7 Tips to Recycle Content

Consider these 7 tips to recycle or upcycle the marketing content you already have.

Happy New Year! You have big dreams for your business in 2021, and maybe you’ve decided to invest more time and money into your marketing. Or maybe your business is hurting and you need to do the best with the resources you have. While you are gearing up for what’s new, I often find that businesses have a plethora of under-utilized content just ripe for recycling. If you need to save some money and or fill some holes in your 2021 editorial calendar, consider these tips to recycle or upcycle the good stuff you’ve already done.

1. Review the Data - Can you name your best performing content from 2020? A recent survey of bloggers found that 32% of respondents always checked the analytics of their blog posts — Do you? Look over your stats and evaluate what worked best. In addition to metrics of engagement, look at the length of posts, types of posts, headline length etc… and use that to inform what would be good to recycle. Don’t skip this step to review your marketing analytics.

2. Preserve the SEO - If you’ve been active on your blog, it’s likely you have a seasonally related post last year that would still apply this year. Case in point - New Year’s Resolution blogs. You can retain the SEO power from the original blog, keep the URL the same, and under the subhead, just add a “Originally Published on XXX” date. We just went through a pandemic, so make sure it is still context appropriate for the times. If your blog doesn’t require any major content changes, update the dates, and promote on email marketing or social.

   Note: If you change your URL, you will want to work with your marketing or website pro at establishing a canonical URL. Here’s a good article on how/why from Yoast.

3. Update the Headline and Images - Don’t be afraid to use multiple headlines for the same piece of content, and make sure you’re hitting your ideal focus keywords. You can always test what works best with your audience. Also refresh an old post with new images (don’t forget the SEO trick to describe with keywords on your image ALT tags), or turn the content into an eye-catching infographic and publish!

4. Rework the Post - The beauty of longer form blog content, is that you can take your main points (and keywords) and refine the post. For example, take a longer post that is quote heavy and pull out the main points for a “quick tips” format. Or, you can take one main point from a previous post and dig deeper. Add relevant supporting evidence, like a new research study or statistic your audience would find interesting. Add a personal story or case study to drive home your point.

5. Make Sure it’s Mobile Friendly - As of 2019, mobile devices, excluding tablets, generated about half of all website traffic globally. (Statista, 2020). Just do a double check and make sure that your blogs look as great on a phone or tablet as they do on your desktop.

6. Leverage Social Media - Another way to extend the life of older blogs is to work it into updated social media posts. Make a quick video or eye-catching social media story to grab your audience’s attention.

7. Improve Your CTA- Make sure your top performing content is working for you beyond just brand awareness or demonstrating your expertise. Does your blog post have a good CTA (call to action) to nurture or build subscribers? Are there additional ways to generate sales/revenue by offering appointments or include a paid offer? Every blog is an opportunity to enter the reader into a sales funnel.

You’ve invested time and money into building quality content, make sure you get all the life out of it. Wishing you much success in 2021. As always if you are looking for help in any of these areas, let me know!

(And here’s where I take my own advice, and add an additional CTA. )

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