What is content republishing?
As the name suggests, content republishing is the process of reposting an old piece of content either as is or with minor revisions to make it more relevant to the current audience.
If you want more information about this topic, check out the FAQ section below:
Question #1: What are the benefits of content republishing?
The number one benefit of content republishing is that it allows you to publish content without having to craft anything from scratch. You just take an old piece of content and either publish it again as is or with minor changes.
But this is not the only benefit of content republishing. If you repost a piece of content that has seen massive success before but is still relevant today, then you will be able to squeeze out even more mileage out of it without actually writing a brand-new piece based on it.
It is also a great way to get your content in front of people who might find it useful and/or interesting but for some reason missed the original version.
Question #2: What content can I use for content republishing?
In theory, you can use any of your existing content for content republishing. In reality, however, the best content to use is that which is still relevant to today’s audience. After all, the goal of content republishing is to get more mileage out of an old piece of content. The only way it will work is if today’s audience would still find use out of it.
For example, a piece that reviews the best CRM software around would most likely still work today. After all, there are not a lot of new CRM tools that come out each year. And even if there are better options now than when the piece was originally written, it is super easy to just add them in before republishing.
In contrast, a piece that talks about the best pagers around would most likely not work as well. Not only does no one use them anymore, a lot of people today do not even know what they are.
Question #3: Is content republishing good for SEO?
Done correctly, content republishing is good for SEO primarily because Google favours ‘fresh’ content. This means that even if one of your posts is doing extremely well today in terms of search rankings, that success will slowly taper off over time, causing you to lose traffic. Republishing allows you to keep presenting Google with ‘fresh’ content without actually having to always write anything from scratch.
Sure, you can just keep producing new content, but that takes significantly more time and effort than just republishing old pieces.
Question #4: What is the difference between republishing and updating old content?
The main difference between republishing and updating old content is the execution.
As we have seen earlier, republishing, as the name suggests, involves actually reposting an old piece of content. It does not matter if it is edited or not. The key is that it is published again. In contrast, updating simply refers to the process of revising an old piece of content. It does not matter if it is republished or not.
Despite their differences, however, they are both valid ways to improve your website’s SEO-friendliness.
Question #5: What are the downsides to content republishing?
The main downside to content republishing is that if you do too much of it, you might end up driving your audience away.
Keep in mind that while content republishing is great for acquiring new followers, if all you post are republished pieces of content, then there would be no reason for your existing followers to stick around. In the end, you will most likely end up losing followers just as quickly as you acquire new ones, ultimately slowing down (or completely stopping) the growth of your audience.