November 08, 2022
4 minutes
So you’ve put time, effort and money into creating a piece of content, you’ve clicked publish and, then, what? Happily ever after? The end?
Not quite.
Think of your content like some of the greats of our time, David Bowie, Madonna and Taylor Swift who have never been afraid to reinvent their aesthetics, styles or personas for global career success. You can do the same for your site. By giving your existing content a new lease on life, you can get the most for your content creation.
This simple yet really effective tactic keeps your website in great shape from both an SEO perspective and from a user experience standpoint, too, and is super easy to do. It’s a win-win content marketing strategy.
Repurposing content is the recycling of existing content, either partially or completely, to achieve new goals, reach a different audience or be in line with a differing trend.
It can be as simple as expanding an existing piece of content to as complex as creating a new marketing format on the same topic.
Repurposing content gets you more bang for your buck, making full use of the content you’ve put time or even money into creating and reinventing means you’re getting more and more value from one piece.
So, why else should you consider repurposing the content on your site?
It saves time
If you have a piece of content that relates to a new trend, can form the foundation of a new piece of content or can be updated then it just makes logical sense to use it rather than starting from scratch.
It reduces the risk of duplicate content
Rather than creating a new piece of content on a similar topic and risking duplication or cannibalisation, you can repurpose existing content to fit a new angle and reduce the possibility of this happening.
Content serves users better
Google champions sites which serve their users with useful, up-to-date content. By repurposing old content you’re ensuring the content on your site has a relevant purpose which meets the needs of the relevant audience which, in turn, should improve organic rankings.
Stay up to date with marketing trends
What’s more, the way that users want to access their content is ever-changing. For example, where a blog post was once sufficient, younger users appreciate accessing content via video snippets similar to TikTok or Instagram reels, too. By repurposing content you can bring existing, useful content into a new format that is most likely to engage a bigger audience.
Since its Caffeine Update in 2010, Google has championed what it refers to as ‘fresh content.’ This is content which has been recently published, updated or changed and which can be attributed to a query within minutes.
How does Google measure fresh content?
According to Moz, Google estimates the freshness of a piece of content using:
Now we’ve got you convinced that repurposing content is an SEO must-do. Let us share how.
Audit your existing content
To get started, you need to know what you’re working with. If you’ve not thought about repurposing content before then it won’t have been factored into your previous creation strategies. Undertaking a content audit should give you an overview of what you already have to work with.
Find evergreen, relevant content
The best topics to repurpose are evergreen topics, those that never go out of date, or out of style and that are always relevant to the audience. These can be topics with a consistent high search volume that are always popular with your audience.
Reinvent new ways to share
Investing time into repurposing this content means you’re finding exciting ways for your brand to stand out within an already-saturated conversation. Different formats you can repurpose written content into include:
And many more!
Consider repurposing content before you even create it
Repurposing shouldn’t always be an afterthought. Keeping this tactic in mind during your content strategy phase will help you create evergreen, valuable content that you’re going to reap organic benefits from time and time again.
Think down the line of ways the content you’re creating can be enhanced, altered, extended or improved and your content will keep you working smarter instead of harder across your full content schedule.
As always, this is an SEO tactic that should not be done just for the sake of it. Instead, any changes you make to your content should always be in line with creating relevant, high-quality content that enhances the way your users get answers to their queries.
Want a better idea of what quality, evergreen content looks like then let us show you. Understand what topics are going to be of value to your users long term, which you can look to repurpose regularly to really stand out from the crowd.