Originality is overrated, don't force it if it doesn't come naturally

Rejoice says: "You don't have to constantly think of new, innovative ideas around content, especially in SEO. There is so much content out there that you can repurpose, or focus on different aspects of, to take further. You don't have to constantly be creating brand new, amazing ideas for your website. It can be a waste of time, especially if you're not that creative. You don't have to be creative; you just have to think differently.

Look at what the competitors have, and how you can recreate it. Perhaps you can repurpose one of your articles with a different subject matter from the same topic, or in a different format. If you presented it as a blog, you could repurpose it as an infographic and add a bit more actionable information. You're still engaging with your consumers with the same content, just from a different angle."

How would you convince enthusiastic content teams to focus on existing content?

"Look at what's doing well on your website and what's not. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Your content isn't broken, you just have some content performing well, and some that's not. Look at the content that's not performing well. See what keywords you're using, and how you've presented that content.

Your content team may be excited to pursue creating new content but channel this excitement into looking at what you already have and using it differently. Think about how to engage a different side of the consumers. Perhaps your content is targeting consumers that are in the awareness phase of the buyer's journey and you could repurpose it for users in the consideration phase. By making small tweaks, you can make it more relevant for people further down the purchase funnel and start increasing conversion rates.

Think about the intent of your content and how you can target a new demographic or audience. That can still be exciting, because now you have to research. Look at what's currently happening, what consumers are doing, and what content is already out there. Feed that excitement into your own content and get your team excited to think about things differently."

How does an SEO decide on what content provides the best opportunity to focus in on?

"Go to the site and look at what's ranking on other pages besides the first and second. As an SEO, you're lucky to get first and second page but look at the ones that are maybe third and fourth. Those pages can often be linked to your high-performing pages. If you have an article that's coming up on the third or fourth page, look for ways to refer to those through things like internal linking. I love seeing 'related posts', 'you may be thinking of', or 'more on this topic' underneath a blog post. That's how you interlink your content together.

To find these opportunities, you can also think about keywords that are doing quite well and can be linked to those pages. Find where you are missing those key words in your blog posts. If you have a new set of keywords for an idea you have, look to utilise your existing content, and start linking your pages together. Make your content relatable to the pages that are already performing."

Can you use a plugin to do that linking for you, or is it better to manually decide what content is related?

"It's better to do it manually because that shows a bit of thought. Plugins are great, but they often just make links based on the title, or general topic. If you do it manually, you're actually looking at the body of the content. Different topics might be related to different posts that a plugin won't pick up on.

I always say that any task will be done better if you go in manually and give it some thought. You will be able to see when one paragraph links to an entire article that you have on a particular topic. Your consumers will appreciate it. They may want to find more information on a tiny insert that you spoke about in one article, and you can link to a whole article talking about just that."

What type of content should people be looking to publish nowadays?

"The long-winded content form makes it harder for consumers to read. Break it up. You might be able to embed videos and things like that into it as well. Consumers love tutorials; they love watching people explain things. It's hard for a consumer to engage with content that will take 30 minutes to read, no one really wants that. If you have long-form posts, with tables of contents, break those up. Have several different blog posts, that are related to a generic topic and go into more detail elsewhere. Then start linking these posts together. You will start to build your authority and the trustworthiness of your site. It will also keep consumers on your website, because they will want to continue and learn more."

Would having 10 linked blog posts of 500 words be better than having one 5000-word article that contains the same information?

"In my experience, yes. A lot of consumers will leave the page if the content is too long. As a consumer, you don't want to spend your time reading a 5000-word blog post just to find one particular answer, on one particular aspect of the topic. Your website can make it easy for your consumers - break that information up into 10 different articles and take them directly to the sub-topic they're looking for. Even though it's separated, you can still link it together and have nice interlinking going on."

What KPIs do you use to measure the success of this?

"It depends on the type of website you have. If you are selling a service or a product that you want people to purchase, then you will focus on conversion. Look at whether or not your articles are leading to a purchase. If your website is more informative, then you want to look at traffic and retention - how many people are landing on your page and how long they are staying. That will give a good indication of whether this information is being received well. Embedded sharing helps to keep track of whether your content is being shared to other people, and how. These metrics will allow you to gauge the interest of your consumers."

Should you be thinking about managing where your content is published, and aiming for it to appear directly on the SERP?

"You can target SERP features like knowledge cards or the carousel, but I don't always advise to focus on this. You have to think about the experience first, before you think about the search engine. If you're trying to always hit SERP features, your content may not appear organic, because those features have been your sole focus.

Ultimately, you need to focus on your consumers: are they going to appreciate this content? Are they going to find the answers they are looking for? When consumers do find answers, the algorithm will pick up on that and factor it in. You do still want to structure your content. Use schemas and great linking, so that Google can see the structure and understand the content. Eventually it will happen. However, your focus should be on trying to answer the questions of your consumers."

Is Google not looking for original content over updated content that's been around for a couple of years?

"I don't think Google always focuses on fresh and new content. There is still a value in repurposed content that is different. Your old content might not be answering the questions that users have now. Change up what you're talking about. Think consumer first, and Google second. Counterintuitively, Google will find value in that. Google doesn't look at it as fresh content vs repurposed content - it looks at what content is answering the user's question. That's the best content you're going to serve, whether it's fresh or not. Serve the most relevant, purposeful, and valuable content. That value can come from repurposing what you already have."

What is something that SEOs should stop doing to focus on auditing and repurposing their existing content?

"A lot of SEOs want to focus on very high keyword volume. They're not bad keywords but stop fixating on them. I know it can be daunting because clients will always push you towards those keywords. Understand that long-tail keywords may not carry that volume, but they still carry purpose, intent, and great visibility. You can know the intent of keywords better when it's long-tail than when it's short-tail. The 'When', 'What' and 'How to' phrases tell you exactly what your users are trying to do. When focussing on high-volume keywords, you might struggle to think about what content to create. With more specific keywords, the user is telling you exactly what to create, because they are telling you exactly what they want to know."

You can find Rejoice over at SEO Sherpa.