How to Rewrite Old Content For New Material

Content creation is all about producing new material regularly.

However, coming up with new ideas all the time can be challenging and there’s nothing worse than suffering from writer’s block when your website needs those extra visitors. What many website owners don’t know is that you can create brand new material from existing content that you’ve already published elsewhere on your site.

This article will show you how to take an existing post and turn it into new content that your community will love.

Create an EBook From Your Best Posts

Every website has its most popular posts – the ones that have the most comments, re-tweets, pingbacks and shares. More than just an exercise in rewriting, an eBook can bring a new dimension to your brand, increase your web presence and firmly cement you as an expert in your field.

EBooks can cover a wide range of topics relating to your niche and with the right spin, can give your website a unique selling point, unavailable elsewhere on the web. Packaging your work into a neat collection gives you a powerful product that can be given away for free, sold on your website or used as an ‘add on’ to existing products.

Be sure to create a cover for your eBook using either free or paid imaging tools. The most popular program for creating eBook covers is Photoshop but this product can take some time to getting used to. If you’re not keen on learning new skills (or parting with your money), I’d recommend using a free alternative like Gimp or Paint.Net.

To begin with, market your eBook to your existing community and encourage your website subscribers to share your product with their friends and colleagues. If you plan to use your eBook to increase your website’s visitors, then you can submit your product to eBook directories, announce its launch on social media sites and approach similar websites in your niche and enquire whether they’d be interested in sharing your book with their mailing list.

Create Videos From Your Content

Videos can add a new layer of content to your website and search engines love them. At the moment, it’s easier to reach the Google top spots through video than through content because there’s less competition. Create videos based around your most popular content pieces and tap into a new community on websites like YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion. Additionally, you’ll be able to add these videos to your older posts to add value for new visitors.

If the narratives on your videos differ from the content in the article on which your video is based, include the transcription in the description of your video. Also, make sure you include tags with your videos as these can help increase your views. If you’re new to video marketing and don’t have many subscribers, why not approach other users whose accounts have more subscribers and ask if you can upload your video on their channel? This way, you’ll get more views faster.

In short, video is highly engaging, converts well and creates new branding opportunities for your website or blog. Videos can also be an effective way of informing your community about a written post they may have missed in the past.

Use Your Content to Create a Podcast

Set up a microphone and a recording device and begin reading through your content. You can publish your recording as a podcast which gives you another platform to share your expertise, authority and brand. Podcasts are a great way to engage with people who may not have otherwise found your written content. Podcasts are particularly popular with commuters, businessmen and those interested in new technology.

Your voice can also give your content a new level of personality which people can connect with. Behind the screen of every computer is another human being that wants to make a connection; your voice can be the thing that resonates in their heads whenever they come across content that you’ve already covered in your podcasts (now that’s clever content branding).

Conclusion

There are more than a few ways to take your content and repurpose it into new work. Using existing material does not carry a penalty with search engines nor does it affect your ranking; it’s actually a great approach to content creation because you’re providing more ways for people to learn from and engage with your website.

In what other ways to do you repurpose your existing content?