, in all the places they search.”

SAP’s Vice President of Marketing and Content Strategy, Michael Brenner

So spreading your content across multiple platforms ticks both these boxes.

3. Repetition, Retention, Perspective & Uptake

Delivering the same message multiple times and in different media increases retention and memory of that information so, reinforce your message. Repetition is an essential part of sending a message that sinks in.

It also allows you to explore a topic from different angles and present information in different ways – be it visual (images and video), text (blog), or audio (podcast). You can use short or long form text – from tweets and posts to long form blogs, white papers and eBooks.

This can improve uptake of the information as humans process and learn information differently – some people read, some people watch and some people listen.  Some people are way more visual and graphics will appeal to them more.

Publishing quality content across media on a single topic helps raise your profile in the industry and encourages others to regard you as an expert thereby gaining you extra authority. The more you talk about something to more you get ‘known’ for that topic. Repurposing allows you to find new and creative ways to communicate the same message.

Look for our next blog – we’ll be looking at “How to Repurpose Blogs”

Sources and Resources links