Reuse, recycle, repurpose

Do you write blog posts?

If yes, it might be a good time to double-check why, and make them work harder for you.

One of the criteria Google uses to rank websites is freshness, so regular blog posts are a good way to nudge your way up the search engine rankings.

They can also be optimised as landing pages for SEO or AdWords. Once readers are on your site, they might be persuaded to buy from you.

Most importantly, blog posts are great for demonstrating expertise and adding value for site visitors.

But it doesn’t need to stop there.

Every article you write can be used in a multitude of ways. Here are some (mostly) free ways of leveraging your blog posts.

You can send your blog posts out to your mailing list in the form of a newsletter or tipsheet like mine (or write articles for your newsletter and archive them to the blog).

This way, you are reaching two different audiences. One group is strangers, the other is people who already know you.

Remember, your blog is passive. It sits there hoping people will find it by accident or design. You can drive them there by SEO, AdWords and social media updates.

By contrast, your newsletter is more proactive. It’s sent out regularly to land in the inboxes of your subscribers and remind them who you are, what you do, and that you’re thinking of them. (It has the same effect even if they don’t open it and read it.)

If you use WordPress, you can do this automatically through RSS and and MailChimp.

You can also copy/paste your blog posts and publish them as LinkedIn articles where they will reach yet another network.

And that’s not all.

You can automatically share each new blog post to your social media platforms with tools such as Dlvr.it.

You can give your blog posts longevity by using MissingLettr to auto-tweet links for the next 12 months.

You can use a tool such as Lumen5 to turn your blog posts into video slideshows. It only takes a few minutes, and the resulting videos are great for social sharing, where they get more engagement than written text. (I’ve been testing this and it’s true, painful though it is for me – a copywriter – to admit it.)

You can record yourself on your webcam using the blog post on your screen as a prompt (not a script), and add the resulting talking head video on your YouTube channel from where you can embed it on your social platforms.

When you’ve collected a few posts, you can use Designrr to make them into an ebook in PDF or flipbook format to use as an incentive for lead generation, or as a gift for loyal customers or prospective clients. You can even generate a Kindle book at the touch of a button, and sell it on Amazon.

You can also collate blog posts into an A4 magazine using Blurb. It’s print-on-demand, so you can customise the cover with a different logo/title/image every time. Imagine the impact it would make on a prospect when you leave them their own magazine at the end of your initial meeting. Or the perceived value to delegates when you hand out magazines on your training course, instead of standard folders and inserts.

Ultimately, you can top-and-tail a whole bunch of blog posts and turn them into a print book, using CreateSpace or Lulu. A print book is no easy route to a fortune, but it’s the best business card you’ll ever have.

Those are just a few ideas of how to get the most out of your blog posts. Can you think of any more?

P.S. Many people tell me they don’t have time to blog. So one of the things I do is ghost-write blog posts for clients. As a professional copywriter, I write in a different ‘voice’ for every client. Some of them are short, snappy and lighthearted. Others are longer thought leadership pieces. Please let me know if you’d like a quote.