Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Editing and Repurposing Content for the Web
The web thrives on content. There's information out there for almost anything you want to
search for. But people search in different ways, so repurposing your content intelligently
is an excellent way of getting extra value from the content you've created without spamming
the internet with hundreds or thousands of duplicate pages.
Once you've created an original piece of content - an item on your blog, an article like this
one or whatever else - here's what you can do to make it work harder for you.
Use social media Almost everywhere you look, sites are encouraging
you to use social media. But you can use it to blow your own trumpet
as well. Whenever there's a social media button on
a page that has content you've just created, use it!
Tweet about the content, add it to your Facebook page, share it on LinkedIn or wherever else.
Take the time to personalise the automatically generated posting suggestion so that it reads
better than the computer's best guess.
Turn it into a PowerPoint Copy the content of your article into a series
of PowerPoint slides (there's a free equivalent at Libre Office if you haven't got one on
your computer) and save the presentation. If you want to add graphics, do so but they're
not essential. Format the pages so the font looks good and
there's at most a screen full of information on each page - about half a normal word processor
page in length. Add in a clickable link in the footer and
a call to action with a link at the end of the presentation and then upload it to a document
sharing site. Edit the summary box, select the correct category
and add some tags before you publish it.
Turn it into a video Start with the PowerPoint and then start a
screen capture program like Screencast-o-matic or even the software that came with your webcam
if you're feeling brave. Read the document out loud into the screen
capture program, clicking between the slides when you finish each page.
An article like this one will take about 4 or 5 minutes to record.
Once your screen capture software has turned this into an MP4, upload the video to YouTube.
Edit the title if necessary, add a description including one or more links pointing back
to your site, add some tags and press the publish button.
If you've got other sites or blogs that you can embed the video, so
much the better.
Turn it into an image This could be a simple image with just a series
of bullet points and some nice fonts and colours. Or it could be something fancier that would
pass for being an infographic - you can hire people on sites like Fiverr to do this for
you if your graphical expertise is like mine.
Turn it into an audio Most screen capture programs come with the
option of saving the audio track separately. If yours doesn't, there is plenty of software
like VLC that will do it for you. Once you've converted your video to an audio,
upload it to one of the many podcasting sites such as iTunes or a specialist podcast site.
That's it! In roughly the same time as it took you to
create the original content, you've got at least 5 different repurposed versions of your
content which can all work hard for you promoting your site.
If you'd like to know more, check out this post on repurposing your content on the web.
And if you'd like to know how to write a piece of content like this one fast, take a look
at writing an article in 20 minutes.