You’re probably familiar with the online adage, “Content is king.”
Does your stomach churn when you think about all of the new content you have to create to live up to that standard? I can totally relate!
Sure, producing new material and keeping your web presence dynamic is essential for the growth and success of your business. It establishes you as an expert and keeps your raving fans hungry for more of what you offer.
But thinking about what it takes to create sparkly new content every week will make almost anyone sick! The good news is that it doesn’t have to… if you know my secret little trick.
(Of course I’m going to tell you! I always do.)
Why You’re Getting Trapped
In hearing “content is king,” many entrepreneurs fall into this trap: They think that every new blog post has to be a concept created from scratch, something no one has ever heard before.
Let me be the first to say, if you can come up with shiny new content every week, more power to you; you have an incredible gift (and a ton of free time). As for me and my clients, we have customers to serve and only so much time to blog. Can you relate?
So what’s a high-achieving entrepreneur like you supposed to do?
You certainly don’t want to stop creating content or connecting with your subscribers.
Instead, you’re going to take a new approach: Repurpose your content.
Repurposing 101: The Right (and Wrong) Way to Reuse What You Already Have
First, I’m sure you know it’s never a good idea to copy and paste a blog post from a year ago, slap on a new title, and hope no one notices. Google certainly will, downgrading your rankings immediately.
Second, remember that you have new readers following you every day (especially if you joined my list-building program), so repurposing an old idea will make it new to some. And if you repurpose the right way, the reused topic could strike a long-time reader in a way it didn’t before, making it feel fresh to that person as well.
So what is the right way to repurpose content? You want to add value to an old idea, making it into something entirely new. This process is exactly what I’m going to spell out for you today.
Ready for detailed relief from the dreadful adage, “Content is king?” Tweet It! Then read on.
Repurposing 201: 7 Ways to Leverage What You Already Have
Here are seven no-fail ways to leverage your existing content, saving you time and brain power while still providing incredible value to your readers.
Blogspriation (that’s blog + inspiration) #1: Pull Apart
Diving deeper into a concept you’ve lightly touched upon in a previous post is a great way to repurpose content.
For example, I could take my post, 5 Business Myths That Are Wasting Your Time, and pull out each myth into a separate post. By going deeper into each subject, I’m helping my readers further avoid those dangerous time-wasters.
Blogspriation #2: Combine
Opposite from the first method, here you’ll take a series of posts and combine the ideas into a single article.
That’s what I did for my post, Life Getting in the Way of Business? Here’s What to Do About It. The concepts in the second half of the article (say no, set up systems, and schedule what’s important) were previously shared in three individual posts. This new one reviewed those tips while putting them in the context of a personal story.
We all hear how people need to to be told something multiple times before it clicks. Given that those three topics (saying no, setting up systems, and scheduling what’s important) are key principles to running and growing a business without lapsing in your mental and emotional well-being, it can only help for you to read it a few more times…
Blogspriation #3: Steal from Your Client Archives
Have something you share exclusively with your private clients? (Of course you do!) Steal it from your client archives and share it with your readers in a blog post.
Don’t worry about “giving away all the good stuff for free.” That’s scarcity thinking and not worth the mental energy. Instead, use your post as an opportunity to lightly pitch your services, mentioning that you share more great content just like it with your private clients. Then give readers a link to your services page.
Stealing from my exclusive client archives is exactly what I did with this post: Steal This! My Step-by-Step Guide to Telling Clients You’re Raising Your Rates.
Another way to steal from the archives is to repurpose content from free calls or paid programs into blog posts. I love using this approach!
Blogspriation #4: Borrow Your Brilliant Guest Posts
If you’re building your list, you’re probably guest posting. And if you’ve taken my class, Get Your First 1000 Subscribers, you know you should always offer your best content when you pitch a guest post. (Hint: Never ever pitch your blog’s recycled content!)
However, many sites will allow you to reuse (not copy-paste, but repurpose!) the concept from your guest post for an article on your site after a certain time period has passed. This is a genius way to leverage what you’ve already written. Take your brilliant post and rewrite it with a new spin. It takes less effort the second time around, and it will give you something valuable to share with your own audience.
Blogspriation #5: As You Learn It, Share It!
As you’re learning and growing in your own life and business, you likely have new information and ideas to share with your audience. Taking previously-shared concepts and updating them is a great way to repurpose content and increase its value.
A year and a half ago I wrote a post called The Easiest Answer to the Toughest Question. It was to help you figure out how to describe what you do when people ask about your business. Now I know even more about this topic. Inspired by my old post and armed with additional knowledge and experience, I wrote a new post called Why You Shouldn’t Sell Coaching and What to Sell Instead. It’s another approach for explaining what you do and selling prospects on working with you.
Blogspriation #6: Ask Your Audience
Sometimes your best blogspiration will come from your readers.
Great questions always lend to fun and easy-to-write blog posts. This is why I let readers know they can always ask questions on my Facebook page. Sometimes the questions are easy to answer in a quick Facebook reply. Other times they require a full-blown post to address.
Here’s a post inspired by a fan’s Facebook question: 5 Tried-and-True Signs It’s Time to Raise Your Rates. Thank you, reader, for the fantastic question!
Blogspriation #7: Ask Others to Contribute
Sometimes it’s nice to get a little help writing your posts. Reach out and ask others to contribute to your blog. You’ll be sharing useful information with your readers and saving your brain power by not generating the new content.
When I was posed a thought-provoking question on my Facebook page, I knew other women could answer it better than I could. So I reached out and collected answers. What I got in return created two easy-for-me blog posts that provided helpful-for-you content!
Finally End Content Creation Burnout!
Today I’ve shared 7 tips for avoiding content creation burnout, so you can keep sharing the goods with your audience without taxing your brain.
Now, I’d love to know…
Which ideas above gave you immediate blogspiration for brain saving, content-rich blog posts?
What other ideas do you have for avoiding content creation burnout while still providing great information for your readers?
I can’t wait to hear what you’ve got in the comments below!
As always, thanks for reading. And please pass along this post to a friend who could benefit from a little blogspiration!
P.S. The beautiful irony of today’s post on saving time by repurposing content is that this article originally started as a repurposed post but slowly transformed into an entirely new creation. It became my second most time-intensive post to write. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it!
Hi Jenny, this couldn’t have been written at a better time for me as I’ve been struggling to keep up with blog posting once a week. I’ve just been on holiday and the week before is always manic with getting everything finished for clients and my first week back – well what can I say, It’s taking a little time to get back into the groove. I needed some inspiration and your post has provided it, perfectly. Thank you
So happy it helped you today, Anne!
Ooh Jenny this is genius! I hadn’t really given much thought to re-purposing yet — I made a 5 month editorial calender when I first started my site (which has helped A TON) but I still feel sometimes like I’m running on that hamster wheel of content creation. While I know I should batch post-writing so I can clear some time in my week, each post takes me like 3-4 hours right now with research, drafts, videos & newsletter copy so I was struggling to figure out how to do it. But cutting down the amount of time that goes into some of the posts by re-purposing is GENIUS. Thank you for sharing your efficiency secrets so openly!
I love editorial calendars and personally keep a huge list of blog post ideas so I always have something to right. And, sometimes the best content is old content written in a new way.
As far as batching, consider taking 2 full days at the beginning of every month to write all 4 posts. Then they’re done. I do that (most of the time) and it works out really well. Keep experimenting, and you’ll find your groove.
Hi Jenny! I LOVE this article. Great tips here that I’m going to put to good use. I love your writing style, it’s so clean and easy to read and feels like your talking right to me.
Sarah
Thanks, Sarah!
Hey there Jenny…great article and something near and dear to my heart! In fact, I wrote a couple of blog posts about this recently. I spent 15 years helping corporate clients strategically repurpose their content and, until recently, hadn’t brought that out for the world. Silly me. I call it “Taming the ContentBeastie™ and your tips are so on target!
Laugh Lots, Love More!
MamaRed
That’s so funny that you used to help people do this! Glad to hear you think I’m on point with all of it, especially coming from a pro 🙂
Absotively Jenny! Still bamfoozled at why I didn’t think to put this into my product offerings a LONG time ago (and that’s a long boring story of recognizing my worth).
Awesome – just what I needed to hear. I’ve been in a slump for weeks, feeling nearly every time I sat some to write that the title of the post would be “I have absolutely nothing to say to you”! Now I’m armed with some great ideas – thanks!
We all always have something to say. We just forget sometimes!
This is perfect Jenny! I will definitely take heed. I think becuase I am an actual writer, I put off writing because it comes so easy, but then I end up letting it stay on my list. I actually thought about this today: my tribe is most likely waiting on me the same way I wait on you and others that I actually consistently follow. What if you did what I did and postponed your writing? Then I wouldn’t be reading this perfect blog post today. I have to keep this in mind every time I want to postpone my writing.
Schedule it, Fon!! Either in big batches at the beginning of the month or every week at a set time. Eventually, if you hold yourself to it week after week, it will become easy and your brain will “expect it” when it’s time to write. Make your calendar your best friend!
Jenny, this was so helpful. Thank you. Q: I literally have years of posts: recipes, tips, articles that were on my old blog (that was never linked to my old site and was nothing more than a holding place for my newsletters) and not on my spanky new site. I’ve been reposting some and back dating them. But since no one but my subscribers saw them, is it kosher to repost (if I edited, re-photographed) them? Not sure how to handle this…not so much for my readers (I let them know I created this years ago) but for google?
Great question! If they’re not on your site, sure you can backdate them, or you can save them for the days or weeks when you are on vacation or don’t have time to write! As long as they’re not exact copies of something that’s already on your site, Google won’t downgrade you; it just doesn’t like copy-paste of content already on the internet.
Thank you (as always!), Jenny, for making one of the most grueling tasks a bit easier. Anything to help lighten the load and simplify is music to my ears!
xo
My pleasure!
Great post, Jenny! This was SO timely for me – I’m creating 2 weeks’ worth of content right now and last night I had the idea of doing one of the blog posts on a topic that’s in my free ebook. In the ebook, it’s just a short tip, so I thought I could expand it out and use a different focus (more in line with the current direction of my biz). I guess I still had some doubts if this would be too “lazy” of me, so your post was perfect validation! Thank you!
Lazy? I like to rephrase that as “smart”!!
Thanks Jenny for this most awesome post! I like the point about asking your clients questions and utilizing them for great content writing.
I know as a web designer informative, fresh new content not only helps google rankings, but definitely helps potential clients find you from solving specific problems that address their needs.
You are the best teacher for this. Thanks Jenny!
Yes! New content is a great two-for-one deal 🙂
Thank you, Jenny! I appreciate your ideas on how to repurpose or “refresh” old content. It’s hard – and nearly impossible – to create something new every single week so borrowing and upgrading past posts is a brilliant idea! Thank you! 🙂
You’re welcome!
Jenny, pure gold as usual!
Now I’ll be honest, blogging seems to come natural to me, I’ve got so many thoughts spinning about my head that it’s fairly easy for me to pluck one out and write (case in point, I was writing copy for a new product this morning and a train of thought during that lead to me drafting out a guest post!) But now and again I’m a bit too mentally taxed to ride the inspiration train. I love the repurposing and breaking down or combining older content. Now that I’ve read that I can say I’ve seen that done several times, as well as offering various levels of advice – “the top 3 tips for beginners” vs “7 steps to take it to the next level”. Many times there is a little overlap but still a definitive focus in each post.
One thing that helps me is going with the flow. I do my best not to resist the call and to write out things when they come to me, rather than trying to file them away. Sometimes this leads to writing an entire post, but usually I express 2-3 strong ideas (at the most) that I can pick up on later. The more I just do the easier it becomes, I develop a mental habit and it takes less and less effort.
Free writing to me is a fantastic tool when you are stuck. You just free flowingly let whatever thoughts run through your mind glide onto the paper without expectation. The lack of pressure opens up our little rivers of creativity and soon you can have a white river rapids going!
Great tips, Aradia. I know that many of us like to write from inspiration… except when it doesn’t show up! It’s nice to hear that freewriting often works to get you out of that stuckness. I’m certain someone reading will need to hear just that today.
Thank you for sharing!
Awesome stuff Jenny! I love the idea of “pulling apart” — my blogs almost always have multiple points (3 to 5 usually), so it’ll be amazing to get several weeks of posts from just one previously-written article. Plus, I totally agree that we all need to hear a concept more than once, and in different ways, for it to really sink in.