Why Is It Important?

Creating strong and interesting content is an essential online marketing concept that we are already very familiar with. We take the time to regularly update our sites to make sure they provide visitors with consistent and reliable information that they can easily engage with, and associate with our brand. However, like a fine wine, sometimes it is our older content that gets better with age.

Content repurposing is a great technique to make the most out of the time and effort that you direct towards content creation. You can invest a lot more than just money into your website, but sometimes making small changes and updates to old ideas can make a big difference. If something has worked well for your company before, why not take advantage of that success and revitalize it for your new objectives?

How Do I Do It?

Repurposing content can add new value to existing work. So where do you even begin? Below we have compiled some tips and techniques that can help get you started:

Rewriting

It is always interesting to take a trip down memory lane and look at your old content. You can see the growth of your business, and how much you have changed over a period of time. However, just like most commodities, your old pages depreciate in value. They become less relevant for people searching, and therefore the worth of your page’s user experience drops. Your SEO can be modernized through simply updating or rewriting this existing content. All it takes is a minimum of 300 added or revised words for Google to view the content as “new,” so a little can go a long way. If you have dated facts on a particular page that once performed exceptionally well, updating that data can bring in new traffic. The same can be applied to old links that once led to related articles or sites. Check to make sure all of those links are still active and providing readers with the information they are looking for. If not, update them! Updated content leads to relevancy, which in return leads to more conversions because Google considers up-to-date content valuable.

Repurposing Ideas

Content calendars help you get a visual layout of your site’s plan for the upcoming months. Sometimes it is easy to brainstorm ideas for topics to cover, but we unfortunately know that is not always the case. Repurposing ideas can help fill in some of the gaps in your calendar, while also creating some consistency for your site and increasing your brand recognition. Every month our Director of Corporate Marketing, Austin Paley posts an SEO Audit on our blog evaluating a chosen website’s performance features. We also do an annual post each January taking a look ahead at some of the top online marketing trends for the upcoming year. Creating some regular content that visitors can anticipate from you can establish some consistency for your brand. A series will be something that is recognizable and easily associated with your company, and something that audiences can always look forward to.

Exploring Your Channels

Make note of trends on social media. Is there anything on your site that is relevant to a topical event? We are constantly seeing hashtags that “throwback” and “flashback,” and if it can make your old baby pictures significant, why not your old content too? Staying interactive on social media allows you to reach your audience through multiple channels, and staying on top of current events and trends makes you appear attentive and engaging. You can even search for trending topics based on specific regions on Twitter, and taking advantage of any suitable trends can be a great opportunity for your brand. Even if the content that you reference to is not from the immediate past, it is only as relevant as you want it to be. You are in control of how visible you want your brand to be, so find a way to interact with your audience when opportunities like this come up.

Piggybacking Content

Sometimes content that overlaps in relevancy can piggyback one another. You can utilize these opportunities as a chance to give your audience access to additional content, leading them to relevant pages that is housed in other sections of your site. Web Designer Vip has a number of whitepapers that provide readers with extended information on a number of very specific subjects and concepts. While most visitors come to our blog to read quick articles on a topic, we always link to one of our whitepapers as a way of leading an audience member to some relevant content that they may be additionally interested in. Our whitepapers are accessible on their own, but including them in our blogs allows us to keep them in front of our readers as often as possible. We get to kill two birds with one blog post, and it is a technique that can be applied to your work as well.

Analyzing Strengths & Weaknesses

Google Analytics can be your best friend when determining what content should be prioritized in the repurposing process. Take a look at what pages were once strong performers for your site, and revamp any ones that could use some work. Also, make a note of what themes of content do consistently well for you, and try to produce more work under that genre. This can apply to the pages that don’t do so well either. If you can see that a certain subject matter doesn’t always perform, try to avoid it. Google Analytics is a great resource to determine how your content is being received, and can provide vast insight as to where your site does the best. Having a better understanding of this information is a vital step in making your content the strongest it can be for your site, and for your overall business.

Content repurposing can make a large impact on the engagement on your site, and traffic to your business. It is the small changes and little efforts that can pay off exponentially down the road. Finding out what works best for your company and your brand is easier than ever, so take advantage of that content’s performance and apply it to your future endeavors. There is the classic saying that “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.” In this case, if it isn’t broken, find a way to keep using it.