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Vector content marketing concept in flat style

By Susan Melony

Getting traffic to your blog is hard work – far more than you ever imagined.

How much easier would life be if you could just write remarkable content and have readers flock to it by the thousands?

Life would be pretty awesome.

Unfortunately, that’s rarely the case. You’ve got to work for traffic. For many bloggers, that means writing more guest posts. These bad boys put your content in front of audiences much larger than yours, and ultimately driving more traffic to your site.

But somebody has to write those guest posts, and usually that someone is you.

What if there was another way? What if you didn’t have to spend hours writing more content?

That’s where republishing content comes into play.

Why You Should Blog Smarter, Not Harder

Creating compelling content that keeps your readers engaged and happy is no easy task. It’s time consuming.

Think about the last article you wrote that absolutely killed. How many hours of your time did you spend on it? If you’re like me, I’m guessing upwards of 5 hours, sometimes much more.

This is why republishing is such a powerful way to grow your site’s traffic. It’s all about blogging smarter, not harder.

Derek Halpern of Social Triggers uses the 80/20 rule for his blog marketing strategy. He spends 20% of his time writing content, and 80% marketing it.

Here’s how you can republish your already existing content and do the same:

Identify Your Best Performing Content to Republish

First, you want to find which pieces of content generate the most traffic for your website. This is usually a great indicator of performing well on larger publications (assuming they’re in the same niche).

There are a variety of SEO checker tools available to help you identify your best performing content. Or, you could use Google Analytics by going to the Behavior tab and clicking on Overview. This will give you a rundown of your site’s most viewed pages and posts.

Find a Site That Accepts Republished Content

With your content chosen, next you need to find a site to target for republishing. Start by listing out other sites in your niche that you’re familiar with. Larger sites like Entrepreneur magazine are great. While usually more competitive, they also always need content. This is good news for you.

If you’ve taken the time to write something truly remarkable, you will probably stand out from the rest.

There are plenty of sites out there that will not accept republished content, but there are tons that will. This step is all about doing research and finding a blog that fits your bill.

One site that always accepts republished content is Medium. There’s no gatekeeper, so you can simply copy/paste your articles there, use relevant hashtags, and press publish. The risk with Medium is not knowing whether or not your content will make it in front of a large audience – something that’s guaranteed with a larger publication.

That said, there are still plenty of positive reasons to republish your content on Medium if all else fails.

Craft Your Pitch and Send the Article

Not every site is going to accept your republished articles. You have a much better chance if:

  1. They publicly state that they accept them
  2. You craft a compelling, hard to resist offer

When reaching out to another blog, you want to be honest and straightforward. Don’t try to sneak an article past them without mentioning it’s recycled. Let them know it’s a post you’ve already published on your website, but you know their audience would love it.

They might want you to change at least a small percentage of the article. If that’s the case, happily oblige and reap the benefits of more traffic with very little extra work on your end.

As a final word of advice, don’t just read this article then do nothing. Creating a well-oiled, traffic-generating machine is all about blogging smarter, not harder.

Identify your best content for republishing, find a new home for it, then convince the gatekeeper it’s a win-win for both of you.

I’m always scouting the web for new strategies and am slightly addicted to apps. When not tapping away at my keyboard, you are likely to find me trying out a new vegan recipe or in the park playing with my adorable Irish setter.I’m a freelance writer and my Twitter handle is https://twitter.com/sumelony.