A couple of weeks ago I did an article at our BlueGlass blog on the 3Rs of *really* great content (http://bit.ly/ecw8zK). The third “R” was about smart re-packaging or re-purposing your content which obviously requires more information and clarification.

Your best content doesn’t have to live only once. If you have managed to create something awesome that resonated with the audience, go ahead and make the most of it.

Re-purposing or re-packaging an article means giving it another form and format based on the exiting content and research. By re-packaging, you spread your article even further. You expose it to new audiences; you allow to download it and save for further reference.

Repackaging is one of the most powerful content marketing tactics. It does require time, effort and inspiration but it pays back with more exposure, links and recognition.

This post is about different ways to re-package your content to give it wings. This post means to inspire.

1. Presentations

You can turn almost any article into the PowerPoint presentation:

• Collect all the screenshots and put them into a pretty slideshow;
• Turn your list part into an appealing presentation;
• Create an easy-to-digest summary of your article (move the key points into the presentation);
• Move any statistics data or case studies you are mentioning to the presentation (to make your point clearer); etc

Tools to promote:

Platform	Alexa Rank (January 2011)	Best points
	289	Social media friendly: LinkedIn and Facebook applications (presentations are easy to promote); Huge community (more exposure).
	12,531	Shows which page each presentation is ranked in Google and displays viewing stats for each slide (which you can use to craft a smarter re-packaging strategy)

Helpful tips!

If you consider using SlideShare to expand your content reach, be sure to go through these tips on promoting your presentations on Slideshare. Some most useful tips include:

• Don’t forget your keywords (and put them in tags and presentation title);
• Take part in SlideShare contests (like this World’s Best Presentation Contest)
• Use LinkedIn and Facebook SlideShare application to sync up your presentations so friends and fans can view.
• Create a group that’s exclusive to your brand and advertise your product or services
• Integrate some sound into your presentation with Slidecasting
• Launch a channel (Check out some of the newest channels and contact SlideShare for details on how to get started.)

Example?

Back in 2008, when I was doing my very first guest post for SEJ, I got so excited that decided to find a prettier way to share my guest post with my personal blog audience. So I came up with the short but pretty (and surprisingly well-branded) presentation to embed to my blog:

2. eBooks and PDF’s

Like with presentations, you can always re-package your content into PDF’s to let users download it and view on iPad, share with friends and save locally for further reference:

• Re-organize your tips into one-page cheat sheet;
• Re-arrange your article to create a mini eBook;
• Interview a few really prominent people on the topic of your post and collect the interview into an eBook;
• Collect related statistics to create a white paper.

Best tool to promote:

Platform	Alexa Rank (January 2011)	Best points
	225	Heavy Facebook integration (login and reading recommendations via Facebook) which gives your content more social media exposure; Huge community.

I have a larger list in this post on sharing your (SEO) documents. There are also eBook sharing and reviewing sites like GetFreeEbooks you can try to use to increase exposure of your content.

Here’s also a very sweet tip on how to promote your eBook which I thoroughly enjoyed because it is very practical and genuine.

Example?

I have mentioned this in my 3-R post, but I decided to include it here just because I really enjoyed the execution. Allison Boyer re-crafted her The 12 Days of Blogging 2010 series into an appealing eBook: each page of the eBook is dedicated to one prominent blogger with the citation from his article and Allison’s comment below it.

3. Cheat Sheets

If you want to give your content some huge exposure, consider creating a useful cheat sheet or a quick-reference guide – that always results in insane popularity because people love sharing and printing out cheat sheets that offer an easy way to remember and use complex guidelines.

Tools to promote:

Note: Cheat sheets are very easy to promote via blogger outreach. Most bloggers (including myself) love sharing and creating round-ups of relevant and useful reference guides – so just take some time looking for such bloggers in your niche.

Example?

Ian Lurie did an awesome guest post at SEOmoz and then followed up with this equally awesome (do I start sounding like Steve Jobs already? ) Google Analytics Cheatsheet containing both basic and advanced tips on setting up the proper tracking. Obviously, he now owns Google SERPs for [Google Analytics Cheatsheet] term and also enjoys plenty of backlinks naturally flowing in (including mine):

4. Screencasts

If you (like myself) tend to shy away from creating a screencast, let me tell you that today it seems to be as easy as making a screenshot:

• Here’s one fun free tool I shared previously that makes screencasting fun.
• You can convert your PowerPoint presentation into a video as well!. Here is the post that lists some tools to do that).

By creating a screencast showing what you are explaining in the post you will cater for “visual learning” part of your audience. Besides, you’ll be able to increase your content exposure to highly popular online video sharing websites.

Tools to promote?

Video sharing websites are plenty. Of course, I suggest focusing your efforts to max 5: you will get extra exposure only if you develop and promote your profiles at the selected video sharing websites (instead of trying to distribute your video to hundreds of them). Video social media websites work like any social networks: you need to commit to get noticed there!

URL	Alexa Rank (January 2011)	Best points
	3	It’s huge and very active.
	2,242	It caters for how-to video fans (and it is great to promote your Youtube uploads as it accepts third-party0hosted videos)
	4,040	It allows a lot of text context for each video. It is easier to get noticed there.
	2,541	Allows for all sorts of “dofollow” links both in the video description and author profiles and is overall the best in terms of driving people from the video page back to your site.

Examples?

Here’s a good one: create a post about setting up event tracking in Google Analytics and make your point stronger by promoting the video tutorial. The video alone got about 14, 000 views so far! A great way to promote your presence on Youtube!

5. Infographics (and Other Image Content)

If you take time creating some pretty charts, venn diagrams or other types of infographics, be sure to promote those separately. (Here are some free tools to help you quickly create useful infographic). But not only infographics are worth sharing. If you have created a good collection of screenshots, for example, share and promote your collection as well!

Best tool to promote?

URL	Alexa Rank (January 2011)	Best points
	35	It is fairly easy to get ranked high in Creative Commons search results.

Example?

When I was launching MyBlogGuest, it struck me that not all people actually were familiar with the concept of guest blogging, so I created a short intro to explain what it was all about and one of our members did a great job visualizing the concept through infographic (which became a powerful independent piece of content):

cc licensed flickr photo shared by balanced.crafts

Related posts:

1. 5 *Quick and Easy* Ways to Re-package Your Content into a Viral Image
2. Baiting for Links with Fake Websites
3. Blatant Content Plagiarism – Am I To Thank You?

*This is a guest post by Nick  LeRoy*

Everyone wants to rank number one for trophy keywords within their industry.  What they fail to realize is that rankings for these terms is not always the best.  While traffic sent to your site is important it isn’t nearly as important as conversions.  Think about it this way, would you rather have 10,000 visitors visit your site and only 50 convert or have 200 visitors and 100 convert?  Traffic is important but conversions should always be your top focus.

Ranking For Trophy Keywords

Trophy or ‘money’ keywords are what I refer to as any keyword that drives a ton of traffic but is also extremely competitive.  I have already mentioned that traffic does not always equate to high conversions but some people don’t seem to care.  When you’re attempting to rank for trophy keywords it’s very important to analyze your competition.  Below are three things you must look at.

1. Competitor Site Size – Take a look at the top 5 websites ranking for your trophy keyword.  How many pages do they have indexed?  Is it substantially more then your site?  Granted size doesn’t have a direct effect on rankings but typically the larger the site the more authority it can generate.  Site size may not be an element but site authority is a ranking element.  If your website has ten pages and all your competitors have thousands of pages you know that you could be at a serious disadvantage.
2. Competitor Links - Links arguably have the largest impact on search engine rankings but it’s not a ‘more equals better’ algorithm.  With this in consideration it’s still important to see how many and what type of links your competitors have. Are all of them simply ‘www’ domain links? Do the links contain keywords within the anchor text?  Are they “no-follow”?  All of this has a direct effect in the value of each link.  If your competitors have significantly more links and are of higher value then yours you should know that it will be difficult to rank for this keyword.  This is a very important analysis to conduct before you go after your trophy keywords.
3. Frequently Updated Content – This goes hand in hand with site size but I believe it’s important to have its own bullet point.   What type of frequently updated content does your competition offer?  Do they have a message board? Blogs? Articles? All of these are fantastic sources for frequently updated content.  Most of the time it’s these articles, blogs, and message boards that help generate the quantity of links that a site may have.  Also make sure to note what type of content they are writing and who is linking to it.  If you can improve upon what they already have then you too could gain links through frequently updated content.

Trophy Keyword Alternatives

You’ve done the research and you finally realized that it’s not in your best interest to compete with the big boys.  What else are you left with? You would be surprised how much easier it is to focus on ‘long term’ or ‘long tail’ keywords.  Instead of ranking for the keyword “shoes” you can focus on “size twelve Nike shoes”.  Yes these types of keywords may not drive as much traffic as the trophy keywords but it definitely brings in more qualified traffic.  A more qualified lead increases your chances of making a conversion, which should be everyone’s priority when trying to sell a product/service.  The best part about ranking for ‘long tail’ keywords is that if you find enough of these easier to rank keywords you can drive just as much traffic to your website then focusing on a single trophy keyword.

Set Your SEO Ego Aside

A lot of pride can be placed on a top ranking trophy keyword.  However the goal is to drive traffic and most importantly convert the traffic into customers.  Don’t let your ego get the better of you.  Know what your website offers and its strengths.  Compare your site to your competitors and sit down and figure out the best strategy available to you.  If you know that you aren’t going to be able to compete with the big boys then don’t fool yourself.  It might just be a waste of your time attempting to rank for these trophy keywords as your competitors already have a big lead.   Don’t get me wrong, anyone can rank for any keyword it’s just how much money, time, and hard work they want to put into their campaign.  So set your SEO ego aside and truly decide which route is best for your site.

Nick LeRoy is the Search Marketing Specialist at Minneapolis Web Design firm DKS Systems.  DKS offers award winning web design and development that can be very SEO friendly.

Related posts:

1. Organizing Your Keyword Modifiers (SEJ)
2. Keyword Research Services
3. Use Gmail Search for Keyword Research and Inspiration

I’ve been recently thinking about optimizing my email signature. The problem is, I have too many things to include there and at the same time want to keep it simple and clean. Running a few experiments I came to important (yet evident) conclusions:

• email / digital signature is of great importance: it influences both the response rate and the conversion (in my case, that’s signing SEO consulting service agreement, but that can be anything from backlinks to growing your social community friendship).
• email / digital signature makes your business / brand look solid and trustworthy;
• email / digital signature should comply with your main purposes.

The last point is both obvious and unclear to me. What’s my purpose? I want people to respond (i.e. I want to get them interested); in some cases I want them to become my Facebook friends (or Twitter followers). Besides, I definitely want to provide them with as much information about myself as I can to cut off unnecessary back-and-forth messaging that takes time and lowers the chances of a positive result.

So what to include in my SEO consultant‘s digital signature:

• my DBA name;
• my area of expertise;
• my email address;
• my business-related website URL (at least one of them)…

Well, the above points seem necessary. What about the following ones?

Twitter profile URL or Facebook page URL? Or both? Or LinkedIn resume URL? Depending on where you are most active, it seems to make sense that you should link to your social media profile(s) to [first] let people know more about yourself and your community and [second] let them become your friends and thus grow your social media popularity and influence. What if I am active at numerous social media sites and many of them are important to me?

IM contacts and phone number: that seems also essential things to add as they foster further communication encouraging people to contact you using alternative ways.

Your business address (that both complies with common Internet marketing ethics and makes your business look solid);

Call-to-action (depending on what you want to achieve: encourage people to subscribe or to add you to friends or to buy your product or whatever);

Self-advertisement (never tried that and thus I am not sure about the impact but saw many people do that);

Direct link to your services page. If you (unlike me ) have a well-optimized call-to-action somewhere on your site, it probably makes sense to refer people there.

Disclaimer or privacy policy (also makes your business look solid and secure)…

All the above things definitely make sense but doesn’t that look too much?

Please share your tactics!

Post image: lightkeeper’s signature

No related posts.

I just posted an article on SEJ describing different ways to organize your keyword list to make the most of your thematic search modifiers. Throughout the post I’ve been describing the necessity of exploring your keyword modifiers to:

• to get more organic search traffic;
• to wisely optimize your internal site structure;
• to know how to interlink;
• to get full control of your long tail strategy;
• to better understand your visitor’s behaviour;
• to get more ideas what to write about.

Here is the short post outline for you:

Post image: Puzzling Sky

Related posts:

1. Set Aside Your SEO Ego and Set Reasonable Keyword Goals
2. Tracking Google Keyword Position (SEJ)
3. Keyword Research Services

Like color, design, and name a company slogan/tagline is may be an essential part of any brand (note: mine have none yet ). I am not going to list key features of a good marketing slogan (you are most probably well aware of them: short, catchy, unique, etc, etc) – I don’t like repeating what is said in each and every how-to-create-a-good-slogan post. What I still want to point out are some advanced features that are often overlooked by most experienced copywriters.

Keep in mind:

1. Rank your company website for your slogan/tagline (the easiest way to do that is to include your brand name in it);
2. Brand your slogan (e.g. make it part of your company logo/banner);
3. Avoid nonsense and worthless [SEO] phrases (like ‘Cheap and Unique SEO Services‘… grrr…);
4. Create a universally understandable slogan.

So how do I sloganize my brand?

I am not a professional copywriter, but I want to create a slogan for my website. How do I do that? (yep, you did expect me to give some actionable advice, didn’t you?)

>>> Find inspiration in English idioms and cliches. Quick example (note, that’s the first thing that came to my mind, so bare with me ). “Every trick in the book” may become “Every trick in SEO,” or something like that.

Note: don’t forget about slogan feature #4 and also about British/American English language differences.

>>> Check English slang and urban phrases (e.g. ‘internetly speaking‘, nice one, huh?);

Note: again, slang may be area specific and often… well, rude.

>>> Learn from others’ mistakes and successful inventions.

Note: if your business belongs to a different vertical (than the original slogan owner’s), you can freely use someone else’s idea unless it’s universally or generally popular.

It’s time for some examples:

So… Please vote:

Some Fun?

1. Watch this bad slogan game - quite a nice read;

2. Try this slogan generator. This is what I got for ‘SEO’ there:

Post Image: Breakfast

Related posts:

1. Learning Web Design From Movie Posters

While it can be rather hard (if not impossible) to handle the off-site SEO campaign, on-site search engine optimization is under your control and it will take you no more than a few hours to check the boxes below. That’s not about adjusting your website to search engines ( as on-site sceptics might say) or about pushing your site to the first page in SERP in a day. That’s an online etiquette which demonstrates your level of competence and also makes the crawlers visit your pages more eagerly.

I have made a keyword analysis and chosen keywords to optimize for;

I have researched my site referrals by digging my search analytics and doing thorough website analysis;

I have made sure my keywords are directly related to my niche;

I use unique short meta tags based on my keywords;

I have written unique content using my primary keywords;

I add quality content at least once a week to ensure search bots have something new to crawl;

I do keep to CCS styles;

I keep my javascript in an external file;

I’ve made sure that my code is clean and is no more than 100 K (the less the better);

I do have a customized 404 error page;

I do take advantage of <h1>, <h2> and <h3> to show search pots and user agents what is important;

I have developed a good clean website structure based on my keyword analysis;

I use readable  URLs (I do mod-rewrite if needed);

I don’t use js, drop-downs or images for my navigation menu – just plain text links;

I don’t overuse images and flash;

I use alt text for my content-rich images and links;

I have a site map to make Big Daddy’s life easier;

I take advantage of rel=”nofollow” attribute to direct the PageRank flow;

I do 301-redirect non-www version to www version (or vice versa) to show Google what I like more;

(Optional) I do let SEO experts handle my on-site optimization!

Anything else? Please share in the comments!

Related posts:

1. HOW TO: Force Facebook to Grab the Best Image from Your Page (WordPress)
2. 5 Steps To a Smart Internal Site Structure
3. Free Formatting Checklist for Guest Authors and Paid Contributors (Download)