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Struggling to create content that drives sales? Anyone who has worked at content marketing will agree to that!

In fact, 51% of marketers said that creating content that generates quality leads was their top challenge in 2020.

From ideation to publishing, the entire process takes a lot of time and effort. If you have created great content, you want to make sure it gets clicks and traffic as well.

That’s where the 3 R’s of content marketing come in.

Understanding the Newest 3 R’s of Content Marketing

You’ve all heard of the phrase, “Reduce, reuse, and recycle” in terms of sustainability. That’s what inspired the 3 R’s of content marketing as well.

They are designed to help your content get better reach and make you get the most out of your marketing efforts.

In terms of content, I like to go with the phrase, “Reduce, Resurrect, and Repurpose.”

These 3 R’s of content marketing will ensure that you work smarter, not harder. Let’s see how you can apply them to your content strategy.

Reduce Content: How to Get Started

Even if you publish one post per week for over a year, you’re going to have over 50 posts published on your blog.

In a year or two, not all of them may be relevant in terms of context or even quality.

To ensure that your blog only has posts that are relevant and of high quality, you need to prune your content repository.

But you can’t do it haphazardly. It has to be a methodical process. If done right, it can have other SEO advantages as well.

These include:

• You provide a better user experience
• You make it easier for Google to crawl your content
• You can add links more purposefully

Convinced now?

If you want to start reducing and pruning your website content, here are the steps you need to follow:

Step 1: Define Your Auditing Criteria

Not all old content on your website may be worth pruning. Some of it can be evergreen, the rest can simply be updated.

So, which posts should you exactly prune?

A good way to go about it is to set specific criteria for pruning. You could add it based on your organic traffic or the total number of backlinks.

Step 2: Identify Pages That Are Underperforming

Once your criteria are set, the next step is to get a sense of which pages are actually performing poorly. For this, you can use advanced tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics.

Traffic and backlink analysis data will give you a fair idea of which pages aren’t attracting readers. If any post hasn’t received a sizable amount of clicks in the last couple of years, it may be time to prune it.

Check all the data and pull aside all the pages which don’t have great metrics.

Step 3: Decide Which Ones to Prune

At this point, you have two choices with all the posts on your list:

• Remove them
• Improve them for quality

To make the right call, use the auditing criteria that you set beforehand.

In some cases, it might be better to rewrite new content than to invest time and energy into updating old content.

If you want to keep your website in good shape, SEO masters recommend that you should audit your content at least every six months.

The bigger the site, the more frequently you should prune your content.

Now, moving onto the next R of content marketing.

Resurrect Content: How to Get Started

When you conduct a content audit, you’ll come across pieces of content that have the potential to rank higher or attract more traffic.

These are the posts that you want to resurrect or update.

If you don’t update these pieces with potential, you may lose out on a good ranking opportunity. They may slip down in their rankings or hit a plateau in terms of site traffic.

So, how can you resurrect such posts?

Here are some strategies that you can try out:

1. Add More Content

To make your content more informational, you could add a few new sections to it. From FAQs to in-depth information, there is a lot you can add to your posts.

Just make sure you aren’t just filling up words for the sake of it. The ultimate aim should be to provide value to the reader.

2. Add and Update Multimedia Content

Check your post with a critical eye and ask yourself if it has enough multimedia elements. Is it too text-heavy? If the answer is yes, you need to add more images, GIFs, videos, or audio to your content.

But what if your post already has these elements?

Check if any of these elements needs to be updated. For instance, you may have a screenshot from an old version of an iOS app. Remove them and replace them with updated screenshots.

3. Optimize Content for Keywords

Even if your content quality is better than that of your competitors, your post won’t rank higher if text isn’t optimized well.

During the resurrection process, make sure you check the titles and meta descriptions of all posts. They should include your target keyword organically.

You may also want to tweak your content to include keywords in your headings and subheadings.

Just make sure you don’t overdo it. In terms of SEO, keyword stuffing is counterintuitive.

4. Improve Readability

Does your content look like a big block of chunky text?

If that’s the case, you may want to break it up into smaller paragraphs. Most readers only skim through content. That’s why you need to make it easy for them to find relevant information quickly.

To improve your content readability, here are some tips you should use:

• Write sentences that don’t have more than 20 words.
• Write paragraphs that aren’t longer than 3 lines.
• Make bulleted lists.
• Add more headings and subheadings.
• Include key phrases in bold.

In fact, I’ve used this strategy to help boost the traffic on ShaneBarker.com.

Only a few months after I updated a blog post, the bounce rate decreased and it attracted a lot of new users.

Here are the metrics for the post:

Image via Semrush

That sums up the second R of content marketing. The last one is about repurposing content that you already have.

Repurpose Content: How to Get Started

Let's be honest:

It may not be possible to create stellar pieces of content every week.

At the same time, you need to feed the content machine regularly. One way to ensure that you have quality content to publish is via repurposing.

As the name suggests, the strategy is all about transforming your existing content into a different format. For instance, you could convert a blog post into an infographic or even a podcast episode.

All you need for repurposing content is a bit of creativity and planning.

To get started, you should be clear about the following details:

• Goal for repurposing content: Do you want to reach a new audience or publish more content without putting in too much effort? Before you begin, know the main goal you wish to achieve via repurposing.
• Publishing channel: Which channels do you want to publish your repurposed content on? Depending on the channel you choose, you will need to decide on content format while keeping the target audience in mind.
• Selection criteria: On what basis are you selecting content to be repurposed? Typically, you should avoid topics that are time-specific or require too many updates. The best bet is to select evergreen topics or popular content pieces.
• Permission: Do you require permission from an influencer or a content creator to repurpose a chosen content piece? If so, get it.

Once you have clarity on these aspects, check out these examples that I think will help you get the most out of your repurposing strategy.

1. Moz

On Fridays, Moz publishes informational videos on their YouTube as a part of their online series, “Whiteboard Friday.” Their videos feature an SEO expert covering the chosen topic.

What is interesting is that they also publish a blog post on their website on the same topic. It even includes transcriptions.

If you are a reader, you can check out the text version. Otherwise, the video may be easier to digest for those who are more visual learners.

Image via Moz

Why Does This Strategy Work?

This strategy works because it allows you to reach different target audiences and produce content that works for different mediums.

2. Go-To Skin Care

Skin care brand, Go-To, regularly collaborates with influencers for their marketing campaigns. On their Instagram page, they feature such posts after weeks or even months to bring them back in focus.

They even share testimonials in the caption section of their posts to give their followers some social proof.

Image via Instagram

Why Does This Strategy Work?

This strategy works because you get to make the most out of your influencer marketing campaigns. You can even repurpose social media posts for your email campaigns, website content, and more.

3. Breadnbeyond

Breadnbeyond is a company that provides a platform for creating animated videos and explainer videos. It repurposes its long-form content into bite-sized social media posts.

They share an excerpt of the post and link to it for people who want to read the entire thing. This allows them to keep their social media feeds full, without creating any new content.

Image via LinkedIn

Why Does This Strategy Work?

This strategy works because you can use social media posts, infographics, and GIFs to build anticipation about a report or case study you are releasing soon.

Go Ahead and Apply!

The 3 R’s of content marketing can help you save time on content creation and get the most out of your efforts. From revisiting to resurrection and repurposing, I’ve covered how to do it all. What are you waiting for? Get started now!

Do you have any questions related to the 3 R’s of content marketing? Please feel free to mention them in the comments section.