Many bloggers write great content and want to know how to reuse content so that their ideas can be seen by the most people.
A long time ago, I went on a course for all things business ….(I’ve been on a few courses in my time), and I remember the speakers telling me that you should always have at least 3 prepared pitches for any project you are trying to get off the ground. These were:
1. The COMPLETE DETAILED IDEA – this would be written out in full, with every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed: advantages and disadvantages gone into in detail; risk assessments completed and a cost-benefit analysis to top things off! It would likely run into at least a hundred pages and would take a good few hours to read fully.
2. The EXECUTIVE SUMMARY – this is the 3-5 page version that most people read which summarises the main points focusing on the main benefits. It also covers a few of the most important risks and sums it all up with a good conclusion. The benefit of this version is that it is quick to read and will give most people a good idea of what you are talking about so that they could pass it on to someone else.
3. The ELEVATOR PITCH – This is the 30 second to 1 minute version that you can pull out of your head should you be lucky enough to get into the elevator with the Chief Executive. It means you can pitch the idea to him in the time you have available, and in such a way that he wants to know more. It’s the door-opener that gets everyone interested.
What does this mean for affiliate marketers and bloggers?
The above approach is a very efficient and prepared way to approach any idea. It makes the best use of your audience’s time and means that you can reach as many people as possible. This is exactly what we affiliate marketers need to do; to use our excellent and hard-written content in the most efficient way possible whilst getting the maximum exposure for our ideas. However, we need to do this without getting on the wrong side of the search engines who can elevate our site and post rank seeminly on a whim.
We know for example that the great god ‘Google’ does not like duplicate content, but I don’t know about you, but I find that there are many occasions when I want to post something on a couple of places such as my niche site, on other blogs such as the Wealthy Affiliate member’s blog. FaceBook or Patreon even, but I don’t want to duplicate the content.
The trick then is to publish the content in a number of ways, which appeal to each audience individually and where each piece is sufficiently different so that they are not identified as ‘duplicate content’ by the search engines.
How do you do this?
Here are some steps which will help you:
1) Publish the main article on your niche site with all the information and details included in the article. This should usually run into something that is between 1000 – 2000 words. In this version, include everything that you want to say, explain it properly and use diagrams, pictures and other media (such as videos or audio) if appropriate. 
2) Then rewrite the article using different words or different phrases, but keeping the gist of the article and publish it on other sites, such as Wealthy Affiliate or other members’ blogs sites, or even as a guest post on a relevant site. These should be a similar or shorten length to the original article, depending on the site.
3) Now publish the idea again, in a reduced format on a social media site such as a FaceBook or Google+ or similar sites. Posts to these should generally be much shorter, in line with the “Executive Summary” example I gave above.
4) Now write the elevator pitch, and put it on Twitter and/or Pinterest with links back to the main site. This means that you can attract the interest of readers and link them back to more information on your niche site.
5) Finally, if the content is suitable, and mostly they are, you can create a short YouTube video either using images and voice over or a full video to explain your ideas.
There are multiple benefits to this:
a) You have not duplicated the content but you have made efficient use of your ideas.
b) You have reached more people using the same content. An important point to remember here is that we all learn in different ways: some of us are visual learners, some learn in an auditory way and some are more kinesthetic (meaning we learn by experience or by how we feel about things more). This means that we all process information in different ways too, so publishing in different formats will help your ideas reach, and be understood by, more people.
c) Publishing on different sites, such as the Wealthy Affiliate blog can get your article indexed sooner simply due to the authority that the WA site has. Another specific benefit here is that people looking at the content through that route will also automatically be registered under your WA affiliate link too which can lead to affiliate sales. If you are publishing an article as a guest blogger, then you will be able to link back to your own site, which will also help with its ranking.
d) You can link all the content on each publishing platform back to your main site, thus creating backlinks, gaining authority and driving additional traffic there.
How do you rewrite the content so it is not duplicated?
This is basically a question of rewriting it so Google and other search engines can see that they are different.
Some tips for doing this include:
1. Re-writing headings and re-wording questions and sub-headings.
2. Changing the order of the words and the punctuation – for example splitting up longer sentences or adding conjunctions to join shorter ones (and, but, so, etc).
3. Substituting words for ones that mean the same thing (synonyms) – e.g. “This informative post” changes to “This illuminating article”. It’s a good idea to use a thesaurus here and there are many free ones you can use online such as www.thesaurus.com.
4. Turn positives into negatives and vice versa – e.g. “Don’t forget to do …..” changed to “Remember to always…”
5. Change the tense of the thing you are talking about, e.g, from the present tense to the past tense – for example, change “doing this I am able to” to “I did this and learned that.”
6. Turn numbers into words and vice versa so “1000” becomes “one thousand”.
7. Turn some written content into images. You could take out some headlines and create and icon or image heading instead.
8. Add some written content as quotes – e.g. the examples I’ve given below are in quotes to show that they are duplicate content that is allowed.
- Once you get the hang of rewording your article, it gets fairly easy.
- Practicing rewriting your post will make it easier next time.
- Reworking your content ideas is easy, and gets easier the more you do it.
See what I mean?
What does this look like in practice?
I’ve given an example of rewording things below:
Content published on WA blog.
“Things to do today: Work on writing at least one post for your website – it might be research or writing or reviewing but everyday I try to do something towards a post. You may not finish it in one day – it may take two or three days or more, but at least the majority of the time you spend should be on writing content.”
Similar content published on my site:
“Spend some time each day either writing a post/article for your website or doing some in-depth research for one. This will depend on the kind of site you have, whether it is based on facts, reviews or personal experience. What’s important is that you spend sometime everyday working towards publishing some engaging content for your site. It may be that you don’t finish is all in one day but that is OK – some articles take two to three days at least, and some even longer than that. Just make sure that the majority of your time is spent on creating content.”
So start getting the most out of your ideas and reuse them efficiently to drive as much traffic to your sites as possible.
After that, the sky’s the limit!
Please feel free to leave a comment below or ask a question if there is something you don’t understand or would like explaining in more detail. Happy blogging!
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Yes I like to also rewrite my articles using spinning software because it makes it easier to toggle through the words and choose another synonym, its like a little mini thesaurus right there so you don’t have to open another window and do a search . I feel like it saves time when I can’t think of anything to write about.
Hi Sophia. Thank you for reading the article. I have not used spinning software but I’m glad you are making good use of your ideas. It doesn’t really matter how you do it, but many bloggers like to use different ways to expand on their content. Another good idea is to write an ebook based on your blog posts, and this can be done in the same way.
I just ran afoul of the “duplicate content” algorithm this weekend. Even though my content was actually unique, it contained some reviews from another site. Even when people don’t mean to trip the duplicate content wire, it can happen very easily. I appreciate all the information you gave to it along with advice, but I especially like how you worked it into an action plan for sharing on social media.
HI Phil. Sorry to hear you ran foul of the old search engines this weekend. It is easily done because it is not humans who are reading things and making conscious judgements, but machine bots who recognise words and patterns of words. I’m glad you found the content here useful and hopefully you can use some of the tips for your own writing. That’s always my intention – to try to make my posts quite practical so people have things or steps they can follow. All the best with your own site and I appreciate your time in reading and commebnting too. Gail
This article has a great concept on how to help drive ratings and I will be buying a thesaurus. I really like the way you compared it to traditional business and how you related it to what we are doing here at WA. This really gives me some ideas for my social communications. I can see how this would help in gaining the confidence of the reader and can get them to visit more of your article and sites. I especially like the idea to use the blog site at WA since it is already a trusted site by Google. I understand the tight rope you will have if you don’t apply this properly and not let it come across as duplicate content. Thanks for the ideas.
Hi Don. Thanks for your comments and I’m glad you found the article useful to you. The social media aspect can be quite confusing I know because there are so many sites out there and they each need a slightly different approach. It is not helpful either when their alter their algorithms for ranking or sorting which they sometimes do. I have used the Wealthy Affiliate platform to publish articles and have been ranked on page 1 of Google within hours because I think Google searches that site very regularly due to the massive amount of content that is generated daily. One thing I would say about that though is to approach the title and keyword in the same way that you would any niche article, so that you can maximise exposure using good keywords. All the best for your blogging. Have a great day. Gail
Great ideas and tips, as usual, on your web! I enjoyed reading this post and would follow the wise advice- will bookmark your web! Thank you
Hi Olina. Many thanks for your kind comments and I’m glad you found the article useful to you. I also appreciate you bookmarking the site as my aim is to try to help as many people as possible. I really like writing posts about writing too so i’m finding a lot of pleasure and enjoyment in helping other people become better writers. I hope you have a great day and look forward to speaking with you again soon. Have fun writing! Gail
This is a great website, I love it, the content is full of interesting information about ” how to reuse content and ideas efficiently, this give to me plenty ideas and more motivation how to substituting word for my blogs.
Wonderful work, thank you.
Jacqueline.
Thank you Jacqueline. I’m very pleased that you like the site and the content. My aim is to help people with affiliate marketing but also with writing and blogging since I love writing about writing, if that makes sense. I hope you find a way to use the tips practically to help you increase the reach of your writing. All the best to you and thank you for taking the time to reply. Gail
This is a great way to redo our articles. The way you laid it out in three steps full, medium and short versions. Great ideals and I do try to use pictures to express ideas.
Hello Fred. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on my article. I’m glad you found it useful and that you liked the example of three different versions. There are many platforms out there where you can publish content and it’s a bit like ‘horses for courses’, tailoring your information to the relevant sites. I wish you much success with your work. Gail
You have just set the cogs working in my brain. I’m certain I have done some of this without realising but you have now given me a great strategy for getting the most from my posts.
Great article and thank you.
Hi Karen. I’m glad I set your mind going – that’s great! I think we can all do with a bit of encouragement or thinking outside the box sometimes. I really hope it helps and gives you some more avenues to use the great ideas that I’m sure you’ll have. Thanks for taking the time to read and leave a comment. Gail
Such helpful post on how to reuse content. I often get concerned to write about same topic on different platforms as it may be considered as duplicate content. I got the perfect sense now how to do so in future. Really appreciate your approach on how to present the same content differently. Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Demi. Thank you for your comment and I’m so pleased that it was helpful to you. I think that a lot of bloggers get scared of reusing content, but if you do it in the right way, then you can just maximise the exposure for your ideas. I like to think of it like an author who writes a great book and then rewords and re-markets it again in another 4 books – if they can do it, so can we! 🙂 Have a great day. Gail
Hi Gail:
Another great post, it reminded me of the time back when I was a government official and I always had to write different versions of the same issue:
1. The whole detailed project
2. The Abstract and
3. The Executive Summary
You came up with some highly useful ideas to reuse the same article or post, just with slight changes as you clearly describe. Anybody following your advice (like me) will “trick” the bots to avoid posts being considered duplicate content.
As usual, elegantly written and yet clear and simple my friend.
Eugenio.
Hi Eugenio. Thanks for your comment and I’m glad you picked up on the 3 different versions that we all need to have. Funnily enough, it is often the short elevator pitch that many people stumble over because it needs a clear, concise and benefit-driven approach – the ‘what’s in it for me?’ style of writing. I think we are sometimes a little afraid of that for fear of coming across as too pushy! However, that is what is needed in the shorter post – get to the point, explain the benefits and ask for the business. In England, we are sometime scared of asking for the business and try to skirt around the issue hoping the client will feel sorry for us, and we get the business that way, but it never works. Better to just ask but do it honestly and with a good, open heart. I hope you manage to re-purpose some of your content too as it’s perfectly legitimate, legal and an efficient way to use your ideas! 🙂 Have a great day. Gail