What happens when the rush of traffic to your post finally dies down? Not much. It’s the same story – hit publish, get traffic, move on. Wait a second!
Right now, you’re sitting on a mountain of great content – but it’s going to waste. Roll up your sleeves because we’re going diggin’, we’re going to flip your old content into new streams of profit, traffic and branding. How’s that sound, eh?
Answering the question: Why?
Why should I spend time working on old content? You may be thinking…
Well, for the most part, you may often write a new piece of content with your current readers in mind but there are two problems (when it comes to creating profitable content):
- Many of your current readers will either eventually move on or fade out
- Many of your new readers will discover content that you created ages ago
Here’s why both of these are important to remember:
- People move onto new subjects as they age. A follower today may not be there in the near future because of any number of elements: they’ve changed their hobbies, lifestyle, interests, location and more. People naturally lose interest or excel beyond what you have to offer.
- Your older content will be sitting out there on the web, waiting to be discovered by search engine users. Your voice from months ago is completely different than how you sound today. If someone were to discover your first post, right now, will they receive the same impression as if they landed on your latest?
You’ve done all of the hard work by creating the content – taking a few hours to slog through your old content results in a major benefit: You can build upon your past success.
Approach #1: Capitalize on Affiliate Opportunities
The first time you create a new piece of content, you may be a bit reluctant to include affiliate links in fear that you may scare away your current community. Blatantly promoting products will irk many people which are why you may take the route of omitting these affiliate links – which ultimately caps your ability to earn an online income.
To get the best of both worlds: Go back through your top traffic generating content and find an affiliate product which suits the topic. Interweave the new affiliate link into the old context naturally, make it prominent and take a bit of time to touch up the post while you’re editing.
Results: This simple action gives you the opportunity to create an additional revenue stream without alienating your current community since they’re very unlikely to dig back through archived content from ages ago.
Approach #2: Create an Entirely New Campaign
I’ve mentioned before the benefits of creating an ebook using existing content but let’s not stop at some flashy PDF; there are many, many more opportunities to flip your content into entirely new campaigns for branding, traffic and income. Again, going back through your best work and adding a value to it will let you properly assess whether your existing content can be repurposed into a new campaign.
To get the best of both words: Take your most popular post and turn it into an eBook. From there, record a few videos that highlight each of the sections; blast them onto video sharing sites. Create a landing page offering your new freebie; then break down your post into individual articles (which you rewrite) to use in article marketing or guest posts.
Results: After creating an amazing piece of content, you’re done with the hard work. All that’s need to be done now is to turn it into a package and spend a few hours to setup a new domain, email autoresponder and boom, you’ve got another list which you can turn into profit (or drive them to your blog which they may not have originally known).
Approach #3: Create a New Blog or Website
Why stop at just creating a new list or optimizing a post with affiliate links, why not go all the way by creating an entirely new blog related to a topic you love? Design bloggers are very proficient at creating new projects; if you already have a wealth of knowledge in a particular niche topic than starting a separate blog could be a new way to earn an online income without doing heavy amounts of research into a niche you may not know much about.
To get the best of both worlds: Look through your blog and take special note of the categories you use; it’s possible that you could use that existing knowledge to launch a new blog. Additionally, you could repurpose your existing content for items in newsletters and free reports (as mentioned before) along with interlinking the two blogs to trade traffic.
Results: Instead of overloading your blog in one particular category (which many of us do); you’ll be able to take content which may not currently fit your flagship blog and use it on your new domain. A new domain means a new platform to experiment with affiliate marketing, advertising, traffic techniques and your own product launches!
Most Importantly: Have Fun!
So, now you’ve learned a few ways you can take your existing content and flip it into new profit streams but let’s not forget that having fun is the most important goal of it all.
The last thing you want to do is to be overloaded with new projects so take your time if you’re thinking about tackling any of these approaches.
Start off small such as going back through old content and placing affiliate links; after you see how people react to your affiliates only then assess whether building a new site around it will be worthwhile.
Personally, I’m dedicating a month out of each year for the sole purpose of optimizing older content. I’m creating new content from my existing work, optimizing my affiliates and setting up the foundation to create a digital empire. Yes, this is going to add on a lot more work but if I know that people are buying (through just one piece of content) than it can be safe to assume than a full fledge website could turn very profitable in the long run, got me?
Always remember this: You’ve done all the hard work; it’s time to take your content and truly maximize it for what’s possible.
Good luck. Have fun. Leave a comment.
I’ve been using your first strategy for a while now and it is a great way to earn some additional income – and you will be amazed with the traffic some of your old posts are generating that you probably didn’t even know about.
I like how Darren Rowse used your second strategy to create a nice income from his 31DBBB series that turned into a workbook. I’d like to try something like that soon.
Thomas Sinfield´s last [type] ..How To Get An UNLIMITED Supply Of Article Titles
yup…thats a great example…and its a pretty damn good book too (for bloggers just starting out). Funny enough tho, I dont believe Darren mentions repurposing as one of the blogging strategies. Would repurposing be considered an advanced strategy?
Dino Dogan´s last [type] ..The Tyranny of Hyperlink Ends Now!
Who knows Dino but I think that’s certainly one area that I don’t see a lot of bloggers talking about.
You think about it: You work your ass off creating a great piece of content but once it dies down in terms of social media hype, the only people that are going to find it are those that search through your archives or in search engines. Why not take that epic piece of content, build upon it and create something completely new?
I’ve had a great chat with Steve Scott (SteveScottSite.com) and we dove into this topic because we found that there is just so much great information that we put out there that many people may never find. Repurpose it into new videos, record a few of them as podcasts, create pdf’s and use them as freebies for your list – basically, let people find your stuff without having them hunt it down; makes perfect sense.
I think we’ll see a lot of this in the coming future of blogging – glad I could touch on a lot of it now (although, like that conversation we had: I bet this will get passed over until someone big finally mentions this as a tactic, ya know?)
Gah – I should have totally gave you the shout out on there Thomas because it was your conversation that really sparked the first one. For those that read our little comment here, Thomas was dead on. After we chatted, I went back into some older posts and promoted an affiliate product that I stand behind – it converted a few people (and still does) which has turned into a pretty good money maker for literally 10 minutes of work
As for the second, Darren shows the perfect example of repurposing content into a product. That ebook has sold like hot cakes ever since it got launched. Yeah, people could have found that content but it’s all about the packaging and having it in one area to work from instead of having to bounce all over the place to find the information – the power of creating a bundle!
Thanks for your comment Thomas, you’re a great inspiration to niche blogging – certainly someone to follow.
The first strategy sounds is the most easy way to monetize the old post. I will try it in my blog.
Dana´s last [type] ..6 iPhone’s Popular Games
Glad you liked it Dana – it’s really easy to go back through and add these links; you can easily integrate them into the posts and while you’re at it, you can optimize a few of the older articles so they are currently up to your standards in writing, ya know?
Good tips here. I try to go through my old blog posts once a month or so and update links, add affiliate links, etc. But don’t forget about any autoresponder messages you’ve got set up as well. Those can often use updating.
Another thing I like to do is reformat. I’ve just begun experimenting with video on one site, and I’m going through old posts and seeing what might make a good video tip.
Cindy Bidar´s last [type] ..5 Opening Paragraph Strategies- or Why You Should Stop Writing for Search Engines
You’ve got it Cindy! Love to hear when people are proactive with this kind of tactic; you’ve nailed it!
Thanks for the bonus tip on the autoresponder. I actually did that recently with one of my lists because I haven’t updated it in ages; I’m going back through and adding a ton of additional information and freebies to really solidify the value of joining the list – it’s great stuff!
Video is going to be huge which I’m also glad you’re already jumping on Cindy. You think about it: people find an older post that may have been written amazingly but adding that extra video could instantly convert someone into a community member – that’s power!
Thanks for the wonderful comment Cindy and have a great one!
Hey Murray,
To dig out the archives is indeed a good way to prevent some old post from hiding under the dust. As experience accumulates, we look back at some of the old posts thinking we could add more information to it and make it alive once again.
Campaign #2 is definitely an option for me. Great suggestion there. Thanks for sharing your insight.
Lye
Lye Kuek Hin´s last [type] ..5 Post Ideas to Help You Generate More Comments-Increase its Popularity
Older posts generally don’t have the voice that we have now which is why you’re exactly right, Lye. We look back on older stuff and realize that it could have been better based on our newer experiences – they aren’t bad posts, it’s just that we’ve learned so much in between. Going back to those posts to update them makes perfect sense because there’s a ton of people finding those through search engines and if they sound completely different than how we sound now, there could be a disconnect in the readers, ya know?
Glad that you enjoyed the post Lye, hope that you’re able to run with these ideas and really make a great campaign revising content
Another thing you can do is take a main idea in an old article and write on it. You can go a new direction with the article as well.
Edwin´s last [type] ..How To Set Up Group Chat On Facebook
Great thought Edwin.
Revising a post and adding a new direction could greatly help with engaging your users. You figure, when you originally wrote the post, you only knew of a certain set of data but as you’ve evolved as a blogger (and learned additional information), you can add to it the post and turn it into something fresh that’s relevant to the information today – that’s smart!
This is an awesome post with too many ideas to handle at once. I especially like the idea for additional affiliate opportunities. Thanks for the awesome Murray.
Robert Dempsey´s last [type] ..The Truth About Affiliate Marketing
Glad you enjoyed it Robert.
During the time that you’ve created a post, there may have been a great product released which could back the information you have to offer – throwing your affiliate link on there (although it may not get a ton of clicks) leaves that opportunity to earn a bit of extra money, ya know? You could make an honest suggestion because you would have time to play around with the product.
Hi Murray,
Must thank you for this post. I’ve been thinking of what to do with my past content. Frankly, sometimes I there is so much goldmine buried in the blog’s archives. I’ve tried strategy #1 sometime ago before moving to a new domain. Right now what I should do is try out Strategy #2. I truly appeal to me since I’ve been thinking of putting together an ebook.
Chadrack´s last [type] ..Forum Marketing Techniques That Will Boost Your Blog Traffic In 2011!
Hey Chadrack, glad that you found value in the post – like you said, there’s so much great content that you’ve already created that it NEEDS to be pushed out there to the world – not everyone will find your blog in search engines which is why it’s so important to spread your message however you can – podcasts, videos, interviews, etc.
Oh forget to say I love your new look!
Been some time now since I was here. You’ve got some great design. See you’ve even changed your gravatar. Congrats!
Chadrack´s last [type] ..Forum Marketing Techniques That Will Boost Your Blog Traffic In 2011!
Oh thanks man
It’s absolutely true! People reuse their old content all the time. Journalists take a lot of their older articles and turning it into books, and you hear about it all the time. Why not make it an eBook, or even a packaged product like a CD/DVD how-to program, or something similar?
The possibilities are endless
Delena
Delena Silverfox@Coupon Codes´s last [type] ..IX Web Hosting Promo Code
That’s a great example Delena; Hunter S. Thompson did that for a lot of his work – there’s entire publications that are super thick with the articles he’s published over the years. There’s no way that someone could collect them all (unless they go on a massive hunt) – by packaging them all in one place, people have access to his work that wouldn’t be accessible before.
Stepping it up to a larger package like a CD or DVD is very smart if you stage the release. Let people read the book originally and then offer it up as audio and then maybe land some kind of movie deal (even if it’s just a documentary) – people love multimedia and if they’re a big fan of yours, they want all access points.
Thanks for the comment Delena
Approach number 1 is simply delicious. If only my most viewed content TRULY had affiliate monetization potentials
. I’ve revived my second blog and made it into a dumping ground for almost just about any topic that comes to my mind and so far so good seems to be working for me.
Udegbunam Chukwudi´s last [type] ..Christina Aguilera Messes Up The US National Anthem
Udegbunam – I too went back and even updated a post just after writing this; I have a Fiverr post on here that’s pulling in some great traffic so I used that opportunity to do an Updated section where I list my own Fiverr jobs; I’m leveraging my content into potential profit streams
We’re both on point – we keep this up and we’re gold!