Guest Post by Evyln Bourne:
Bloggers know that it takes a lot of time, energy and maybe even a little bit of blood, sweat and tears to crank out quality content. They also know that it’s the quality, relevance and stickiness of their content that attracts traffic and gets visitors to subscribe and hang around to find out what else you’ve got to say.
In this post we’re going to take a look at some creative ways you can make the most of your blog content by transforming it into different formats. One thing to keep in mind is that people come to your blog with a variety of preferences and learning styles. If your blog is predominately text based, those who prefer other mediums such as audio or video may not be as attracted to your content or as eager to consume it as they might be if it were presented in a format that they prefer.
Another benefit to having your content in a variety of formats is to provide your visitors with several different ways to consume your content. With audio, they can download your content and listen to it on the go at their own convenience. If visitors don’t want to take the time to read your blog post or article, translating the content into a video allows visitors who are more visual learners to consume your content in a way that appeals to them.
So let’s dive right in and start transforming your blog post into the various different formats and publish them.
Create an Article
A blog post can be converted to an article quite easily. You might want to change the headline so that it contains your keywords, maybe edit the language a bit if it’s written in an informal or personal tone. If it’s shorter than 400 words you’ll want to extend it to between 450-600 words, as this is the more appropriate word count for the article directories.
Include a resource box, which contains both an anchor text link and the full URL to your blog. The purpose of the resource box is to entice the reader to click on it and visit your blog, so make it appealing and inviting.
Publish your article in several of the top article directories. As your collection of published articles grows your traffic will pick up and it will boost your page rank with all of those high quality back links.
Here are the top 12 article directories with their Alexa rank and Google page rank:
1. ezinearticles.com -124 -6
2. articlesbase.com -342 – 6
3. suite101.com -658 -7
4. buzzle.com -713 -6
5. helium.com -1,328 -6
6. articlesnatch.com -1,632 -5
7. goarticles.com -1,667 -4
8. articlealley.com -2,184 -5
9. articledashboard.com -2,919 -5
10. selfgrowth.com/articles.html -3,411 -5
11. ideamarketers.com -3,704 -5
12. bukisa.com -4,243 -5
Source: http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php
Create an Audio
Let’s begin with a blog post or article. The first thing we’re going to do is transform your written text into an audio file. All you need to do is download a piece of free software called, Audacity, and then using a microphone plugged into your computer read your article while speaking into the mic and record it. If you do a quick search you can find free, online tutorials on how to edit your audio. If you want to add a bit of professionalism you can include a piece of bumper music for the intro and out-tro that fades in and out. Record a short bit of audio at the end to direct listeners to your blog.
If you decide to create a series of audios, you might want to consider turning them into a podcast. You can then list your podcast in iTunes and the dozens of other podcast directories online where you’ll get lots of exposure from a new audience.
If you want to begin by just recording an audio, you can then reverse the process and have the audio transcribed and then you can re-purpose the text version.
I just found a fabulous resource called, speechpad, which is a web app that allows you to record an audio file over the phone and have it transcribed for you. You can also upload an audio and they will transcribe it using a combination of software and an actual human edit.
http://www.speechpad.com
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Here are some links to the top podcast directories:
http://www.masternewmedia.org/podcast_directory/
Create an eBook
If you’ve got a collection of posts on a particular topic, you can compile them, do a bit of re-writing to insert some transitions and any other additional information that will make the copy flow better and be more useful to your readers. You can use the resulting ebook to build your email subscriber list, or package it and offer it for sale.
If you do plan to sell the ebook, you might consider getting a professional looking, graphic ebook cover made. Having a good-looking cover for your ebook will make it more appealing to your customers.
Add images and music to create a video
The next way that we are going to re-purpose the original blog post is by creating a video. If you’ve got presentation software such as power point, you can take the main points and create slides. Add images that relate to the topic and use the audio that you recorded previously to play in the background. Adding a short musical intro and outtro puts a nice finishing touch on these videos.
Make sure that you use your primary keywords in the title of the video, and the description. The first text in the description box should be the full URL to your website. Direct viewers to click on the link and give them an idea of what they will find there that will be of interest to them.
Windows movie maker video tutorials:
http://bit.ly/ceKBU7
Create slides to transform it into a webinar
Depending on the nature of the content you can even take your blog post’s contents and convert them to a webinar. If it is a ‘how to’ type article, or generally informative, you can use the webinar to educate and inform your visitors about your topic. Use the webinar as an opportunity to build your list, increase your exposure and to be seen as an expert in your industry.
There are lots of informative videos on sites such as youtube.com that can show you step-by-step how to create and record a dynamic webinar that will impress your attendees and boost your profile and sales considerably.
In this post I’ve shared several ways that you can get a bit more mileage out of your blog posts while getting increased exposure and targeted traffic back to your blog.
About the author:
Evelyn B. Bourne is a freelance web copywriter who creates compelling content for a variety of clients every day. Let her transform some of your content that is languishing on your site into fresh content in a variety of formats or create something new. Visit, http://www.productivepen.com for more tips and resources for online writing, marketing and personal development.
Related: How to Recycle Your Blog Posts for New Traffic + Video
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This was awesome and right up my alley! Enjoyed this. Thanks
Simply amazing info, hmmm why haven’t I spent more time on your blog productive pen here I come.
You are so giving in your blogs, truly appreciate your writing style.
From one intermediate blogger to a Pro like yourself, I’m honored to be apart of this network with you. Inadvance, I thank you so much for teaching me how to make myself more marketable as well as make my blog more sticky. I’ll be heading over to you site because your work is the truth with the ability to guide me in launching my blog dreams into orbit. Thanks Evelyn, I look forward to partnering with you in the near future as it relates to traffic generating content lessons for all bloggers looking to brand themselves.