- Good content is an investment, so before you trash it think about all the ways you can reduce, reuse, or recycle it.
- You can use pieces of blogs for Google Business posts and social media blurbs.
- You can also use blogs as inspiration for podcast episodes, newsletters, or you can repurpose it as a guest post.
- Sometimes “fixing” underperforming content is as easy as giving it a quick refresh.
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Content, especially good content, can be an expensive investment. As an SEO agency that creates content in one way or another for almost all our clients, from the smallest businesses to major enterprises, we understand that there’s a delicate balance between the initial investment and the content’s longevity. To keep that investment working for you in the long term, there are things you can do to recycle old content and give it a new (and beautiful) life.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” isn’t just a popular slogan from the 1970s; it can be applied to content marketing. In this blog, you can learn how to reduce, reuse, and recycle your blog content because content, like aluminum cans, doesn’t deserve to rot away in the landfill.
Reduce
When it comes to reducing content, we don’t mean cutting out paragraphs or entire sections. Quite the opposite. We’ve noticed that Google prefers longer content that answers users’ questions in-depth over shorter, thin content (and Google has said as much themselves), so we’d never recommend cutting back on word count unless there was a business case for it. Instead, you can take bits and pieces of a blog and reduce it into a social media blurb, use it as newsletter fodder, or transform it into a shareable infographic.
For example, we love using our own blog content for Google Business posts, which is a strategy we use for many of our own clients. Sometimes, one blog can be used for 5-6 different GB posts and just as many social media posts. Work smarter, not harder, amirite?
Wondering what the heck Google Business is? No worries, we’ve got you. Our local SEO team put together this guide to help you understand how to set up your profile and how to leverage Google Business as a tool for your brick-and-mortar business(es).
Reuse
Before you hit the “trash” button in WordPress or Hubspot, think about all the ways you can reuse that piece of content. After all, you already paid for this content, whether in dollars and cents or your time, so why toss it out without a second thought?
You can turn a few underperforming articles into one long pillar page. Per our comment above, we notice that longer content tends to perform better on the SERPs, so this is something we’ve been doing a lot for our own clients. You can also combine the articles into a longer downloadable source that users need to submit their contact information to download. This is a great way to get new emails for your newsletter or sales cycle.
Another thing you can do is use that long pillar piece of content as a link-building tool. Reach out to sites in your network to see if they’d link back to your blog. You can find some outreach and link building tips from our off-page SEO team here, here, and here.
Recycle
If you do decide to remove a piece of content from your site, you can give it a second life as a guest post on another site. After all, who doesn’t love being given a piece of content…for free? This strategy can help you build relationships with other websites, and at redefine, we’re all about building relationships (not links!)
You can also use it to inspire a podcast episode or explainer video. The blog may be underperforming because people are interested in the content but not in written form. You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to search keywords and see what types of content people interact with most. Nowadays, people consume content in more ways than ever before, so you can give that content a new life by giving it a new form.
Like bottles and cans, your content doesn’t always have to keep its original form to be effective.
Maybe your content just needs a refresh
Sometimes “fixing” underperforming content is as easy as refreshing it. Content decay is a totally normal part of the content lifecycle. It is primarily caused by your competition doing it better, technical issues with your site, or changes in the algorithm. Refreshing content can certainly help “solve” traffic drops caused by competition and algorithm changes, but if you think there’s something technically wrong with your site, you’ll need our technical SEO team’s support.
Back to content refreshing, though!
If you have at least 12 months of Google Analytics data available for your blog, identifying decaying content is as easy as 1-2-3 with Animalz Revive. Simply connect your GA account, provide Animalz with access, and they’ll send you a breakdown of your decaying content in a couple of days. Yes, you can pull all that data manually, but why not let Animalz do the heavy lifting?
Once you receive the report, you can refresh and update your content. Make sure to write down the day you updated the content so you can keep an eye on performance and keep track of what updates or optimizations worked (and which ones didn’t.)
What to do after you remove content from your site
If you decide to remove a piece of content from your site (or merge a few different blogs), you’ll need to set up a 301 redirect. If you don’t, visitors may encounter the dreaded 404 error. Not only is that a poor user experience, but 404 errors are ranking barriers in Google’s algorithm.
Worried about 404s? Here’s how to find and fix 404s.
We love recycling (…and recycling content)
At redefine, we’re big on doing what’s good for the planet. And that includes making sure our bottles, cans, and cardboard boxes wind up in the recycling bin. We also enjoy turning an old, stale piece of content into something new and exciting.
We’ve got you covered if you need help identifying your underperforming content (and then repurposing it so it can truly shine). Our content marketing experts are ready to roll up their sleeves and start sorting! Connect with us to learn more about our process and success.
