Creating new content is vital for attracting visitors to your site, but it takes a lot of time and effort. So, why not make a few tweaks to your existing content and use that instead?
With just a fraction of the time and effort you’d need to write a new piece of content, you can repurpose your old content and still bring visitors to your site. And we’ll tell you just how to do it!
Following our 13 simple steps, you can review your old content, make a select few changes, press that publish button and watch your organic traffic rise.
So without further ado...
1. A Brand Spanking New Title
The first—and potentially most important—thing you can do to your old content is give it a brand new title!
Titles play a very important part in maximising your website’s performance levels. The title of your blog posts can be the difference between ranking 1st and 11th on Google’s search engine results page (SERP), and is very important in attracting the consumer’s eye when they type in a search query.
We already have a blog post that goes more in-depth on how to create the perfect title, but if you’d like the shortened version, here’s our proven blog title formula:
Perfect Title = Odd Number + Superlative + Keyword Phrase
And why does it work? Well, it all comes down to a few simple reasons:
- Converting your old titles and content into list posts is great, as list posts are the most popular type of online content. This is because they’re very easy to skim and absorb any useful information quickly.
- Odd numbers are more attractive to the human eye than even ones.
- Using a superlative like ‘amazing’ or ‘fantastic’ will add some extra oomph to your title.
- Using a keyword phrase with low search results will increase the chances that your content will rank highly on Google, as it’ll have less competition to rank among.
2. Replace The Old With The New
No one likes old information. If a visitor clicks into your content and sees that you’re using statistics and references from 2015, they’re going to immediately hit that back button.
So, when editing your old posts, update all your content with new material such as the most recent statistics and any new industry expertise that has been developed. This gives old blogs and articles a new lease of life and ensures you continue to generate regular, engaged traffic to your website.
This process of updating is especially easy if you’re using the list format, where you can simply add in new points and delete out of date ones.
3. Get Rid of Those Typos
Everyone makes grammatical mistakes, it’s only natural.
So, when reviewing your old blog posts, make sure you keep an eye out for any grammatical mistakes or typos that may have slipped into your content. After all, if you republish your content and a visitor sees a typo in your introduction, they’re not going to be impressed.
Here are a few tips you can use to make sure your blog posts are mistake-free:
- Print out your content. There’s a difference between reading content on paper and on the screen. Printing out your content allows you to see everything more clearly and make some good old fashion edits with a red pen, then make all your amendments on your computer.
- Use online tools! There are plenty of free online tools you can use to help proofread your work. A good Google Chrome plugin you can download is Grammarly.
4. Promote Old Posts in Your New Content
An effective way to increase your average dwell time and improve your SERP ranking is to direct visitors to your old blog posts via internal links within your new content, including republished ones.
Including a ‘Related Content’ section at the end of your content, and linking to your old blog posts within your text, can encourage readers to click on your other blogs. This will lead them to spend more time on your website.
The higher the average dwell time, the higher Google ranks your site. If your blog makes it onto the first page of the search results, you can expect to benefit from increased website traffic. If you have existing blogs that are ranking on the second or third page of Google, then you should prioritise these for repurposing, as people rarely venture onto the second SERP.
5. Cater To Short Attention Spans
People have short attention spans these days, and it’s your job to cater to this.
Content is much easier to read and digest in smaller chunks. So, repurpose your old blog posts by breaking down those long paragraphs into much shorter ones. Aim for paragraphs with 2-3 sentences instead of ones with 5.
Using bullet points and subheadings will also help your content’s readability by increasing the amount of whitespace. The more readable your content, the longer people will stay to read it, and the higher Google will rank your repurposed blogs.
This strategy is also incredibly easy and quick to implement. You only need a few minutes to look at your past posts, scan for any chunky paragraphs, and break them up with a good few subheadings and bullet points.
6. Look at Posts You Can Turn into Videos
Turning your old posts into videos can massively increase your dwell time and content readability.
People are much more inclined towards visual mediums these days, as they’re easier to process and take less effort than reading. They’re also great for marketers, as they keep your visitors on the page for the good few minutes it takes to watch it.
Think about it: if a visitor is presented with a wall of text, versus a simple video, which medium are they more likely to engage with?
This is where list posts come in handy once again. Simply change your points into slides, edit the text to suit, and record yourself reading your old blog aloud. Then overlay the two, include a sleek title card and make sure to promote your service at the end of the video. It’s that easy!
Remember: sweet and simple is the way to go these days. Aim to create a video that’s 5-15 seconds long, like the short videos you see on Facebook. A longer video would be around 45 seconds - 1:30 minutes long, and the longest videos you could create without losing your audience would be around 3 minutes long.
7. Engage With Infographics
When asked which visual mediums had the highest engagement, 42% of marketers said that infographics and other original graphics were the most engaging.
This was higher than any other visual form of content.
So, take the time to convert your old blog posts into new, good looking infographics. Post your infographics to your various social media channels—Pinterest is the best for this—and people will reward you by sharing your content on their own channels. Not only does this increase exposure to your site, but it also gives you valuable backlinks.
Backlinks refer to when websites link to one another. So, when someone links to your site, you receive one backlink. Backlinks are one of the most important elements to your site’s SERP ranking. The more quality backlinks you receive, the higher your site ranks on Google.
When people share your infographics they’ll link back to your site, and you’ll receive plenty of backlinks in return. Your SERP ranking will go up, and your organic traffic will increase.
8. Freshen It Up With Some New Images
One of the easiest things you can do to freshen up old content is to add in new images. This breaks up your text, which makes your content easier to digest for your visitors, and increases the length of your posts, which benefits dwell time.
When we say ‘images’ though, we don’t just mean stock photos. Here are a few types of image you can use to make your old posts more readable and shareable:
Statistics and charts
A chart displaying some relevant statistics can lead to increased shares on social media, so it’s worth going through your old posts to see where you can add some key stats and charts, then go to Google Images and start looking!
Once you’ve found some, copy them in your content and link to where they came from.
Embedding tweets with images
Embedding tweets is very simple, as all you need to do is look for some great images on twitter then embed them in your old posts. These images are completely free, look much better than stock images, and you can ask the original tweeter for some extra exposure to your site as well!
Infographics at the end of your post
As we’ve mentioned before, people love infographics. Putting some great infographics at the end of your post can lead visitors to spend a little more time on your page before returning to Google. This can easily add 20 more seconds to your average time on page, which will cause Google to bump up your SERP ranking.
9. Just Republish!
Sometimes, all you need to do is just press that publish button!
People love good content. If you have readers who’ve been with you for awhile, then they’ll be happy to read a great piece of content again. If you have new readers, then you’ll have a blog post you can promote which will look brand new to them.
This is another reason why you should focus on creating high-quality content on a regular basis instead of churning out lower quality content more quickly. If your pieces of content can last the test of time, then you’ll be very usefully recycling some of your blog posts for years to come.
10. Find Inspiration in Your Longer Articles
Let’s say that you have a piece of content called The Ultimate Guide to Writing SEO Content. This ultimate guide may be 10,000 words long, but the keyword you’re trying to rank for, ‘writing SEO content’, has 100 million search results, so it’ll be very hard to rank highly on Google’s SERP.
However, you’ll have multiple sections in this guide, such as ‘Keyword Research’, ‘Meta Description’, ‘The Title’, ‘Subheadings’, and ‘Backlinks’ that you can use to create new blog posts. You can find niche keywords with low search results under each section to centre new blog posts around. For example, for the ‘backlinks’ section, you could create blogs on the keywords ‘how to gain backlinks’, ‘the importance of backlinks’, and so on.
These keywords will have lower than 100 million search results, meaning that your content will rank higher on Google’s SERP for them. This will bring more visitors into your site and increase your organic traffic.
11. Use Your Newsletter Wisely
Sometimes your readers just need a little push in the right direction.
So use an email newsletter to remind your readers of your old content. It’s tempting to only inform them of the newest blog posts you’ve spent a long time researching and writing, but putting a little section on ‘Other Blogs You May Be Interested In’ with some old blog posts can be really helpful in generating new interest in old content.
People are forgetful, after all. They’re most likely not going to remember a post from two years ago, so make a compilation of your most popular old posts that aren’t getting the traffic they used to, then send over a little reminder to your readers that they exist.
Once again you’ll be using minimal effort to generate new traffic to your existing content.
12. Combine Your Content into an eBook
If you’ve created enough content over time, then you’ve likely got enough material to compile into an ebook.
Ebooks are great because they allow you to gain more leads. If a visitor comes to your site and sees you have a detailed ebook on How to Rank Highly on Google, then they’ll give you their name and email address in return for a free copy. You can then use email marketing to eventually turn them into paying customers.
13. Improve Your Site's Navigation
An easy way to turn old posts into great performers is to improve the navigation your visitor uses to reach your content.
Include a list of your top performing posts in a ‘Top Posts’ section that visitors can easily get to from any blog on your site. Use this space to promote old content with lots of social shares, high average time on page, and a good conversion rate.
Remember to change the titles of your existing posts according to our formula from above, and you’ll have new visitors clicking on your old content in no time.
Repurposing content is a time efficient way of generating more traffic to your website, but there are so many more elements that go into an effective search engine optimisation strategy.
