Repurposing your blog content is valuable for three important reasons. It allows you to drive new traffic to old content, get the most of your efforts when it comes to boosting shares and lifetime value, and allows you to reach new audiences.
You don’t need a lot of extra budget to repurpose blog posts, just a little creativity and time. Use the following ideas to revitalize your blog posts while bolstering your content offering.
Create an eBook
You’ve put time and energy into writing dozens and dozens of blog posts—all of which offer their own value to readers. In many cases, when you put them together into an eBook, they become even more valuable as a well-rounded resource for readers.
The best part: eBooks aren’t challenging to create and can be done with a free tool like Google Docs or Google Slides. The key is getting the details right, like the title, promotion strategy, and more. Here are a few tips.
- Like your blog posts, the title is what attracts consumers to click through and download or buy your eBook. Get it right by A/B testing your headlines. The guide, 21 Helpful Ebook Ideas, provides 21 title “templates” that you can use to test various styles and angles; if you’re not feeling creative, this is the resource for you.
- Use analytics to determine which blog posts would naturally come together to create the most successful eBook. If one particular category consistently gets more traffic than the rest, start there. Focus on what your readers already love, as they’ll be the first people you market to.
- Determine your “gating strategy” for the eBook. What information will you require for a download? Will you sell it on Amazon? Will it be an exclusive resource for subscribers? Check out this guide on content gating from Moz to decide what your best method will be.
Related: 5 Highly Effective Ideas to Dominate the Blogosphere
Republish on Medium.com
Many businesses and entrepreneurs are turning to the design-friendly blogging platform, Medium, to publish their blog posts. Smart marketers are even using it as a second blog, repurposing content into Medium.com blog posts. Neil Patel tells the story of Benjamin Hardy, who got 20,000 subscribers from Medium in just six months by doing one simple thing:
“Copy-pasting all of his blog posts on the blogging platform. One major reason why Medium worked for him was that the blog post platform consistently pushes high-quality great blog content to the front, irrespective of your current following,” Patel said.
Always include a link at the bottom of the post that says, “Originally published [Blog link here]” to avoid any issues with duplicate content.
Start a podcast
We live in a go-go-go world, and for many people, podcasts are the easiest way to get new information, rather than reading blog posts or news stories. Repurpose your blog content into podcasts, or a radio show, using already-written content as inspiration for a brand new show.
Start with your top 10 most popular blog posts over the past six months—these are already of interest to your audience, and will likely provide you with a good backbone. To get the most from your content, consider how you can repurpose every last detail:
- Interviews: If you quoted people in the article, invite them on as guests for the podcast version. They’ll be flattered that you included them the first time and are inviting them to your show now.
- Title: Turn your title into a question that will drive clicks and interest and help you format the content for the show. Type the keyword or title into Serpstat’s search engine. When the results finish loading, navigate to left menu, click Content Marketing > Search Questions, and find a top-searched question for your headline.
- Images: If you already purchased stock photos for your blog post, re-use them to market the new podcast. We’ll talk about more ideas for repurposing these in a minute.
When completed, you can add the podcast audio to a blog post and publish that. You can also include it as a new element of the original post, located at the top or bottom of the post and re-share that post to your social channels and email subscribers.
Turn quotes and data into visuals
Consumers have become visual creatures, and 41 percent of marketers told Venngage that infographics and other graphics that contained original content were the most engaging. To create your graphics, focus first on the most visited posts and read through, looking for content that translates well to a visual; in most cases, this is data-heavy content. Graphics make this easier to digest, which readers like.
Other graphic types you can create include quotes, how tos, header graphics and stand-out stats.
Create downloadable resources
Everyone likes a freebie, so turn your content into free downloadable resources. This makes the content more impactful, allowing you to provide even greater value to your readers. The finished resource also acts as a great giveaway piece when building your subscriber list—offer it as a free gift for anyone who signs up.
If the first resource drives a lot of traffic and downloads, create a resource section and add more repurposed pieces to your content calendar so you can slowly build it out. When creating these downloadable resources, keep a few simple tips in mind.
- Don’t forget about branding. Stick with your blog’s colors and style. Develop a style guide for these resources specifically so they all look consistent.
- Always include a logo—these are great vehicles for boosting brand impressions.
- Add a link to the new resource in the blog post itself, but also give it it’s own landing page so you can market the old blog post and the new resource; both together and separately.
- Include a CTA at the bottom with a link back to your blog, product, eBook, etc. PDFs are clickable, so take advantage of the opportunity to drive readers where you want them to go.
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Start repurposing blog content now
You likely have dozens, if not hundreds, of blog posts already written. Don’t let them sit and collect dust. Instead, turn them into brand-new content pieces that can be promoted both separately and with the old piece, driving double the traffic and capitalizing on the information your readers have already showed an interest in. All of these ideas can be done with minimal budget and labor, so try a few and see what works best for you.
