How Old Content Can Help Channel Partners Drive New Demand
Blogging is key to successful inbound marketing. So why aren’t Channel Partners doing more of it? There is no single answer but lack of time is a prominent theme for Channel Partners I work with.
While you and I can’t add minutes to the clock, Vendors can introduce their Channel Partners to a strategy for recycling content that makes content creation two to three times faster than writing blogs from scratch.
Content Strategy – Recycling Content vs. Repurposing
Repurposing Content:
Repurposing entails reducing a white paper, e-book, case study, or other larger content piece down to one or more articles and then creating slideshares, infographics, podcasts, videos, and other pieces of content to stand-alone or wrap around those blogs.
Another common repurposing technique is first posting blogs to a Partner’s website and then re-posting verbatim on their publishing platforms like Medium and LinkedIn. This method typically includes a short sentence revealing where it was originally published. (like - this post first appeared on Channel Maven's website).
These tactics allow Partners to leverage a single piece of content and gain more reach across multiple platforms and puts thought leadership where their potential buyers hang out. Repurposing is a great strategy but unfortunately since creating infographics, podcasts, and videos are also time consuming, it’s only republishing on other platforms that remedies the time crunch.
Recycling Content:
Recycling content is the practice of identifying older blogs previously posted on the Partner’s website and refreshing or rewriting and republishing them anew. This can be accomplished in two ways:
Recycle on page: The original blog is edited directly on the content management platform where it’s then refreshed, the headline might be swapped out, the body text is altered, added to, and updated. Then it’s republished with a current date while keeping the same URL and keywords.
Republishing with the same URL and keywords allows the page to be seen and socialized as new (to viewers) without losing rank acquired when originally indexed by search engines. The key to this technique is to change and refresh the content enough that search engines will notice when they return to the site for indexing. Note: Think back to junior high – teachers knew who plagiarized the encyclopedia to write a report. Same thing here, it’s not good enough just to change a few words around.
Recycle from scratch: Another strategy is to completely rewrite a previous blog. Give it a new headline, URL, meta description, keywords, and republish as if it’s a completely new, unique article.
Examples From our Blog:
I rewrote these blogs but kept the same general theme. The body text, sub-headers, URLs, meta descriptions, and headlines are all unique and the angle has been refreshed. Most importantly, these two rewrites were accomplished in less than half the time it took to write just one blog from scratch. This is true because writing and editing time was greatly reduced and layout and subject matter was already defined.
original: Why You Need to Really Engage Your Audience at Your Next Event
recycled: Stay Top-of-Mind with Partners After Your Next Channel Event
original: 3 Ideas to Spring Clean Your Partner Programs
recycled: Like a Buyer’s Journey are you Helping Channel Partners Down the Partner Journey?
Choose Wisely When Recycling Content
With a little help from website and social media analytics it’s easy for Partners to see the value (reach and engagement) of their blogs.
Recycling content on page: Well-read blogs already have SEO value and can benefit from the first type of recycling where Partners refresh, change the headline (or not), and keep the original URL and keywords. This is true because your Partners have already done the hard work to help this post gain page rank in search. Maybe it even hit the first page of Google. A complete rewrite at this point will waste that effort. Instead, keeping the URL and making updates and refreshing the concept will add new value to an already valuable piece of content.
Recycling content as new: Blogs that show little traction are poised for complete rewrites. Search engines crave new, fresh content. They factor your Channel Partners’ posting cadence into the algorithms and new blogs signal a level of seriousness about providing resources to prospects searching for solutions. This helps Partners rank organically in search results.
There are Many Reasons Good Blog Articles go to Waste
Sometimes the hosting website is too new and it takes time to build a relationship with search engines. Other times it’s because the blog's audience hasn't grown big enough yet so enough traffic wasn’t pulled in from social. It’s not because Channel Partners want to waste time writing a bad article. So, rewriting a solid blog that was posted too early in the inbound marketing adoption process is the best way to get new value from old posts.
Why not just rewrite and use the same URL? In this case, a blog with no reach has done virtually nothing to fuel inbound traffic. Adding a new URL with new keywords, meta description and a headline that is more likely to convert can give rewritten blogs a better chance at ranking than simply refreshing and republishing.
These rewrites are then considered new blogs in the eyes of search engines vs. updates of previously posted blogs. That’s because they are new. We all know search engines are smart and like most junior high school teachers they recognize cheaters and act accordingly.
Time is of the Essence
Channel Partners are overloaded and laser-focused on building their businesses. These busy Partners often view social media and blogging as necessary evils… until they see results. Results won’t happen overnight but helping Channel Partners get to that point without adding to their to-do lists is essential to stoking the inbound demand generation machine that Vendors and Partners both want. Using strategies like repurposing and recycling older content is a great place to start.
Looking for more ways to use strategy for Through Partner Marketing? Help Channel Partners get fired up about social media with this new pocket guide.
