There is only so much you can do to create original content on a daily. Whether you manage your blog, work as a content marketer, or a social media manager, there will always be periods of a slump to wade through. When that happens, it’s not a good idea to abandon content marketing outright and take a proverbial break. Pausing your content marketing even for a few days can cause your SEO performance to dip and getting back up might be difficult. 

This is where content rewriting can come into play and help you create meaningful content at the fraction of the effort. While useful, content rewriting needs to be done carefully to avoid plagiarism or copyright infringement, however. Let’s take a look at how you can do it properly to help your business perform well even when you’re out of fresh ideas to pursue at the moment.

Perks of Content Rewriting over Creating Original Content

Rewriting content may not be the first thing you think about when you hit a content marketing slump. But, it is a means to an end for many marketers who are struggling with writers’ block or for industries that are experiencing slow news days. Here’s why content rewriting can be a good thing for your website from time to time:

• Rewriting existing content allows you to update it with new keywords, links, and data

• Rewriting content is more time and resource-efficient than creating original content from scratch

• Rewriting helps you repurpose existing content for various platforms, including email and social media

• Rewriting will give you the time you need to come up with new content ideas to pursue in the future

• Rewriting high-traffic content from other publications can help small/new websites grow faster

The most important thing about content rewriting is that you should be very careful about how you do it. Outright copying any piece of content online is a no-no – you always need to rephrase, remix, and repurpose information. Search engines and plagiarism detectors will pick up on the copied content and blacklist your brand/website for it. Instead of copying content, here’s how to rewrite it properly.

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Read the Original Content Carefully to Understand It First

The best way to go about content rewriting is to understand what you’re rewriting first. If you find high-performing articles and content pieces online don’t mechanically rewrite them and call it a day. Instead, try to understand what they’re trying to say. Which keywords are they targeting? How much rich media do they contain? What about internal and external links? To mimic the success of the original content, you will have to come close to its level of optimization. This won’t be possible if you rush into content rewriting, no matter how short on time you are.

Segment Long-Form Content into Shorter Pieces

Finding great long-form content on the web isn’t too difficult. However, rewriting it may prove troublesome if you want to achieve the same effect in terms of SEO for your website. A better idea may be to split the content into two or different related posts and mark them as Part 1/2/3. You can also create pillar content and then interlink the new articles with one another, all based on the one long-form content piece you found. This is a good way to benefit from the content and message you discovered but also avoid potential plagiarism issues down the road.

Rephrase Titles and Subheadings and Fill in the Gaps Yourself

Another great way to rewrite content without stepping on anyone’s toes is to read the heading and subheadings and then rewrite them. Using the same keywords while rewriting the rest of the titles and subtitles you find online can be very inspiring. You can easily create dozens of new article ideas and content outlines by simply rewriting what already works. Once you’ve created new titles, you can then write your takes on these topics to effectively mix rewritten and original content.

Update Existing Content from Your Website and Market It as Such

Finally, if you can’t find any worthwhile content on the competitors’ websites, you can turn to your articles and social media content for inspiration. Rewriting and republishing already existing content from your repository won’t count as plagiarism. You can simply mark your content as “updated”, spruce it up with new links and keywords, and call it a day. This is a great band-aid solution for content rewriting when you’re short on time but need to publish something fresh on the website. Meanwhile, you can come up with something new to write about or keep researching great articles to rewrite afterward.

The Right Way to Rewrite Content

Content rewriting is different than simply duplicating content from more successful websites. It’s about translating high-performing content and ideas into your writing style and tone of voice. You will not only be able to create new content faster that way but also learn something new about your industry without doing too much research. 

Be sure never to copy/paste any of the content you find online and always spin it into an original piece before publishing. By doing so, you will catch the right keywords, cover the same popular trends, and have more free time at the end of the day.