Blogs are good for your SEO (or so they say)
Every marketing guru we know advises business owners to use a website blog to gain traction in Google searches. They’re not wrong. Blogs can help you increase your web traffic and raise your Google search rankings. They’re also valuable resources for answering the questions that make prospects and customers hesitate before purchasing.
However, we’ve found that clients are often resistant to blogging. It’s time-consuming. It’s costly. And it’s hard to come up with original content ideas.
But in fact you probably have plenty of material for your blog right now.
We bet you have great content for blog posts that you’re ignoring. But much like that $50 bill from your aunt that you stashed in a drawer after your birthday party was over, you’ve just forgotten it’s there.
We’re here to remind you of the buried treasure you’re already got. Five cost-effective ways to repurpose content you already have
Video or podcast transcripts
Many business owners have turned to video and/or podcasts to educate potential customers about what they do. These are powerful engagement tools – video has surpassed written blog posts as the most popular form of content marketing – but don’t assume that everyone just wants to watch videos. Believe it or not, some of us still like to read, and the written word is still important to your SEO. Take a piece of that video or podcast and turn it into a blog post so that readers in your audience can benefit from your knowledge!
Social media posts that performed well
Some of you are already thought leaders in your industry. Perhaps you’ve shared some original thoughts about a trending topic in a LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook post that a lot of people liked or commented on. If these posts are already getting some social media attention, it may be a sign that there’s a larger story there. Mine the comments and questions people asked about it to expand your ideas, or reach out to those who liked the post to see what more they’d like to learn from you.
Talks or pitches
A client of ours spoke at a major conference that was videotaped by someone in the audience. The content was great, but the video wasn’t good enough to post to the site. Instead, we used a transcript of the video to create a longer written piece of content. In the same way, you can easily turn any pitches/commercials you’ve done in networking groups into blog posts. One of the most popular posts on our site, comparing LinkedIn profiles to hats, started out as the weekly award-winner in our BNI group.
White papers, reports, and other marketing collateral
We were hired by a marketing agency to review a 200-page white paper on cybersecurity and write a 500-word blog post about a very specific section. The whitepaper was extremely dry, using technical jargon that could only be followed by the very narrow audience it was aimed at. The blog post was intended to engage a wider segment of their market, so we used simpler, more conversational language to convey the message. This a tactic you could easily use to create several blog posts from a pre-existing larger document.
Book chapters
A client of ours wrote a book ten years ago that she gives to her clients when they sign up for her events. Much of the book’s content had never been used on her blog. We reviewed the book, figured out which of the chapters fit the content pillars she wanted to convey to clients, and edited the most important chapters into blog posts. One thing we had to look at was updating language for a modern audience that increasingly cares about inclusivity and diversity, removing phrases like “bet like a girl” that wouldn’t go over as well in our current times. If you’re ever written a book, or just started one, that content is there for the taking.
Which of your content assets can you repurpose RIGHT NOW?
Take a moment to think about the content you have on hand. In a short amount of time you can repurpose that content into blog posts, improving your SEO and web traffic, without the expense of time, money, and energy expended creating content from scratch. So go look for that buried treasure, pull it out of the drawer, and start spending.
Laurel Carpenter and Charles Herold are the co-founders of Pearl Consulting NYC.
We specialize in content marketing for service-based businesses, including business blogging and copywriting. We write resumes and LinkedIn profiles for everyone else. Contact us at laurel@pearlconsultingnyc.com to find out how we can help you find the gem in your story.
