Rank and tank. That is the nature of blog content on the Internet. Most blog posts are destined to have a few shining weeks in the search engines before they disappear into your archives never to be heard from again.
It is difficult to consistently create great content for your readership when you are always creating content from scratch.
But, if you leverage the content that you have already created, you will be able to squeeze out a bit more mileage. Instead of giving up on that great content you created, resurrect it by giving it a fresh look and distributing it through a different channel.
Here are 7 ways you can effectively re-purpose that long forgotten content.
Blog posts to EzineArticles
Dust off a long forgotten post and rewrite it for distribution through the free and popular article submission site Ezinearticles.com. Give it a fresh title and include a link back to your site in the byline.
I have found that these articles can rank fairly well in the search engines as Ezinearticles has now cracked the Top 10 referring sites after running this strategy for two months.
The second benefit of this strategy is that people will occasionally use this content on their own blog or email newsletter. This can provide additional referral traffic and will build links back to your site.
Blog posts to email newsletter
Creating great content for your blog is difficult enough and now it is time, once again, to put out your email newsletter. Consider grabbing a couple of old posts and rewriting them for your email recipients. You can include an excerpt of the post and link to it on your blog or include the whole post in the email.
I use AWeber’s “Blog Broadcast” option to aggregate two weeks of posts into an email and send it out to my subscribers. I will typically begin the email by highlighting one post that I felt was particularly good. I will typically see a spike in traffic on these posts after my newsletter is sent.
Video to iTunes Vodcast
Are you creating video content on your blog? If so, upload it to iTunes as a video podcast.
I use the popular blip.tv video sharing site to automatically sync to my iTunes account. You will need to have a Pro account ($8.00 per month) for Blip.tv to convert to an iTunes compatible video. However, even a free Blip.tv account will do all of the uploading to iTunes for you.
If you are regularly creating video, you will begin to see a traffic increase due to the following you create on iTunes.
How to and list posts to Slideshare
Slideshare is awesome and Google seems to agree, judging by the numerous Top 10 search results I have seen for Slideshare presentations.
It’s a fairly simple idea; upload PowerPoint presentations into your slideshare account just as you would a video into YouTube. The presentation can include audio to give it the power of a webinar.
The presentation is also embeddable, which allows you to place it on your site and allows others to do the same.
List posts and how-to posts are good candidates for re-purposing to PowerPoint presentations.
Blog posts to TubeMogul
Got a webcam? Dig up one of your old posts and turn that sucker on. Some good, short (1 to 3 minutes) head shot video of you discussing the content of the blog post should be created and uploaded through TubeMogul.
Tube Mogul allows you to upload your video to dozens of video sharing sites (including YouTube) at one time. And, it’s free. You will simply need to create an account with these video sharing sites and store them in Tube Mogul. Tube Mogul also provides a one-stop interface to view the analytics for your video across all of the video sharing sites you are targeting.
And don’t forget to embed this new video post to your own blog with a paragraph or two of supporting text!
Blog posts to tweets
If you’re like me, you can’t spend every minute of your day sending out Twitter messages. Chunk up one of those great articles you wrote at the beginning of 2009 and schedule out your tweets using a service like HootSuite.
I am not suggesting that you completely automate your Twitter messages, as you will not get any benefit out of that. However, I have found that I am able to continue the discussion with people on Twitter when it is convenient for me to do so, rather than having to monitor and update Twitter all throughout the day.
Blog posts to downloadable report
If you have been blogging for a while on your topic, you will be able to pull together a free report that can be downloaded from your website. You can either ask for an email newsletter sign-up in exchange for the report, charge for the report, or give it away for free.
The fewer barriers you place between a visitor and your free report, the more likely it is to go viral. Free reports tend to get emailed, tweeted about and mentioned on other blogs often, which will bring in more links and traffic to your blog.
What about you? How do you breathe new life into long forgotten content?
Guest post by Russ Henneberry who writes and speaks about Content Marketing and how tiny businesses can make mighty profits using a personal computer, a little imagination and a few well-placed dollars. Want to guest post on HowToMakeMyBlog? See more info here.
Image by reinante.
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{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
I had heard about updating posts and changing their post date to bring them back to the front page of your blog, but these ideas are much better! I love the ezine articles idea.
I love the Ezine Articles strategy as well — it is a great way to build back links and drive some quality referral traffic to your blog.
I never heard about Slideshare. I’ll take a look into it. Another suggestion is to republish your articles into Scribd, an online document uploading site (Youtube for documents). I recommend including a link to your site and offering an excerpt of your most popular articles.
Slideshare is awesome and it ranks very well in Google I have noticed. Thanks for the heads up on Scribd — you are the second to recommend it — I will definitely be checking it out.
I like the E-Zine Articles idea. I stopped using them some time ago, but found them to be a great source of traffic when I did post there.
I do love slideshare, but just run out of time.
Russ, two thumbs up to you.
Because many people are giving such kind of advice but this one from you is having fresh ideas such as slideshare and all.
After reading this I would love to check your blog again (I am sure I have visited your blog earlier as well.)
Just one request when you say that top searches are from any website than please add keywords as well to study more.
Blip tv is great. I rented a dedicated server for my tutorials, but their streaming is far faster, My only question is why pay? It took close to a week to move my tutorials away from you tube, after applying 4 times for the “partner” program. Now I make sweet passive income from my tutorials, paid directly with paypal. Vimeo is also an alternative, but if there is quality content, Blip.tv is my choice. Stay away from revver.
I haven’t tied any of the methods you outlined here, but I’ll definitely be looking into them.
The best way I’ve found to breath life back into older posts is using a similar plugin like your “if you liked this article.” In fact, I recently switch to one called “Linked Within” and because it’s a picture based plugin, it works well on my site.
@LisaNewton — this is a great suggestion — I use a plug-in called YARPP for this — Yet Another Related Posts Plug-in.
But in YARPP there will be no photos.
So if you have such kind of blog where photos play great role than you should go for linkwithin.
Thanks for the tips! I’m going to look into ezinearticles. For this morning, I tweeted an old post that deserves new attention.
I use Linked Within as well…its a nice enough idea, but it is inadequate because it just chooses the posts randomly. I’m hoping eventually it will be able to link to articles with the most relevant content.
One thing you are doing well in this post is link throughout to your other posts. That is an important practice. I just realized my post today Three SEO trends in 2010 has no links to my other posts! Yikes better go edit.
I also think it is great that you have “If you liked this article, you may also like:” I need to add that to my posts too!
Thanks
~ Ruth
Not merely linking, but contextual linking. Good eye.
Bless you for this post! I’m a new to blogging and feel a pang of concern that my perfectly relevant medical information posts become invisible after a few months. Your strategy to keep the information circulating while it still has life is brilliant.
@cynthia – it can be maddening when you are continuously having to create something from scratch — glad you found the post helpful.
Posting in EzineArticle and creating online presentation through slide share is one of the most important tricks to get back link. Not only you can get back link but also you can get good number of comment through this 2 sites.
Such an important post because for many bloggers and their readers, there’s this perception that posts are only good for a short amount of time. While this may be true for some posts that discuss more timely matters, blog content can be valuable for long after they’re posted…it’s all about how you present it.
Thanks for the tips Marko!
David
Scribnia.com
Can you elaborate on the “following” aspect of iTunes? I only know the site for downloading music. One can upload videos, too? And you mentioned buying a blip.tv account but the free version works too? Huh?
Good idea on ezinearticles. I’ve posted there before but created new content.
Video is where alot of search is happening these days. It would be a good idea to get more videos online pointing back to your site.
I agree that video is very important. I am looking to slowly get myself more comfortable with it. Going over some old posts might be a cool way to ease in.
I’ve recently gave info to another blogger about combining old posts into a free eBook or for a fee. It’s really awesome, and make it super convenient for readers too.
I’ve never thought of this. You have given me a great idea here. Thanks a lot, I’m going to Tweet my old post.
Hi Mark,
I love your Thesis tutorials and your blog tips. I’m a member of Blog Success and I’ve linked to this post from the forum.
Thanks for the great content. Keep it up.
Debbie
Thanks Debbie, appreciate it!
Good shit Marko, props for reminding me of these techniques. Proves that if you pump out great content, then you piece together a seriously valuable report if you hunt around your own blog.
Great ideas here.
Something to think about is hootsuite.com for publishing blog posts and helping promote yourself in the future as well.
I’ve even thought about just rewriting an article from scratch or revising an old one too.
Turn it into a book! That’s what I plan on doing with my blog content
Thanks for the ideas, a few I had not thought of so looking forward to testing and seeing the results.
nice tips, I always link my old posts on new blogs if possible, something like related posts after every new post.
@3kolone — Thanks — that is definitely a good idea — I use the YARPP plug in for Wordpress to bring in related posts.
Thanks for the tips. One thing I like to do to revive old posts that I feel are good ones is to re-write them, collaborate, or even “update them” and then re-post on my own site or as a guest post somewhere else. I may reference the older post and say, “…that’s what I thought then, this is what I think now.”
Look forward to reading more of your tips.
If you take a lot of still photographs you could try Animoto — it is very easy to build fantastic animated slide shows with this tool.