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When you put in the time and effort to create content for your audience, content that is well researched, user-friendly, and helpful, how do you get that content in front of as many people who will benefit from it as possible? That is one of the constant questions of content creation, and here at Leighton Interactive, one strategy we use is to ROPS existing content.
We intentionally incorporate this practice into our campaign services strategy; read on for five ways to start doing it on behalf of your brand.
What Does It Mean to ROPS?
ROPS stands for rework, optimize , publish, share. It's a term we've coined, and we regularly apply it to all sorts of content, but the type of content we ROPS most often is blogs, so that's the genre I'll be focusing on. When I ROPS, it's about taking the existing content and making changes to increase its value and reach.
If you're not repurposing your content, you're missing out on a pretty big opportunity for increased lead generation. Here's how to get started.
1. Identify Opportunities to ROPS
While you can ROPS any blog, there are a few ways to recognize ideal opportunities for ROPSing. I search for blogs with low views that are at least six months old. Although depending on the frequency you're publishing at, it may be more appropriate to choose something that's over one year old.
Beyond age and views, look for content that could use a facelift - perhaps new data or research has come to light since the piece was first published, or the blog isn't getting the reader to take the desired action, like clicking a CTA, downloading an offer, or visiting a particular web page. These instances of less-than-ideal performance are also great opportunities to ROPS.
Now, once you've identified which blog to ROPS, whatever changes you make will be specific to the blog and the purpose it's meant to serve.
2. Revamp The Title
Sometimes, a blog doesn't get the title it deserves the first time around. It's impossible to discount the power blog titles have in terms of grabbing attention and inspiring would be readers to click. Is your title a statement? Consider revising it into a question to draw your reader in. How many main points are in the blog post? Upgrade your title into a numbered list - blogs with numbers in the title are known to outperform those without.
3. Upgrade Your Imagery
An eye-catching image can grab a reader's attention even faster than a great title. Take a look at the blog's current images (most specifically the one that will accompany the blog on social sharing platforms), and consider if choosing a different image would improve the blog's reach. For a crash course in blog imagery, check out our own Abigail Black's blog: 4 Tips for Choosing Images that Stick.
4. Research the Topic
How have things changed since the original blog was published? New ideas - and new spins on old ideas -constantly pop up online. It's entirely possible that some new perspectives have surfaced since the original publish date. This is where content curation comes in. What are people saying on this topic? Have new studies or new data come out? Reoptimizing existing content is an opportunity to make previously published ideas relevant again.
5. Update Your Links
What content have you or your company published between then and now? Oftentimes, content creation within a campaign strategy means writing content on similar themes and ideas over a brief period of time. Use ROPSing as your time to cross-link your own content to nurture your readers where you want them to go. Is there a relevant offer you could link to? Or maybe a blog that's further in the buyer's journey you could drive them to? Instead of focusing on just curating this single piece of content, take a moment to think about how this blog is currently positioned and how that position could be optimized.
While no two ROPS's are the same, each of these steps may not work in every situation, and that's okay. When you reoptimize, publish, and share existing content, you keep your content fresh without having to start over from scratch, and you can get extra miles out of your already great content.
