When I was a CMO I often talked about creating sawdust out of a great piece of content that the team had been working on. Sawdust was the plethora of other stuff we could do with that particular piece of content.
The stuff that made it all that much more interesting. The stuff that was easy to do because we had done such a bloody fantastic job of the first piece, well researched, thorough, on point!
Sawdust is the shavings that you create out of that first block of content. It’s added value and it’s new ways to present your thoughts or repurpose old content.
Why should I repurpose old content?
This is a no brainer that’s for sure! Any great piece of writing takes time… it takes research and consideration… and just publishing one piece out of all that work… Well, that’s just crazy right!
Repurposing old content allows you to create more out of less… and in the process save time, deepen a particular subject area you’re investigating and creating additional resources for your target audience.
It also means it becomes easier for you to be seen as an expert in that field.
Multiple ways to present information means that your audience gets to experience the topic in a way that best suits them. One size does not fit all and the way one person best processes information is different to the way another does… I much prefer to read lists and bullet points than paragraphs!
- Saves content writing time
- Increases productivity
- Deepens a subject area
- Creates additional resources for your niche
- Positions you as the expert in that field
- Allows for different learning styles
- Captures a new set of eyes on your content
What content should I repurpose?
Well performing content
You can easily see which pieces of content you should repurpose with a glimpse into your blog stats… head on over to Google Analytics and take a look under Behaviour> Site content > All pages… there you’ll see which blog posts are securing the most clicks.
You’ll also be able to assess bounce rate and average time on page. These stats are helpful in ascertaining which posts were valuable… which were click bait! And which posts people wanted to delve more deeply into!
By picking those posts that performed well overall, you’re already a step ahead of your target audience when it comes to publishing additional resources for the same blog post… these people are already qualified! And you know far more about their desires than you did the first time round!
Evergreen content
The second thing to take into consideration when deciding on which posts to repurpose is to make sure you’re choosing evergreen content… this is content that doesn’t age… content that is just as relevant today as it was when you first published it.
Ways to repurpose old content
1. Create Freebies and opt ins
I LOVE this one! There’s so many times that I’m excited about a blog post… so much so that I just want to get it out into the wild! Or I’m short on time and I need to get a post up. I run through such a list of pre blog publishing tasks that often it’s easy to look back and know where I can add more value to a certain post.
One of these ways to create an easy opt in or freebie on the particular topic…
So easy right!
An example of this is my recent post on how to write a blog post… I went back and added in a great content checklist as a freebie…
This serves two purposes for me…
- It adds a new dimension to the post.. Adding value to my readers and giving Google some more info to crawl…and
- It means that I can collect email addresses from people who are genuinely interested in my services…
2. Change the medium
I’m a big fan of multimedia and changing out the medium by which we impart information to each other.
There’s a plethora of great ways to deliver a great blog post…
And… if you find a post that’s performed phenomenally well… perhaps it’s time to start that podcast!
Or do a Facebook or Instagram live on that topic? … or create a YouTube channel and deliver that info in a different format again?
This is pure gold! And so, so easy to do…
Remember to make sure that you add the link to your new media onto your old blog post… and reindex on Google!
3. Publish an Ebook, Guide or Online course
Sometimes you get so caught up in the day to day of blogging that you forget to look back and see just how far you’ve come!
It seems like yesterday that you started right??? Yet here you sit with over 200 blog posts on some amazing topics! Many of which overlap and intertwine in weird and wonderful ways!
Wouldn’t it be great if someone made a book on some of your content?
You can! … grab those posts that are similar or linked in some way and create yourself a course… and EBook or a guide if you are aiming for a shorter piece…
Written a butt load of tips on food for toddlers? Pop it into an Ebook!
Imparted all your knowledge on curing problem skin? Collate it into a guide!
Posted about SEO repeatedly from different angles? Curate that course Girlfriend!
4. Revamp your old content for SEO
I wrote a very detailed post about revamping your old blog posts for SEO only the other week… so you can read all about that over there…
But… since you’re here….
Jump in and pimp out that old blog post with new formatting and structure…. Add a few tables… some extra resources…. New internal links… and add additional imagery or media.
5. Create an email workflow on a specific topic
Ohhhh this is a goody and a very sneaky wee tip!
So, just like I said above about taking all your amazing work and rebranding it into an Ebook or similar… you can also create yourself an email workflow out of this content.
Think about a topic that you’ve covered IN DEPTH! … that blog post is probably like 3500 words right! … so much work! .. and how many people read it? How many people saw it and read it till the end?
Take that gem and cut it up! … create a workflow for people that maybe signed up for a specific freebie… perhaps someone signed up to your SEO freebie?…. GREAT!
Take your best SEO post and break it up into a 5-6 episode email workflow… bring people through a set of short and snappy insights…… then hit them with a product! Mmm hmmmm that’s how you do it!
6. Design an infographic
One of my favourite things to do is to take a who;le bunch of info and make it accessible to the masses…
If you’ve published a post that has a butt load of amazing info.. .then this one’s for you… particularly if you’ve done the hard yards and created some unique research or come up with a unique way to either look at something or a particular process or new way of doing things…
People love visuals! … make it easy for them to understand a process or set of instructions…
Create an infographic!
This is also great if you’ve done some sort of survey to display your results in a user friendly manner.
7. Push out social media content
Stuck for what to write in that Facebook or Instagram post? Don’t be! Literally grab your first few paragraphs and voila! …
Or you can repurpose that content by taking out a snippet and refashioning it into a sub topic.
You can reshare that post over and over again on socials… and you can also reframe the post by pulling out a particular segment of the post to make it a mini social post.
For example. My post on self sabotaging your own success…. I included a section here on a self audit… this segment in particular can be taken out and posted as a semi separate topic on socials… or be made into a freebie, a quiz.… or graphic!
8. Create a roundup post
Last but not least… roundup posts.. You may have done these for other bloggers content right? Where you find the best of the best and include links to other bloggers content…
Like…. 10 of the best holiday season cookie recipes….
Create your own roundup post. You may have a half dozen posts on a similar topic … like SEO for instance…. Or travel in Japan…. Or vegan snacks …. You can easily make your own roundup post of the “best of”.
Repurposing content
- Create freebies and opt ins
- Change the medium
- Publish an EBook, Guide or Online course
- Revamp your old content for SEO
- Create an email workflow for a specific topic
- Design an infographic
- Push out social media content
- Create a roundup post
Wrap up
Now you have literally no excuses for those off days when writer’s clock strikes! Jump in and grab one of your favorite posts and repurpose that content girl!
Sawdust is the way we can enrich our existing posts, capture a new set of readers and deepen our subject matter for Google ranking.
[convertkit form=1517128]
QUIT THE NINE TO FIVE 
Leave a comment