Jeff Herring writes:

YES!

The most commonly used phrase with my student of late is as follows:

“An article a day keeps recession away.”

And you can quote me on that :)

Jeff Herring
Article Marketing Guy

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Cathy Perkins writes:

So true – repurposing is so easy when you already have content in one form or another. Blog posts to articles – articles to blog posts – and the list goes on! Think about what you already have and use it in different forms!

Cathy Perkins
The WordPress Wizard

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Edward Weiss writes:

Great tips. Another good way of finding “old” content is to search the internet archives Wayback Machine at http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

I must have found at least 2 dozen articles from old web pages I created years before. So many people don’t even know this resource exists but the Wayback Machine actually lets you see your website from its inception to very recent uploads.

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David Portney writes:

Another great way to re-purpose your original content is your audio content such as CD’s and podcasts or even raw recordings of speeches, consultations, or public speaking you’ve done. Many people overlook these because they’re not “written” but are easily transcribed and made into articles.

David Portney
The Public Speaking Training Guy

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Lance Winslow writes:

I totally concur with this strategy, it certainly helped me with my first 400 articles. I used tons of content from my company manuals, broke it into sections. Also several older essays that I brough up to date and broke into many articles. It’s a great idea

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Jim Hofman writes:

Another good strategy is to break up lengthy content into parts or sequences. For example, we usually publish lengthy 5,000 word travelogues on our wine site. These can easily be broken down into 7-8 articles providing more bang for the buck in terms of traffic generation.

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Brenda Bourne writes:

I am new at this and wanting to give this strategy a go, but so far all I have had, at this site anyway, is frustration. Perhaps it becomes easier once you have been published for the first time. My first article has been returned twice on the grounds that the body of the article does not relate to the title, which is nonsense. I know my subject – and I certainly know what my subject is! How are you supposed to get started?

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Jennifer writes:

Chris, what do you think about the Q & A format to articles?

I’ve never really used it, but I think I can reformat my “numbered articles” and give them a unique twist in the Q & A format.

Do you notice any statistical differences in regards to which article formats get the best results… numbered, bullet points, Q & A, etc?

By the way, have I told you lately how much I LOVE the traffic search feature? :) :) :)

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Shirley Bass writes:

Great idea! I look forward to giving it a try.

Shirley Bass

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Lance Winslow writes:

Jennifer, makes a very astute question here. One thing I have noticed is that folks are constantly contacting me and asking me questions. Often, I take their questions and slightly modify them to be key word richer, and use them as titles to articles. I take my answers and use that in the body of the article. I make an introduction paragraph and a summary paragraph and tighten up the answer a bit. Bam! Another great 300-400 word article. And I bet I have at least 500 like this. I have noticed they get decent traffic too.

Why?

I think because people actually type questions into the search engines, and guess what? EzineArticles pages seem to spider well, and Bam! There is my article waiting to be read! I just love it, so, Jennifer whereas, your article is directed at Chris, I have 500 plus articles and they do get better traffic on average than the rest of my articles. Everyone should just put this scenario in your article writing arsenal. Think on it.

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Cathy Perkins writes:

Jim – Then take those 7 – 8 articles and you have a month’s worth (or more) of blog posts! Wow – I am jealous. :)

Cathy Perkins
The WordPress Wizard

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Lance Winslow writes:

Jim, excellent point! One think I did was take all the essays I wrote at the bottom of this page:

http://www.worldthinktank.net/readingroom.shtml

and I broke them down into 400 to 800 word articles. That gave me between 8 and 14 article EACH! And the articles turned out great with a lead in paragraph and a little tweaking so the information could stand alone.

I guess my point is that folks have a ton of content, and they don’t even realize it.

NEVER WASTE KEY STROKES!

If you are answer a question in an email, answer it really well and save it for potential article material. If you write a Big Article, newsletter, eBook, essay, then for Pete’s Sake, use it for article writing. You’ll be amazed at how well you can increase your article content footprint (ACF) using these strategies, so please think on it.

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Jennifer writes:

Lance, thank you for the astute answer to my astute question. ;)

Guess what… Chris and I have a bet. We both bet that you CAN’T reach 16,000 articles by Jan 1.

Hmm, what are your thoughts on that lofty goal?

Ok, Chris didn’t bet me… I made a bet with myself so I’m watching you! But I’m sure Chris wouldn’t mind you getting to 16,000 before the new year.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Jennifer, that’s a decent wager. Let’s see I am at 14,705 right now and will be at 15,000 before the first or second week of November, which would leave 6-6 weeks, yes, that would be possible, but a lot of work thru the holidays. My goal was 15,000 by 2009, I see now I will surpass that goal, perhaps using at least one or more of the strategies discussed right here in this blog post.

To reach your goal, I’d have to write 20 articles per day every day from now until January 1. It’s possible.

I don’t think Chris would mind me reaching 16,000 by January 1, as long as those articles were quality and gave value to the Ezine Article readers.

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Fleur Allen writes:

Great article has remotivated me – thanks!

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Annie B Lawrence writes:

It seems that writing is a great way to avoid all the down conversations and fears that is everywhere we go. So I have written more recently. And I love this blog. It is full of great shares and ideas.

Annie

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Robert West writes:

Often, I use blog posts that are mine after all. Sometimes I add content, sometimes I remove some content until it becomes an article.

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Lance Winslow writes:

Robert, I must confess I made my posts here #10 and #12 into articles titled:

1.) Are Question and Answer Online Articles a Good Format For Article Marketing Authors?

2.) Article Authors Should Never Waste Key Strokes

Much of the post reply is intact, but re-written, with additional examples to make them viable articles.

Moreover, on you your blog post strategy, I did take some 8,000 blog posts that went back to 1997 (yes, before anyone was calling them blogs) and was able to use about 1,800 of them with modifications as articles. It took a while to re-write them all, edit and make them into articles, but it was the smartest strategy ever used. I am now considering on making an article out of this blog comment:

3.) Using Blog Content as the Foundation for Your Online Articles

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Christina Sponias writes:

Hi Chris and Everyone!

Your suggestions are excellent!

This week I finally had the chance to use the new traffic search terms with certain time to analyze the keywords through which my articles were found, and I wrote 5 articles based on old article titles that had success, what means that I talked again about old subjects in my new articles, but showing different aspects and focusing on different angles.

It’s a great idea to go back to an old material and use it in order to develop new ideas. Everything has many aspects! If in article 1 you wrote about 5 of them, on article 2 you can write about another 5, or analyze better each one you already wrote!

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Angela Chen Shui writes:

Thanks for the repurposing reminders. I’ve started writing and submitting articles again and those tips will help.

Thanks also for the additional tips via comments here and I’m off to check the Way Back thingy because I lost about 3 years worth of blog posts from my very first site…. maybe they are stored there… !?! ;-)

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Angela Chen Shui writes:

I forgot to add a HUGE Thank You for increasing your editorial staff. The faster we write, get our articles submitted and approved, the faster we recession proof ourselves and the bigger and better EzineArticles becomes.

Win-Win all ’round…

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Christopher M. Knight writes:

YES, of course the Q&A article template is a great format for an article.

Pose an often asked question and then give it a great response. Unique high quality stuff provided your response is not the same rehashed tips everyone else in your market gives.

Brenda,

Expect to receive a private response as someone on our team is looking into this today.

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Forrest writes:

Very good ideas! Wow, I never considered the reworking angle. I can see it going in all directions…articles turned into blog posts, Squidoo posts, etc…

I don’t have usually have a prob coming up w/ content, BUT having another tool/idea in the arsenal is great.

Forrest

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