How to repurpose content to save time and boost SEO

Creating excellent regular content to improve your SEO is a vital task, but one that can be time-consuming. As a busy business owner, you may know the importance of publishing regularly, but may lack the time or headspace to continually come up with new content.

Fortunately, you can take your existing content and repurpose it so that the same information can be used multiple times in different forms. Imagine recording a video that can then also be used as a blog, a podcast, and multiple social posts! Not only will you save time, you’ll reach a wider audience that consumes content in different ways.

What is repurposed content?

Graphic showing how you can repurpose different kinds of content

Repurposed content is simply something you have created that can be lengthened, shortened, or reformatted. A blog becomes a podcast, a podcast becomes a video, a video becomes an Instagram reel. It saves the creator time and gives an audience the chance to experience content in their preferred format.

Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can use existing content – or content you will be creating in the future – in multiple ways.

Ways to repurpose content

Divide and expand existing blogs

Detailed and in-depth blogs about topics you’re knowledgeable about are a great source of traffic. Users come to your site to learn more about a subject, and hopefully leave either having bought a product, or at least knowing a little more about who you are.

Sometimes, though, a topic is so in-depth and interesting, that covering it all in a single post is too much. It’s unlikely that most audiences are going to read a blog that is thousands and thousands of words long.

So maybe you’ve written a blog, but only scratched the topic’s surface? In that case, go through the post and see where you could expand. For each sub-topic, you can create a brand new blog that covers it in more depth.

Not only does this provide you with more items of content, it allows users to easily pick and choose the areas they’re interested in learning more about. Remember to include a master page that links to all the sub-topic pages so that those that want to can easily find and read the whole thing.

Create a video

Screenshots of guide videos on YouTube

Some people love to read a guide, while others prefer to watch a video. So creating a video of your written content (or vice versa) is a great opportunity to reach out to different demographics. You can get on camera yourself, hire actors, or go for an animated option. Getting on camera yourself is the cheapest and quickest option – you don’t even need a proper camera, just a decent phone and some basic equipment.

You can then post the video on your website, YouTube, Vimeo, social media, or even use it on external sites and in adverts.

Record a podcast

Like video and text, podcasts are an alternative medium that are extremely popular. It seems as though everyone nowadays has their own podcast, and with good reason. Unlike video and written content, podcasts allow users to easily listen to your information when they’re in the car, out on a walk, or doing chores around the house. There are a number of free podcast hosting sites including Acast and Buzzsprout.

Consider inviting guests so you can get a different and more in-depth viewpoint on the topic, and get listeners involved by encouraging them to write in. Their questions and comments could be a source of additional content you haven’t yet covered.

Create social posts

Person on Instagram on a phone

On social media, short-form content is usually preferred (depending on the platform). This means that short quotes, quick tips and brief video do well. Can you extract useful tips from your content that are only a sentence or two? Can clips from a longer video be used as a social video?

You can use a free programme such as Canva to create a quote graphic, or iMovie to make a basic video clip. Then share it across your social sites. For maximum SEO impact, don’t forget to include a link to the longer content if you’re able to.

Write a transcript

If videos are your go-to format, then repurposing them into a blog is possible by writing a transcript. As well as creating additional content for your site, a transcript has other benefits including improved accessibility (for example, for users with auditory impairments).

Inclusion of a transcript also means that search engines can more easily pick out keywords and therefore more easily serve your content in search.

Create a ‘Top 10’ of your best content

If you already have an established range of content, top 10s (or top 5s, 7s, 20s, 100s…) can bring together some of your best pieces. Create a list for social,  a blog with summaries of your top content picks, or a countdown video of your best items.

These remind existing followers of your best work, highlight some possible starting points for new visitors, and direct users to further similar content they may be interested in.

Video clips

Tiktok app opening on a phone

Video is a popular way to consume content, but users don’t always have the time (or the attention) to watch a 20-minute YouTube  video. For those people, create shorter clips of longer videos to grab their attention. This is particularly useful for sharing on short-form social media sites including Instagram and TikTok.

Build a course

Have you created enough content – or nearly enough – to build a valuable course around a topic? You may find that you’re putting such useful information out there that users would appreciate a pay-to-play version. Remember to add paid benefits by including elements of your course that can’t be found for free.

Publish a book

Pile of books

Like a course, if you have enough content to fill a book, then why not do just that? It’s easy to self-publish now on marketplaces such as Amazon, and creating an e-book is fairly straightforward with free programmes such as Calibre e-book management.

Write a guest post

While you don’t want to repeat content across other websites, you can summarise some of your longer content for a guest post.

Guest posts have lots of SEO benefits including backlinks (an external link to your website), the opportunity to reach a new audience, and cementing yourself as an expert in a certain field.

Answer questions on Quora

Quora is a website where people go to ask questions that can be answered by experts. Search for a topic relevant to your business and see if you can find some unanswered (or unsatisfactorily answered) questions that you’ve already written about. You can then summarise some of your current content in order to answer a question, and provide details of your website and expertise.

Write a Reddit post

Reddit icon on a mobile

Reddit is a discussion website where many users go to find out more information around topics that interest them. As a result, if you have something fresh to say about a subject, making it into a Reddit post can help you reach a wider audience and establish your expertise. Again, remember not to copy everything word-for-word. An informative yet summarised post will prevent Google flagging your site for duplicate content.

The site is split into subreddits based on a range of topics, and you should read the rules of each subreddit before you post (many, for example, don’t allow links). Even if links aren’t allowed in the main post, there is value in posting for the opportunity to engage with other users, and highlight your expertise.

Design an infographic

Infographics are very shareable, both across social media and on websites. If your content can be summarised into a single infographic, then this is a great way to distribute it more widely. Use a tool like Canva to easily create a design (there are many free templates available).

Ideally, websites that use your infographic will also credit you with a link to your website. Just in case they don’t though, remember to brand your graphic so viewers know where it comes from.

Create a downloadable

If users have the opportunity to download interesting content from your site, then can save it on their computers or phones and easily refer to it again and again.

These downloadables can also be used as incentives for building a mailing list. By asking users to provide an email address before they can download a document, you’re obtaining a new name to send a newsletter to.

Newsletters

When building a mailing list, you can duplicate content in your newsletters. Let an already-engaged audience know when you’ve published something new, and summarise that in the newsletter to encourage them to click through to your website.

A newsletter doesn’t have to be long, but should instead encourage more traffic to your website by enticing subscribers to read more about a topic.

Summary

You can save yourself a lot of time by repurposing your content – in its different formats – across a number of platforms and media. Choose the options that will work best for your business: don’t try and do absolutely everything. You’ll reach a wider audience with less effort and less time spent creating content.

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