Some bloggers say the average lifespan of a blog post is 90 days. I disagree. I see the average lifespan of a blog post to be no more then 30 days. Usually, once the post is off the “front page” of your blog and buried in the archives, it stays there. What we have to do as bloggers is find a way to bring these post to the attention of our readers and potential readers.
This is also why we have to write on a regular basis “evergreen” content or “pillar” content. Content which is just so damn good people keep reading it. We also need to take steps to make sure all of this great content we are writing stays in front of our readers. We need to figure out ways to recycle it.
Here are 5 ways you can repurpose some of your older content.
1. Publish some of your posts to EzineArticles
We actually did this recently with one of the series I have been running on BFP. What is great about publishing to EzineArticles, it is free and you are exposing your content to a new audience of possible readers and customers.
Take some old post, either individual or series post, give them a bit of a make over and submit them. You should also think about a new title and make sure to include a link back to your blog. Your reason for doing this is to not only get your content exposed to the EzineArticles audience, you want to get those readers to visit your blog.
After we submitted some of our post we did see some good traffic sent our way. While the approval process can be a bit of a pain in the butt sometimes, the time and effort is worth it.
2. Turn older blog post into email newsletter content
One of the tools I tell all my consulting clients to use and something I write and talk about a lot is using a newsletter. An email newsletter to be exact. And usually the first thing someone says to me is “Griffiths you are freaking crazy if you think I can write all this content for my blog and turn around and create great content for a newsletter.” And, they may be right.
What I tell them every single time is not to write all of the content for your email newsletter with new content. Yes, you need to include at least one new featured article in your newsletter. But, a great way to get content for your newsletter and a great way to recycle some of your older content on your blog is to include it in your newsletter.
You can do this at least two ways:
- Provide links in your newsletter to some of your older content on your blog. This will get your newsletter readers to click through to you blog and get them back there checking things out.
- Simply copy and paste one or two of your older post into your newsletter. You can also do some tweaking to these older post when you put them in your newsletter. And you can update them too. The key is to remember is the fact a lot of your newsletter readers may be new readers of your content. And they may have never seen some of this content before. Why not feed it to them.
One other way to use your newsletter list to get your post out is to use a service like Aweber and send out a blog broadcast. I do this after I have posted a set number of post. My subscribers will get an email with the title/link and the first couple of sentences of the post. This is not only a great way to keep you content in front of your email list. It is a great way to get them to visit your blog. And if you want to take it a step further, Aweber has a feature which allows you to also send things to twitter.
3. Recycle an old post into a slideshow
Do you have one of those how-to blog post. One of those post where you try to explain how to do an action or steps to take to make something work. Take one of those post and do a screencast or a slideshow on exactly how to do it.
While you are at it, post the screencast or slideshow to YouTube or even Slideshare. Not only are you recycling some of your older content. You are pushing this content to sites that just might take the post viral and get you some serious action.
4. Send post to twitter
One of my favorite twitter tools is EasyTweets. I use EasyTweets do to a lot of actions with this blog and my content.
Here are just some of what you can use EasyTweets for:
- Post brand new content to twitter when it goes up on your blog
- Feed some of your favorite blogs you read to twitter (great way to help out a blogging friend of yours)
- Time a series of tweets to go out at any time during the day
- Feed older content to twitter to generate some traffic to those old post
The last one is really the biggie for this conversation. If our readers are not going to visit some of our great older content. Feed it to them by sending it out to your twitter followers. One of the best at doing this is John Haydon. I have been watching John on how he uses twitter to build buzz about his content. I have also been watching how he uses the tools available to keep his older content in front of his audience.
Another practice John has been doing lately is sending some of the older content of the blogs he reads. Not only is this helping out those bloggers. John is showing first hand why he is a great source of information in his particular niche. John is recycling not only his older content. He is recycling the content of these other bloggers.
5. Turn those older “pillar” post into an ebook or report
One of the most overlooked and under utilized ways to take advantage of your older content is turning it into an ebook or downloadable report. Usually people balk at this idea for one reason. They usually say, “Why would anyone want to have this content in an ebook or report when it is right there on my blog?” That is a great question, but really an unwarranted concern. The reason falls right into why we are recycling our content in the first place. Remember your content has a short shelf life. We want to get our content back in front of our readers.
Taking this older content and making it into an ebook or report is a great way to recycle and a great way to get it in front of our readers. What I have found from doing this myself is the fact our readers appreciate the fact we have taken the time to put a selection of our content into one easy to use location.
The decision to give this content away or sell it is really up to you and depends on what your goals and purpose are with this content. One way to use an ebook or report from recycled content is as an ethical “bribe” to get people to sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your blog.
Remember to tweet about and put the word out when you produce this ebook or report from your content. Tell the world so it goes viral.
Share your own ideas on how to repurpose older content
Make sure to jump in and leave your own way you repurpose some of your older content. I would love to see how others do this as I am always looking for ways to get our readers to dig deeper into the content.
