Blog posts take a lot of time to write, and while there are things you can do to write blog posts faster, one of the best ways to maximize the time spent writing blog posts is to repurpose your content.
Here are 5 ways to repurpose your blog posts.
#1: Record your blog posts in audio form and turn it into a podcast.
Now when I say to record your blog posts in audio form, I don’t mean to read them word for word. For one thing, most likely if you’re reading your blog posts word for word, they're going to sound stilted and be on the boring side.
It’s much easier for most people to speak naturally, than it is to read naturally, so you’ll sound much better if you make an outline with the main points of your blog post, along with minimal notes to keep you on track, and then simply record yourself talking about each of those points.
You can upload your podcast episodes to your blog and also make them available on iTunes to extend your reach.
#2: Use the main points from your blog posts to create a slideshow.
Since you’ve already jotted down the main points of your blog posts before creating your podcast, it will be easy to create a PowerPoint presentation using those main points.
Once you’ve created a PowerPoint presentation, with just a few clicks you’ll be able to turn that presentation into a slideshow. You can do this by simply uploading the presentation to SlideShare.
To help drive traffic from SlideShare to your website, be sure to hyperlink each slide in your presentation to various blog posts, and also show your blog URL on at least one slide.
#3: Create a video from the slideshow you created in step 2.
Since you already created a PowerPoint presentation you used for your slideshow, you can easily turn that presentation into a YouTube video. There are a few ways to do this:
- Simply use the built in option in PowerPoint to create videos.
The option to save your PowerPoint presentation as a video is available in PowerPoint 2007 and 2010, but may not be available in earlier versions.
Bonus tip: You can even upload the audio you created in step 1 to your PowerPoint presentation before saving it as a YouTube video if desired.
- Save your slides as JPEG File Interchange Format and then use those images to create a video using a service such as Animoto.
Note: If you're using your videos for business purposes, you need to purchase Animoto Pro, but if you are using your videos for non-commercial reasons, you may
- Create a screencast teaching video, using Snagit or Screencast-o-matic.
Here's a video from Ms. Ileane to show you how easy it is to use Screencast-o-matic to Repurpose Content with YouTube
How To Use Screencast-o-matic To Make YouTube Videos by Ileane Smith
[pinit] This is your opportunity to shine as a teacher! All you need to do is open up your PowerPoint presentation that you created from your blog posts, and record yourself speaking as you click through the slides.
#4: Create image quotes using the slides you created in steps 2 and 3.
If you haven’t already done so, go ahead and save your PowerPoint presentation that you created in step 2 as JPEG File Interchange Format.
You can then post those images as Facebook status updates that link to your blog posts, or as pins on Pinterest.
If desired, you can also start from scratch and make completely new images with quotes and other teaser content related to your blog.
#5 Rewrite your blog posts as articles and submit them to article directories.
It may seem like a lot of work to completely rewrite your blog posts, but I find that especially if I do this immediately after I write the original blog posts and the basic information is fresh in my mind, I can do this very quickly.
For quality purposes, I do not recommend using an article spinner. The few extra minutes it takes to manually rewrite the posts will be well worth it in terms of quality.
I’ve found it especially beneficial to use the resource box on my articles to drive traffic to a squeeze page for the purpose of building my list.
As you can see from the 5 ways to repurpose your blog posts listed above, though it does take time, it’s not too difficult to repurpose your content multiple ways.
Your Turn:
What are your favorite ways to repurpose your blog posts? Which of the ways listed above do you plan to try?
These are cool tips. I love the idea of creating audio version of your article and allowing readers to download them. This way you create 2 versions of your article. Although many article directories are getting smarter some even fussy about allowing re-written content but its possible. Slideshows is a very good way, I was reading an article where one blogger showed how they managed to get lots of traffic from slideshows.
Shalu, I would love to see you do some slideshows and then hear how they work for you!
Regarding article directories, I’m glad you brought that up because there is a big difference between rewriting and spinning — even if the “spinning” is done by hand. So as an example, when I rewrite a blog post as an article, I truly rewrite it. In most cases, I don’t even have the original post in front of me, so what I write is very different from the original, even though I am writing on the same topic and covering much of the same material.
I’ve never had an article rejected doing it this way. I only submit to Ezinearticles, and perhaps other article directories are different, but I’ve at least had a good experience with them.
Recycling content is a smart approach and saves time and energy. Blog posts and articles can turn into: ebooks, presentations, calendar/tip-of-the-day. Voice them and you have a podcast.
You can get really creative and get a cartoonist (or a creative child) to illustrate tips for a comic strip, infographic etc.
Another thing that can be done is create emails based on old blog post.
Actually Shamelle, Infographic is another great idea. At the moment infographics are doing well and if done nicely, its a great way to give that extra boost. Slides in the form of power-points is a good idea. These are untapped territory and often under-looked. Its definitely worth investigating. Thanks for mentioning Animoto and Screencast-o-matic, I am going to try these tools.
Shamelle, these are some great ideas, for sure, and when it comes right down to it, there are nearly unlimited ways to recycle blog posts. I have to admit that I had never thought of the cartoon idea, probably because I am not at all talented in that way, but that is certainly a unique idea!
I definitely like the infographic idea as well, and in fact have that on my list of things to learn how to do. For this blog post, I only wrote about things I’ve actually done, and I’ve yet to do infograhpics. Your comment may be just the push that I need to do that one!
Thanks so much for sharing,
Rebecca
I Love the concept of converting your article into audio form this can be really utilized well and one can make an audio version of each article and have a podcast or blog radio 🙂
So true, Saad. Podcasts are becoming very popular and if you’ve already done the hard work of creating the content for the blog, you may as well use it for a podcast.
Of course, you can also do this the other way around as well — record a podcast, have it transcribed, and then use that for other types of content as well.
Thanks so much for commenting. I appreciate it.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Audio, Video and Power Point Slides of blog posts. Great ! These are great alternatives of traditional blog promotion.
Lots of bloggers are so involved in Social Media Networking that , they can’t even think about this.
Thanks for the great tips 🙂
Nandita,
You are right that a lot of bloggers only thinks of social media promotion and don’t bother to use their blog posts in other ways. Of course, social media is a great way to promote your blog, but it is only one way to use the content you’ve written.
What is your favorite way to promote your blog posts?
Best,
Rebecca
this is great. for longer, list type posts, one way I do it to get a lot of promotion out of it is to take each point in the list and do all these for each one. gives you loads of content that you can use for promotion. Using these different formats also gives you a variety of content to send out to your subscribers, keeping them engaged in what you are talking about.
James, taking a list post and using each point in the post in all of the ways listed above is really a great idea. In fact, you could even come up with several more blog posts that way as well, but taking each point, and writing a blog post on just that one thing. In fact, I need to do more of that, so I appreciate the nudge to get me moving in that direction!
Thanks for the great idea,
Rebecca
I started creating videos from my blog posts, but stopped. Even though it really hardly takes anytime at all, unless you have a decent following the videos you put so much effort into will not get seen.
Simmeon,
You bring up a really valid point — sometimes the effort we put in to repurposing our blog posts doesn’t pay off. I would recommend trying different things to see what works the best for you, and then doing more of the same.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it can take a good long while to gain momentum in any one place. For example, with videos, when you have only a handful of videos on YouTube, you’re likely to get less action than when you have 100. So don’t give up too soon, but do pay attention to what is working best for you and do more of the same.
Thanks so much for bringing up this important subject of it not always paying off because that is one thing to pay attention to, for sure.
Best,
Rebecca
What great ways to re-purpose content! You make it sound so easy, but I am sure it does take time to actually execute.
Chuck, thanks so much for your comment. I will put it this way — it’s simple, but not easy. What I mean is that it takes time, just like blogging does, but it is well worth it. I hope you’ll give it a try!
Rebecca
This is great advice Rebecca – really useful and practical. Thanks so much.
Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment, Kim. I’m glad you found my post useful, and I’m looking forward to seeing how you implement these tips!
Best
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Leverage the stuffing out of your content. Turn a blog post into articles. Post to various article based, zimbio, and niche specific ning sites. Shoot videos on a similar topic. Select power-packed lines from your posts. Post on twitter, Facebook, Google Plus or LinkedIn. Lay out link-less breadcrumbs for people to nibble on.
No sense creating non-stop on each network. Write a post. Find 5 or 10 uses for it. Leverage. Cater to individual’s tastes, as each person prefers a different network.
Thanks!
RB
Hi RB,
I definitely agree with you about leveraging our content as much as possible! I hadn’t really thought of ning sites — what has your experience been with those, and have you found them to be effective?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, because I’m sure that I could learn from you.
Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. Much appreciated!
Rebecca
I love re-purposing my blog content. I do slides (and yes upload to doc sites), do a video of the presentation. I do less audios – although it is quite easy to just rip the audio off the video file.
Writing articles from the main blog post is something that I have not done yet. I rather write a relative article and create a few link backs.
Jane, thanks so much for stopping by and leaving a comment. What do you use to rip the audio from your videos? I haven’t done that yet and would really love to learn from your experience!
Best,
Rebecca
Becca, I just use a software called “Video to MP3 converter”. It just creates a mp3 file of the audio 🙂
That certainly sounds easy enough, Jane! I’ll have to give it a try.
Hi Rebecca
I hadn’t really thought about doing points 1 to 4 so thank you for giving me some new ideas. I try and do point 5 and submit to article directories as often as I can. I’m not sure it’s as useful for traffic as it once was but it’s always good to diversify!
Thank you for sharing.
Tim
Tim, I’m glad to hear that you’re also using article marketing. I had taken a long break from it and just recently decided to get back into it, and found that it seems to be working well for me. The key, as is true will all types of content, is to create the best content you possibly can.
I’m glad to hear you’re going to try some other options for repurposing. I’d love to hear how it goes for you!
Best to you,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
Thanks for the idea. I never thought of repurposing blogposts as podcasts and I don’t think I can do it perfectly because once I tried to record my voice for a presentation in college but it was a big flop. I had to buy a fiverr gig for that 🙂
Naser, I get where you’re coming from! Many people don’t like the sound of their own voices, and it can take time to get comfortable speaking. But it’s like anything else; the more you do it, the better you get.
One thing I decided to do because it was less overwhelming was to start a “Motivational Minute” podcast. As you can probably tell, these are short audio clips that are approximately 1 minute long (sometimes a couple of minutes). You may find something short like that a little less overwhelming, while you get the hang of podcasting. I linked to one below so you can see what I’m talking about.
I wish you the best — do feel free to let me know what you end up trying!
Rebecca
Thanks for the help Rebecca. BTW, I cannot grasp the meaning of first line of your comment.
Oops, Naser, sorry about that. What “I get where you’re coming from” means is that I understand what you’re saying and can relate to it because I feel the same way. Hope that helps!
Thanks for explanation Rebecca. 🙂
I’ve been considering doing some podcats but then I ask myself, Brian what do you want to use your time on, podcasts or blog comment and perhaps even Google hangouts. This week I will be joining Kim and I imagine it’s going to be a lot of fun. Javeen did a podcast once for our Guest Blogging Contest with his post. I thought it was such a unique idea.
Brian, the time element is something to consider, for sure! You do have to think long and hard about the best way to use your time, because it truly is limited. I found it helpful to experiment with a few different types of content, see what I enjoyed most and what was most effective. And certain types of posts are repurposed better certain ways, so you certainly don’t have to do each of the 5 ways I wrote about for each blog post you write.
Best,
Rebecca
The video, slide-show, and podcast ideas make a lot of sense to me, and I may try doing a video of a slide show to see if it’s effective. Turning posts into articles for submission to article directories is more difficult to imagine. If you’ve truly done your work on the post, the words and their positions in the piece are not easily changed. If you’ve written the post quickly, however, perhaps it would be a matter of doing the rewriting and editing that you should have done in the first place. Thanks for the great suggestions!
Doug,
I really appreciate your comment here, especially since you are not the first person to mention having a tough time (or thinking it would be tough) to rewrite articles. Interestingly enough, that is the one that is easiest for me, probably because writing is my strong point, and I type super fast.
The key to keep from duplicating what you wrote the first time around is to not look at your blog post at all when you write the article. I usually just have the idea in my mind — the basic concept, and since the knowledge is in my head, I just write. I may even put in a point or two that I didn’t think of when I wrote the initial blog post, or I may leave out a point of two that I didn’t think of as I was rewriting. Since I don’t even look at what I originally wrote when I do the rewriting, it’s not hard to come up with something very different.
Best,
Rebecca
Hey Rebecca!
There is no slide show in my blog. But I really want to have it in my blog because with slides our blog not only look advanced but also look pretty. After reading your content I am really thinking for slide shows. Thanks for this useful content 🙂
Hi Perky,
I don’t have a slideshow on my blog either (I do have a slider with my latest blog posts). I’ve just put slideshows on SlideShare — but it might be fun to get a slideshow plugin and give it a try. Unfortunately, I don’t know of one to recommend, but perhaps someone else does.
Thanks so much for your comment!
Rebecca
Welcome Rebecca!
Oh! I see.
Yeah, it would be great fun if we get a slideshow plugin for our blog. Trying something new always not only entertain and make us happy but also our visitors. So, there should be something new, unique and good in our blog every time. Change is good always if it doesn’t annoy anyone. Indeed, Slideshow is a good idea!
Great post, Rebecca. You got everything covered 😉 The only thing I could add is use that content and use it for a webinar !
Sarah, that is one area where I am lacking, as of right now, I haven’t done a single webinar. I really need to give that a try sometime! Thanks for the nudge to grow in that way.
Best,
Rebecca
Obviously, I’ve never tried any of these wonderful ideas to bring tons of traffic by recycling a single content and all I do is writing content and posting it on my blog. These are some smart tips to optimize our contents for more outputs.
Thanking you.
Naveen,
You’re very welcome! I hope you do give them a try, and when you do, be sure to let me know how it goes for you.
Rebecca
Perky is right. Slides do make blogs look advanced. Ok, if the content in a text only blog is great it doesn’t really matter but visuals add something different, something more engaging and attractive, something that will definitely help you in your quest to get readers, and then get them engaging.
Elena Anne, I definitely agree with you here. I think we all, or at least most of us have a preferred type of content to create, but it’s good to add a bit of variety. I’m still not doing as many videos and that type of thing as I’d like, but am branching out into more and more. I think it makes a blog more interesting and also is just fun to learn to create new types of content.
Thanks for the time you took to read my post and leave a comment.
Rebecca
I haven’t gotten into the slides or podcasts yet, but each post I write I usually turn into a video and submit to article directories.
I’ve been making talking head style videos for a long time for fun and for previous blogs, so it’s something I prefer over slide videos.
As for the article directories, there is no sense of spinning it from what I have experienced. As long as you make sure your site is indexed first (if you care about Google traffic, that is), the same article will have a chance of getting syndicated from the directory and bringing you a bunch of traffic.
I have re-written articles and they brought me 0 traffic, while some of my best performing articles are copied-and-pasted blog posts. It could have to do with the topic, since the original posts did quite well too. Just by posting the same articles, I have landed an extra 100 visitors that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise!
It’s not a lot, but every extra visitor can be a new subscriber and customer! 🙂
Oh and another sweet way of re-purposing is turning your post into a pdf and uploading it to pdf sharing sites like Scribd dot com.
Thanks a bunch,
-Gabe
Wow, Gabe, what a great comment. It’s interesting to hear about your experience with article directories. I’ve been afraid to try just copying and pasting an article because I prefer that the articles on my site aren’t published anywhere else. I’m going to have to think about this because copying and pasting would sure be easier than rewriting, but since I type fast, I can usually rewrite an article in about 15 minutes, which isn’t too bad.
I’d love to check out some of your videos, and will plan to do so soon.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
These are great tips. I haven’t done much in terms re-purposing my blog posts although I sometimes rewrite them and submit to article directories.
Slideshare is really popular for content marketing and I think I should give it a try and see how it goes.
thanks for sharingthis.
Norbert, thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my post and leave a comment. When you create a slideshow and upload it to SlideShare be sure to let me know how it goes for you!
Best,
Rebecca
These are great ideas to re-purpose your old stuff. I like how ingenious your ideas are. I really like the podcast idea.
It is good to get new readers to your blog.
Michael, I’m really glad that you like the podcast idea. I helped one of my clients set up a podcast, and in the process, I basically fell in love with podcasting. It really is a fun type of content to create, and pretty easy, once you get the hang of it.
Rebecca
it is very good to have a video on a post because it make your post very attractive.you can submit these from video.i have read somewhere to post audio in post so i think it is also a very good idea..
your point are also good for implement.
Bhushan,
I totally agree that adding videos to posts add a lot of value. Video is a weak area for me, but I’m working on using it more and more.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Hope you have a great week!
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
After reading this, I noticed that we can do a lot of things to each blog post available on blog. And after writing each blog post, we also have a pretty good idea what it is about so powerpoint; re-write to article directories… are an absolutely easy thing to be done.
Thanks – Ferb
Ferb,
You make a good point here — that after writing a blog post, it is easy to do something else with it. The thing that makes it so easy is that we’ve already thought through the information and it’s fresh in our mind, so it’s a perfect time to do something else with it. Of course, you can also go back and do the same with older blog posts as well.
Have a great week, Ferb!
Rebecca
Well, I would choose rewriting my best posts into articles. I have spent a lot of time in generating my posts that is relevant to my business niche and it will be nice in spreading my word in a slightly different way whilst keeping my research knowledge intact. Thanks for the post, it did give me ideas to promote my content!
Lakshmi,
I’m glad to hear you’re going to give article writing a try. A lot of people say that article directories are dead, but people I really respect who are experts when it comes to article writing say that they are still getting excellent results, and I myself recently gave it a try as well and was surprised at how much traffic my articles generated.
I wish you the best with your blogging and article writing!
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
I have to agree that is a fantastic idea to create as many formats of content as possible from the original source. I’m just about to start a podcast and will be recording the video for YouTube, as well as use the audio for the podcast. The audio will then be transcribed into text and used for a blog post.
As for point five, do you really think those article directories are worth their while these days? In my opinion Google doesn’t take much notice of the back links from article directories, particularly the low quality ones.
Scott,
It sounds like you’re doing a great job repurposing your content. I could probably learn a few things from you when it comes to video, as that is a weaker area for me.
Regarding article directories — yes I think they still work well. I only submit to Ezinearticles, so I can’t comment on other directories, but in the last month I’ve submitted quite a few articles and have gotten good traffic. I’m not doing it as much for backlinks as I am to drive traffic, though.
The primary thing I’m using article writing for is to grow my list, so I have the links in my resource box go directly to a squeeze page, and that is working well for me.
Rebecca
I never thought of those ways before. Really interesting tactics I’ll try the image technique first so I can check its effectivity. Thanks Rebecca!
Adam, I wish you success in this, and look forward to hearing how things go for you!
Thanks so much for taking the time to read and leave a comment.
Best,
Rebecca
Rebecca, your tips on how to re-use the content from a blog post are great. I just want to add that tip #5 is tricky and can create problems if not properly used. Google can detect re-written content and those articles from the article directories can show up as duplicate content.
Julius, I agree that #5 can be tricky, and perhaps I should have emphasized that more. I suppose I have never had a problem with this one because I truly rewrite, rather than spin (spinning can be done, even by hand!). The key is to make sure the rewritten version is very, very different than the original version. For example, the words will be different, the number of points will be different, the format will be different, etc.
Rebecca
At the moment infographics are doing well and if done nicely, its a great way to give that extra boost. Slides in the form of power-points is a good idea. Audio, Video and Power Point Slides of blog posts will be surely refreshing & a sure shot hit. Interesting post, thanks for sharing.
Nelson, I’ve yet to create any infographics myself and feel pretty challenged in this area, but they do seem awfully popular and like something worth learning. They would definitely be another great way to repurpose your blog posts, for sure!
Rebecca
Rebecca,
These are five fantastic ways to re-purpose your content… And I’m really glad you didn’t mention “Create an eBook” because that has been said about a million times.
I really like the idea of taking your major points and creating a Slideshare. I’ve seen some great Slideshares that have come out of blog posts. And I know alot of people are starting to get into Slideshare more and more.
Thanks!!
Ryan H.
Ryan,
Thanks so much for stopping by.
You are right that a lot of people recommend making an eBook from old blog posts — and that is certainly a decent thing to do, so it’s not a bad idea.
Nina Amir has written a book on how to blog a book — I’m reading that now. It’s different than what she calls, “booking a blog” which is taking blog posts and turning them into a book. Her approach is more intentional with planning a book out ahead of time and then writing blog posts as a way of writing the book. It has my attention, for sure, but I haven’t yet sat down and done the planning needed in order to make that happen.
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
thanks for your tips. At this moment I use only #4, but I plan to reuse some of my posts on slideshare 😉
Chris
Chris,
I do hope that you give making slideshows a try. That seems to be becoming more and more popular, and it’s another way to get your name out there!
I appreciate the time you took to read my post and leave a comment. Have a great day!
Rebecca
I never created video of PPT, but once I cam across such on youtube it was looking totally unprofessional and I even do not bother to watch that. I thing making animated video of post would be a great idea.
David,
You make a great point of not wanting to watch videos that are unprofessional. Sometimes, however, we have to start with doing the best we can and improve from there. Always create the absolute best content you know how to create, but don’t let perfectionism keep you from posting things. I’m not saying you were doing that, but wanted to mention it because a lot of people get hung up on that and never get anything done.
As is true with anything, there are both good and bad videos that have been created using PowerPoint, in part because there are both good and bad PowerPoint presentations. This is something I plan to spend more time working on in the future, because I see tremendous potential.
Have an awesome day, David!
Rebecca
That is true Rebecca that we have to start from somewhere and keep on improving, i totally agree with you. Thanks for your meaningful reply.
Thanks for the post, some really good ideas here. I have been blogging for a while now but had not thought about recording snippets of articles to create audio version of posts before but this is something I may well be trying in the future. Thanks again
Mili
Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m glad to hear that I gave you some new ideas and am really happy to hear that you’re going to give audio a try. Good luck!
Rebecca
Mike, thanks for your comment. I really love, love, love podcasts, and I think they are only going to grow in popularity. Last week my son got married, and on the flight to and from, my 24-year-old daughter was listening to podcasts to pass the time. She was sitting next to me on the plane, laughing away as she listened.
She and I are obviously 2 different generations, and yet we’re both into podcasts. I think it’s significant when people of different generations both enjoy a certain type of media because that shows the broad reach of that type of media.
All that to say that I think podcasting is a great direction to go with repurposing your content.
I think its one of the best post I have seen today. Great reuse. I think we can easily dominate our competitors with old posts.
Vivek,
I agree that if we do these things we’ll dominate our competitors. It does take work, but that is true of all we do online, but we make the best use of our time when we repurpose our content.
Best,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca, Some great ideas about repurposing old articles, I am planning to start podcasting and this might be a good start…
Sanjeev,
Thanks for your kind comment. I definitely hope you will give podcasting a try!
Best,
Rebecca
Hey Rebecca,
Very In depth informative tutorial. I was not know that I can use my already published article in such different ways for different purposes. Creating audio, video and slideshow versions are really great ways for implementing right now.
These ideas will help me and lots of other bloggers. Thanks for such helpful post.
You’re very welcome, Veer! I look forward to seeing how you put these tips into practice.
Best to you,
Rebecca
I’ve been doing #1 for a while now (even though I’ve slacked recently) but it really is effective! You find a whole new audience of people who want to LISTEN instead of READ. There are all sorts of people and with your suggestions, you’re catering to all those different kinds. 🙂
I really love the idea #4! I have seen quote pictures and they are truly effective. Now I just need to stop being lazy and get some made! 🙂
Thanks so much for these great ideas!
Morgan,
You are so right that there are a lot of people out there who would rather listen than read. It’s been easy for me to neglect those people in the past, because I’m just the opposite. But the more ways we can get our info out there, the better, since people do enjoy different types of content.
Best,
Rebecca
Thanks so much for these great tips, Rebecca, and for sharing these online tools. I absolutely love #2. It’s really going to be so helpful for my blog, especially since I got so many photos for the reviews that I do here.
Adeline,
Especially if you already have a ton of photos, you may as well use them to make slideshows!And while you’re at it, you may as well use them on Pinterest and Facebook, too, to get as much mileage from them as possible.
Best,
Rebecca
Will do that. Thanks a bunch!
Some useful tips here. 🙂 However, I think you got a bit stuck on the idea of using slides! 😉
I agree that Podcasts and videos are great ways to share content. Sharing audio and video helps to “mix it up” a bit instead of only ever written textual content.
I’m sorry, but I strongly disagree with using article directories. There’s an awesome post on SEOmoz that explains why: Which Article Directories are still relevant?
As an alternative tip, creating an eBook and/or a Kindle book of your content is a nice option for readers who want to consume your posts on the go 🙂
Hi Ben,
Thanks so much for your comment. Do you have anything more authoritative on article directories? I’d love to dig into that one deeper than can be done through a couple of posts on a forum.
My own research into this was not as in depth as I’d like it to be. However, I checked with people who are authorities when it comes to article marketing to see if they are still as effective as they once were, and was told by them that they are actually more effective than they used to be, so long as you create quality content.
So then I did my own experimenting this past month and found that they drove quality traffic to my site, and I’ve seen other benefits as well, such as my list growing substantially.
However, I’m very open to being wrong on this, but want something more substantial than a post on a forum to make a decision on. Make sense?
Now having said that, I think that using blog post for Kindle books and that sort of thing is definitely a good idea.
Hi Rebecca, sorry for adding a second reply to this. When I viewed the page, my first comment didn’t show up. After commenting, it did show up. Perhaps there is something weird going on with caching…
I also wanted to ask if either you or Ileane could keep an eye on the spam queue please, as I included a few links with my reply to you and I worry that the comment got spammed. Hopefully I haven’t lost it forever 🙂 Thanks!
Ben,
Thanks for letting me know. There appears to be something going on with comments. In fact, sometimes I’ve been delayed in my ability to respond to comments because though I get notification of comments in my email, when I go to read and reply to them, they are gone! So it is possible that yours will reappear.
I do hope so, as I would love to check out your links. I had taken a long break from article marketing, and did some research before jumping back into it. Though there were some “concerns” related to it, there was nothing at all substantial in what I found, and there was substantial evidence (e.g. with statistics) in favor of it. But I obviously want to avoid doing anything or encouraging anything that would have a negative impact, so I’m very much interested in reading articles that address this in a objective, and for lack of a better word, “scientific” way.
You have a great way to totally dominate a keyword with just one great article. Putting the same article into all different formats will certainly garner you some great search engine love also. The other factor that helps make this so effective is all the rest of us are too lazy to do all the steps.
Rick
Rick, you made one of the best points — that other people are too lazy to do it. This is what really makes the biggest difference. In fact, plenty of people are too lazy to blog consistently, which makes it much easier for those of us who publish blog posts regularly to get ahead. 🙂
Best,
Rebecca
Those are great tips 🙂 They are so useful and wonderful. Thank you so much!!
You’re welcome, Justine! I’m glad you found them helpful.
Best,
Rebecca
Thanks so much, Justine! Which one do you think you’ll try first?
Rebecca
Formatting your content in different ways is a great way to leverage your content and to cater to different tastes, not everybody likes reading text, thanks for the helpful tips, I’ll have to look into submitting my content to slideshare, really powerful site from what I hear.
Tyrone, you are so right that not everyone likes taking in content in the same way and because of that it helps to create different types of content. In addition to that, it helps to get your content out there multiple places online, and this post includes ways to do just that. 🙂
Best,
Rebecca
Hi Rebecca,
This is a little odd – I can’t find my comment. I guess it hasn’t been approved yet. It went into moderation because it included a link. So I actually can’t reply to the original thread, for some reason. :-\
While the link in question was on a forum, that forum was at SEOmoz – a major authority for all things SEO. Some more links on the topic (hope this doesn’t get spammed):
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-article-marketing-submission-for-seo
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/article-marketing-mostly-a-scam-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/q/anyone-still-use-article-directories
http://webenso.com/does-article-marketing-still-work/
The general view I’ve noticed is that while people are not saying article directories don’t work at all, it seems as though they might not work as well as they used to due to changes introduced by Google’s Panda and Penguin updates.
This is all quite recent, and I’d love to see a post elaborating on the effects of Panda and Penguin on strategies such as using article directories. In particular, the authorities you mentioned could comment on how things have changed. It seems to me that while perhaps article directories are not 100% bad, the landscape has shifted somewhat. But I’d be happy to be proved wrong on either front 🙂
Ben, I’m with you in that I’d be happy to be proven wrong. It would mean I have one less thing to do. 😉
Unfortunately, what was shared with me was in a private email, so my hands are tied when it comes to sharing it. So I will just say that the person who wrote it has over 20K articles on EzineArticles. Of course, I would imagine with that number of articles, that there is a lot of momentum that no animal (panda or whatever!) can stop.
Also, try doing a Google search for “is article marketing still effective” and there are some good articles that come up that provide info on various experiments that have been conducted.
I get what you’re saying about SEOMoz being authoritative, but can anyone post on the forum? I haven’t spent a lot of time there, but my assumption is that you just have to register to be able to post, which likely means you have some very, very good people posting and some not so good. But I’m definitely going to check out the links, and I appreciate you sharing them!
I just did the search you suggested. It’s worth using the “more search tools” option on the left-hand side as many of the default results are from 2010-2011, which in my view is not going to be very helpful.
The best article I’ve found so far is as follows: http://hakpenguin.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Article-Marketing-Still-Effective-For-SEO
Last updated – July 3rd, 2012 – so it’s recent.
A couple of points stand out. First and foremost, it doesn’t rule out article marketing completely. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, it says:
“First you must write one 100% unique article for each article directory you will submit it to. Then you must select a list of only the best article directories.”
So I think your tip to rewrite existing blog posts (even if you rewrite them heavily) is probably not the best idea. Although a major rewrite could be difficult to detect, if it’s basically the same content, I think that’s not a good approach.
It does seem worthwhile to submit unique posts to good directories – which means this avenue could now be viewed in a similar way to guest posting.
I’m sure there are other articles on the topic, but I thought this was a particularly good one. As an aside, I don’t always look for whether a site is an authority or not. Some little known sites produce great, sensible content that is far more direct and accurate than some of the equivalent authority content I’ve seen. So that isn’t as big of a factor for me 🙂
Some great tips there, Ben, and it is indeed good to find the most recent information on this subject.
I ll definitly goes with number 2 because i don’t use it yet. Thanks for sharing those points.
You’re welcome, Tom! I wish you the best as you branch out into different types of content.
Rebecca
i think re-writing or rather writing new posts related to the popular posts is a good way to grab visitors’ attention. If they are already interested in something and you are able to give them additional information on that subject through a different post, they will be interested in that too.
Wow, great way to add a new purpose to writing your posts.
Podcast are something that I will be looking into very soon.
Samuel, I’m personally pretty excited about podcasting, so I do indeed hope you give it a try.
Thanks so much for reading my post and taking the time to leave a comment.
Best,
Rebecca
Yes, slide show attract me very much on any web/ blog that’s why i love to use it.I usually attract from pictures on any web.
“Record your blog posts in audio form and turn it into a podcast” This point is very new for me.it will definitively work 😀
Thanks for better points.
Hi Rebecca!
I love the idea of creating audio of the blog post which you are going to create and than create slideshow of that. It seems really interesting to me and I will certainly looking for implement this sooner on my personal site.
Thanks for sharing such a wealthy tips 🙂
Thanks so much, Ayaz; I’m glad you found it helpful!
Have a great weekend,
Rebecca
I do #1 to promote my blog posts. I’m also planning to repurpose my posts and convert it to videos, but I find podcasting easier and faster for me to do, that is why I stick to it.
Thanks for sharing these content repurposing tips.
Neal,
I agree that podcasting is much faster than creating videos, which is one reason I like it. This is especially true once you get the hang of it and are comfortable with just one take.
Best to you,
Rebecca
I like your idea of converting the post into an audio, it woulb be one interesting way to go through the post without putting in much time to read the entire content. The video making also makes sense because watching a video helps understand the post better.
Hi Ric,
Thanks for your comment. I do hope you give at least one of these a try. Video does help a lot of people understand better. My preferred learning style is reading, but I know that a ton of people learn better through watching a video or listening to a podcast. This is precisely why it makes sense to create a lot of different types of content.
Have an awesome weekend, Ric!
Rebecca
Repurposing is a good thing. People have different ways that they learn and if you take a blog post and make it audio, then the people that might not read but love to listen can get your content. Good ideas!
Jason, truly, the fact that people take in content best in different ways is one of the main reasons to repurpose. You seem to reach a different audience that way, so it’s definitely worth it.
Hope you have a great day!
Rebecca
I love the idea of repurposing your posts to add depth to your content. Can you tell me what you need to create the audios? That seems like an easy but effect step to take next.
Thank You
Justin,
My apologies for my delayed response. I got a bit backed with work!
For recording, I use a Yeti microphone and I use Audacity (which is free). I host my audio files on Libsyn and then post them on my WordPress site. I use the PowerPress plugin. Hope that helps!
Rebecca
I think now a days mostly people have not much time to sit on computer and read complete story and then go for some purchase they now like to listen with some thing different and interesting if I talk about my self some time its look so hard to read any article but the next moment if I visit any video site like youtube I watch movies or 3 to 7 minutes.
In the last but not lest I like to said this is today’s best post till now.
Thanks so much for your kind words, Mark! I agree that people don’t always have time to read and some do not like to read. Both are reasons to use other media such as audio. Audio is especially good since it can be consumed on the go, while doing something else such as exercising or driving.
Best,
Rebecca
Thanks for sharing!I agree that podcasting is much faster than creating videos, which is one reason I like it.
It sounds really good!
Clemence,
You are absolutely right that creating audio can be fast. Some people take a long time with it if they spend a lot of time editing and trying to make it perfect. But you certainly don’t have to do that in order for it to succeed.
Best to you,
Rebecca
Creating a podcast sounds like a fanastic idea. Video slide show sounds good, what software do you recommend? Have a wonderful day.
Mr. MakingUsmile
Hello, Mr. M. 🙂
I use Audacity for audio and I just use PowerPoint to create slideshows. I like keeping it simple!
Best
Rebecca
Excellent lesson to learn how to make repurpose a blog! Article spinner is not a good way but posts as articles & submit posts & articles in directories really help full way to repurpose a blog post
Steve,
Like you, I’m not a big fan of article spinners. Rewriting is one thing, spinning is another thing. Rewriting results in much better quality content, for sure!
Best
Rebecca
Thanks so much for your comment, Ravi.
It really does help to put a lot of different types of media on a blog, and repurposing content is one way to go about it, for sure.
Hope you have a great week!
Rebecca
Neha,
Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to leave a comment. I’d love to know which of these tips you’ll try!
Best,
Rebecca
Converting a blog post into podcast and making a video of it, looks most interesting to me. But we would not love to implement these tips with each of our blog post. There will be very few selected blog posts that we want to be everywhere like on Youtube, on document sharing websites and article publishing websites etc.
Thanks for this article. I am attempting to start up a small proofreading website myself but I didn’t realise how much SEO was needed. This is very useful.
They are great point and i think using article directory is good idea to transform your traffic and make your blog moving forward. I am not too that good on video but i know it can also transform your blog and help with huge traffic. thanks for sharing