Tips to Help You Make Most Out of Your Existing Content
Even to the least, effective content marketing means rewarding web traffic. But is it that obvious and easy? Not quite, if anything, the online space can be a shade brutal. I’ll explain.
The internet houses tons of content with new stuff coming in daily. Take social media for instance, your post can find its way to the bottom of your news feed in under an hour of posting it. Yet social media only makes up a fraction of the massive internet traffic. That means, there is so much coming in that crowds the online space.
Good or Bad; everybody is creating something. This has influenced many content marketers to be at their best game. And so are businesses after online visibility. They can’t help but try to figure out how to engage effective content marketing. Be it a portfolio website or woocommerce site, the need for fresh content every other time is vital.
The goal is simple; to optimize for search engine traffic while remaining relevant. If this works, it means more traffic to your business, which translates to more sales. With this kind of pressure, the push is to have new content every other time. But what happens to the old content in the archives?
Effective content marketing involves making use of the old content. Content never grows old enough to be valueless. Especially if you are giving it the attention it deserves.
Facebook has chosen to go at it using the ‘memories’ feature. They dig into the archives and unearth the old posts, giving you an option to share them. This covers a wide range of content from pictures, videos and posts in general. Often, such content from years back helps spice things up a bit on one’s timeline.
If Facebook is engaging, it goes to show you how significant the archives can be. Below are some gathered facts that can help you use your old content to gain more traffic.
Do a Little Refurbishing
If you intend to repost your existing content without changing much, then you need to revamp it. It helps to remain clear about your objectives. The old content already exists online, that means you need to reword it to sound fresh.
Additionally, spruce it up a bit to offer value to your readers. For one, you can keep the old content and add some new insightful stuff. Once this is well done, ensure that you optimize it for the search engines.
You can edit the meta tags and get a suitable meta description. A good meta description can get you a higher click through rate in search results. Along with titles and meta descriptions, heading tags are vital for good SEO.
Throw In Some Multimedia
This is definitely one way to make the most of existing content. Using images and videos can bring your content alive in a dynamic way. Think about how easy it is to pass a message with an image versus expressing the same in words. Blending the two gives you better results and more traction with the search engines.
Even then, you need to do it right when it comes to optimizing such content for the search engines. Add the necessary tags and ensure that the content is useful and has flow. Doing so let’s search engines read them and get an idea of what they’re about. Like your page titles and descriptions, the tags should be unique and relevant to the content.
Along with optimizing the data, you should also make sure your images aren’t too big or too small for your site. Large images can affect the loading time as well as the appearance. As a caution, do not overdo multimedia. Let the image or video elevate the message and not overshadow it.
A ‘how-to’ listicle can perform better with images showing exactly what needs to happen. Wikipedia has gone a great deal to show how this can work out. Here is an example.
Always Consider Trends
The best way to capture your audience with old content is to match it up with the current trend. This will definitely turn heads. This is because not only is it old info, but it also seems to be up to date. Content creators are doing this by updating data and modifying their delivery style.
Never try too hard. Sometimes what is out there could seem far better than what you have published. Borrow a leaf and edit your existing content to blend in with the present world of information. With the best of ingenuity and research, your content could come alive again.
As a motor expert, you can refurbish a piece about road safety during the festive season. During this time, roads tend to be more busy resulting in many incidences. Such a juicy piece that is in season and insightful can get fast adoption by the target audience.
Promote Existing Content
All your efforts listed above will be a waste of time, energy and resources if you do not push them to the audience. Nobody will know about your content if you do not promote it. You can use the particular marketing campaign that suits it and is also within what you can afford.
Still using the Facebook example. Even after Facebook gathers your old posts and groups them into “memories”, only you get to see them. Unless you share them, nobody else will see them. With the saturation of content in the internet, you need to be aggressive to get people to read.
Effective content marketing offers different ways to do this such as email marketing. Building on organic search is one sure way to draw people to your website. While this takes time, using paid search options like Google ads can help.
Another smart method is searching related sites for broken links in their content. If you have a piece that relates to what they were pointing to, then you can ask them to use your post instead. This is powerful way to grow your back links and improve your SEO.
If this is new to you, here is the process in a nutshell:
- Find pages that used to exist but are now dead but websites are still linking to.
- Tailor your content to fit that piece.
- Reach out to those particular websites and suggest that they update their link to your page.
Put it as a Suggestion to a Related Publication
This is also one way to promote your content within your own website. Often, you will produce content that relates to something you have already published. You can promote your old piece by sharing a link to it on the new post. Let your readers know that it may be important that they also read that post.
Here is an example of a post that relates to this but with a different angle. Check it out to gain more insights in regards to the subject.
Rebrand, Republish, and Refer
Like I shared earlier, don’t try too hard. Sometimes all you need to get the attention of your readers is to rebrand the piece, and publish it. By referring to it a lot on your other pieces, you can arouse the interest of your readers. Note that this is not the same as developing new content.
Here, you get to look at some of the attraction points like titles. You can review an old title by giving it flair. That way, as you push it across other posts through referrals, it gets noticed. New readers who might not have managed to dig deeper than the latest posts might find it very helpful.
Partner with other Content Creators
This could be another very good way of making the most of an existing content. Two good heads are better than one. Research has it that collaborated content finds more traction than solo pieces. the logic behind this is rather obvious. People find such content more thorough and insightful because of the parties involved.
You stand to gain a lot by involving other authors even from unrelated niches. A motor expert can partner with a tour guide and come up with a piece that works for both their good. While at it, they can share back links across their existing contents in their websites.
Also, you can develop separate pieces and link to each others existing content. As a tour guide for example, I can develop a post about the best camping sites in the country. I can then link a vehicle expert’s website to direct my readers to info on knowing what vehicle to use.
Most content creators are quick to write off existing content. It is normal, considering the pressure to keep up with constant content creation. Nonetheless, it is wise to know that old content is also an asset in effective content marketing.