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Free Website Content
Repurposing Content
Repurposing Content
By Sharon Housley
Repurposing content is not a terribly
new concept. Webmasters that picked up on the trend
have benefited from traffic surges for a while now.
Repurposing content is all about presenting the same
content in a variety of different ways, or using different
mediums to present the same content. Webmasters can
manipulate content in order to provide the same content
in any number of different formats.
Why would publishers want to do this?
There are a number of benefits to repurposing content,
not the least of which is that it allows customers to
select the format they wish to access your information.
Additionally, repurposing content often does not require
a lot of extra time, expense, or additional effort.
The content itself already exists -- the format is just
different. Additionally, there are a number of software
tools available that can assist users in easily repurposing
the content.
The following are different ways to repackage
existing content or to present content in a different
format...
RSS Filtering & Merging
Publishers can apply filters to existing
RSS feeds, and then merge the feeds into a single filtered
feed that contains themed content. This allows webmasters
to present content from existing RSS feeds in a different
way. There are a number of automated tools for RSS filtering
and merging, such as Yahoo Pipes, RSSfilter, and RSSmesh.
Text to Audio
Publishers can convert existing text articles
into audio files, just like book publishers convert
printed and bound books into AudioBooks. Podcasts are
the current rage, and many people use their driving
commutes to listen. Capture the interest and attention
of web visitors by providing audio versions of text
documents. This allows visitors a choice of either reading
the content, or listening to it.
Details on converting text to audio -
http://www.podcasting-tools.com/instant-podcasts.htm
PDFs
Provide product manuals and other documentation
as both web content and downloadable PDF files. Give
web visitors a choice by providing a variety of file
formats for tutorials, documentation, and articles,
and make sure that one of these formats is a PDF file.
Many computer users are suspicious of MS-Word Doc files
because of the inherent risks of computer viruses associated
with Word documents and similar files. PDFs have become
a stable format for public documents. Publishing any
text-based content in PDF format is very easy to do,
and there are a variety of tools, such as PDF995, that
allow you to convert documents or images into PDF format
quickly and easily.
Localize
If you target an international market,
consider localizing your website and it's content into
other languages. Offer foreign language versions of
your website content and documentation. The world is
becoming smaller and smaller, and the international
markets now open to small businesses have expanded.
Breakdown the language barriers to capitalize in new
markets.
Repurposing content is not overly complicated.
It simply gives your customers more options, and allows
you to further leverage existing content, possibly benefiting
from additional mediums.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds
and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for
RecordForAll http://www.recordforall.com
audio recording and editing software.
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This article may be used freely in opt-in
publications and websites, provided that the resource
box is included and the links are active. A courtesy
copy of the issue or a link to any online posting would
be greatly appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
Additional articles available for publication available
at http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm
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