If you’re just starting out in this business you’re probably splitting your time between creating content and trying to find ways to build backlinks to improve your ranking in the SERP. Starting a business is always tough particularly when it requires the kind of creative thinking that writing content involves.

But you know you can’t short cut on the quality or the Panda’s paw will slap you down so you work hard putting together informative and engaging content.

If you’re like most new marketers you probably find yourself spending three times the amount of time researching and planning your article than you do writing the content itself. If you don’t, then you might reconsider.

Building a detailed, in depth outline complete with facts and outside quotes is a great way to organize your story and will make writing it far easier than trying to come up with the organization on the fly. But having this fantastic outline will also do much more and allow you to squeeze out the maximum value of your content.

It doesn’t matter what kind of product you’re promoting be it kid’s clothing, rocking chairs or Bestar L shape desk you can benefit from a detailed outline for your content.

In Other Words…

So you might be asking just what do you mean by repurpose content? Well it means telling the story again but “in other words”. For example I did an article about why article marketing as it is sold today does not work. The overriding theme is article marketing is a waste of time however that means different things to different marketers.

For new marketers the story can be preventive medicine…why you should avoid article marketing like the plague. For established marketers who are using the system the article can be a recuperative medicine…how to get out of the technique without losing all your ranking and how to rebuild if you do.

In both instances the articles are saying the same thing but with angles that are appropriate to the target audience. And both of these articles can be written easily if you have a detailed outline to start from.

In fact that’s just what I did.

Making The Hard Part More Productive

If you know me you know I’m no fan of article marketing as it is being sold by the gurus today. Article marketing is doomed and that’s not just me saying that it’s Google. Low quality articles published by low quality sites lend no value to the searcher and Panda isn’t going to be happy.

At any rate I decided to do an in depth article about why you should avoid article marketing like the plague (in fact that’s one of my titles). I spent over three hours assembling data, pulling quotes from Google and searching my own experience to create a detailed outline for the article. This wasn’t a one pager this was over 3,000 words and it spelled out my argument against article marketing.

Now typically a new marketer would take this outline and write a great piece of content for their site…but that wasn’t my plan.

From that 3,000 word “mother” outline I created two “children” articles. One was nearly 3,700 words the other a bit over 1,900. They addressed the same subject but they were unique because I put a different angle on each of them.

I then submitted them to two well regarded sites that accept guest content and both were accepted.

And The Benefits Begin

Once these articles were published on the guest content sites (one’s a PR3 the other is a PR6) the traffic to my site began to flow. I leveraged their high PR to get good ranking in the SERP and benefited from the anchor text that was included in the articles.

If you’re new and your looking for both traffic and ranking, guest content is something you most definitely need to explore.

But that’s not the end of the story. Not only was I getting traffic from Google but readers were tweeting the URL and I got additional traffic. In fact the buzz was good enough to get an invite from AffiliateABCs.com for a podcast interview which was published on their website.

The interview was really great and I basically used that “mother” outline to state my position. Geekcast also published the AffiliateABCs podcast on their website.

So I now had 2 articles and 2 podcasts that were unique but talking about the same thing. So I did a bit more. I went to Elance.com and hired a writer to write three unique articles based on the “detailed” outline that I gave them. When I received those I posted them to 3 more guest blog sites equaling more exposure and traffic.

But it’s more it’s more than that. On average you can place two anchor texts in each guest posting so now I had a total of 24 pointing back at me coming from high PR sites. There really isn’t a faster way for a new site to rank.

And the whole thing started but putting effort into the initial research.

My little crusade was against article marketing but it doesn’t matter what the topic is. Any site from mobile phones to an L shaped glass computer desk to custom upholstery can benefit from this technique of repurposing content.

No it’s not just another form of article marketing

For those of you who may be thinking that repurposed content is just another form of article marketing you couldn’t be further off the mark.

Let’s start with the article. We’re not talking about the 400 to 450 SEO article that is stuffed with keywords and is written for search engines to read not humans. Were talking about a comprehensive 1,000 word to 1,200 word piece of content that is designed to deliver value to the reader not the spider.

And if you think that to repurpose content is the same as spinning an article you’re wrong again. Spinning is done with software and can not change the angle or story line it can simply substitute and rearrange words. There is no creative process in spinning. There is in a repurposed article.

Then of course there is the question of distribution. There are software programs available that can automatically submit an article to 200 to 500 “directories” daily. That’s a lot of backlinks but…the anchor text pointing back from each of those directories is identical and Google quickly identifies them as coming from “content farms” and gives them no value.

To get the best results from repurposed content you have to find reputable sites with a PR of 3 or better that are willing to accept guest content. This can be the tricky part but the effort is paid back tenfold in traffic and a higher ranking in the SERP.

So no they are not the same. They are not even close. If you repurpose content you are simply finding new, legitimate access to relevant audiences that have the potential of becoming new customers.

That’s my take on it and I’m very interested in what you have to say. If you have ideas on the subject please leave them in the comment box below.