Finding fresh angles for content can be surprisingly difficult.
Whether you’re aware of it or not, there are countless posts based on copied ideas swarming the web. Not straight-up plagiarised works, but rehashed forms of one another.
Many writers practice this as they write about something they’re unfamiliar with. Whenever they need to come up with a new piece, they look for existing content and cover the same topics.
But, bear in mind: topic regurgitation lowers the quality of your work.
Uninspired writing results in boring content. And that’s bad for both your readers and your business’s reputation.
Skilled content writers avoid this by infusing fresh angles into old topics — bringing content to life.
In this article, let’s explore how to find fresh angles to complement your content marketing strategy.
The Content Fundamentals
According to Hubspot, 70% of marketers are actively invested in content marketing. Additionally, 24% are planning to pool in more funds towards their content marketing campaigns.
With cut-throat competition, you don’t rush in blindly.
Identify who exactly the content is for, what they’ll gain from it, and how it will affect your bottom line.
Get a good grasp of these fundamentals, and then create your content game plan:
- Know your target customers. Are your readers Gen Z or millennials? Where do they live and what’s their level of expertise on your topic? Use a customer avatar to help.
- Know their search intent. What led the reader to your article? Should you incorporate an informational tone or a casual one? If possible, answer their questions as early as the first paragraph. Analyse their search query.
- Keep your information updated and relevant. Has perception around the topic changed throughout the years? Is there a new breadth of value you can introduce to your readers?
- Always fact-check and proof your research. Are you certain about the claims made in your references? Are there any follow-up studies that managed to disprove it? The bottom line is, you shouldn’t spread misinformation.
- Integrate a compelling CTA. What’s the business and brand intent of your piece? Build up to an inspiring call-to-action by providing readers with an authoritative and informative piece.
Types of Angles
Once you’ve got the fundamentals of content marketing covered, it’s time to find fresh angles.
When creating content, it’s important to understand your business’s overarching marketing strategy. This ensures that your business goals and requirements are neatly laid out during your brainstorming phase.
Once you have that settled, find the right vehicle to push your content to your audience.
Consider these two types of content angles: a purely informative route or an audience-building route.
Informative angles carry the intent to share content meant to inform the reader, most commonly by answering questions. This covers content such as news, listicles, tutorials, and pillar content.
On the other hand, an audience-building angle delves into personalization, storytelling, and engagement marketing. This covers press releases, news articles, spotlight highlights, promotional videos, and interviews.
So before choosing your write-up’s direction, check whether it aligns with your brand’s goals.
With that out of the way, it’s time for the specifics of finding fresh angles for old content ideas.
1. Repurpose Old Content Into New Visuals
A surefire way to present old but popular content from a fresh perspective is to convert key information into visuals.
If you’re active on the internet, you’ve probably scrolled past dozens if not hundreds of visual content with marketing intent.
Here are some examples:
- Infographics
- Diagrams
- Pictures
- Videos
- Animated GIFs
- Memes
- Screenshots
- Interactive Sites
Repurposing existing information from the web into visual content isn’t rocket science.
Once you’ve found the information you want to repurpose, just add a visual twist to it.
Let’s explore your options.
Turn stats into simple visualisations
Using tools like Canva, you can whip up some professional-looking infographics in minutes through its drag-and-drop builder.
Canva even has a selection of infographic templates that will shave even more time off your design process.
Apart from infographics, you can use Canva to create simple data visualizations.
For example, here’s a random statistic:
40 percent of users leave a website that takes longer than three seconds to fully load.
Doesn’t look very interesting, right?
Let me try that again:
Granted, it’s not the most amazing visual in the world.
But it made you look.
Infographics and visualizations allow a lot of creative legroom for presenting old information in new ways.
Let’s say you want to write an article about the history of Facebook.
Rather than publishing a text-based article, you can create a timeline infographic — just like what INC did here.
Animations and videos
Infographics and visualizations are an accessible visual content format even to solo bloggers.
But if you’d like your repurposed content to be extra outstanding, you can go for animations or even videos.
I know — that sounds like a bigger leap compared to creating visuals with a drag-and-drop editor. But once you acquire the right skills and tools, your brand’s impact will be felt across more channels.
The good news is, there are several solutions out there that can give you both.
To grow their user base, more and more video editing platforms offer free, detailed learning resources. This includes visual guides, video tutorials, and comprehensive user manuals.
Remember, well-made videos can spread like wildfire across platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
You just need a good idea you can spin into an informative video that your audience will enjoy.
A typical example would be a hands-on review of something important to your audience.
For instance, SEMrush has been around for over a decade. But, through video reviews, marketers can still garner thousands of views on YouTube.
Slideshow presentations
You can repurpose old content into slideshow presentations, adding another layer to your content marketing strategy.
Unlike long-form content, slideshow presentations grab readers’ attention through clear, structured, and digestible formatting.
Marketers have been using slideshows for the longest time. It’s easy, has a high ROI potential, and could introduce your brand to a broader audience.
The process can be broken down into the following:
- Find competitor blog posts, infographics, or videos
- List down key information
- Create slides that focus on individual takeaways
- Consider including vibrant visuals to make key information stand out
- Write clear CTAs
Keep in mind: Incorporating visuals into your content strategy can’t be done overnight.
If you have the time and budget, you can research e-learning platforms to access courses like graphic design and video editing.
Sure, it sounds like a lot of work. But if you want to cut through the content noise, that’s exactly the kind of move you need to make.
2. Spruce Up Existing Content Ideas with Related Topics
There’s another simple way to find new angles for existing content ideas.
And by simple, I mean, excruciatingly simple.
Just plug a broad keyword in Google search.
Google’s Autocomplete suggestions allow you to easily spot what people regularly search for.
You can also look at the “People also ask” section for more ideas you can incorporate in your all-new piece.
Want even more ideas?
Just scroll all the way down to the bottom of the search results. There should be more ideas waiting for you.
If you want an even longer list, there are tools for that as well.
Platforms like ahrefs can give you a list of keyword variations that correspond to subtopics you can explore.
Again, all you have to do is plug in a keyword and let the tool work its magic.
If you don’t want to comb through keywords all day, you can stay in the loop automatically with Google Alerts.
This tool allows you to stay up-to-date with competitors, brands, or keywords you want to track. It sends personalized email alerts, meaning you’ll get automatic, fresh updates whenever new content gets indexed by Google.
3. Update Old Information
Finding fresh angles doesn’t have to be all crunch work.
It can be as simple as finding updated information and studies to supplement an existing piece of content.
Remember, publishing relevant and updated content helps you for a handful of reasons:
- Increase the odds of other sites linking back to you
- Keep your target audience fulfilled, lowering bounce rates
- Require less work than building new content from scratch
- Serve as a linkable asset for your long-term content strategy
Whenever you read popular content online, check all the studies and statistics mentioned in the article.
Remember, many top-ranking posts on Google are produced years ago — most come with outdated stats. Use them as opportunities to create something better in terms of freshness and relevance.
Once you find outdated information in your sourced content, seek out new studies. This will help you naturally develop a “fresh angle” from old content.
Suppose you want to write something based on an article about the benefits of reaching the top position on Google.
For the sake of this guide, let’s call the post, “Why You Need to Reach Google’s First Position.”
Most SEO veterans have heard that 33 percent of search traffic goes to the number one position.
However, a more recent study reveals that the first position’s traffic share is reduced to 28.5 percent.
If you really care about the topic, these findings will compel you to dig deeper.
A good angle is to highlight the underlying causes that led to the changes. In relation to the example above, the new data can be attributed to factors that affected organic clicks, like:
- Featured snippets
- Search ads
- “Knowledge panels”
So, instead of writing about why you should aim for Google’s number one position, you use these fresh takes:
- X Featured Snippets Stealing All Your Organic Traffic
- How to Optimize Knowledge Panels and Steal Traffic from Google’s #1
- Why Reaching Google’s Top Spot Isn’t Enough
See what I did there?
While you’re at it, don’t forget to check your own content for outdated data. Doing so will prevent your website from losing links to newer content with up-to-date information.
4. Instill Your Brand’s Unique Voice
Your business brand should be memorable, authentic, and consistent.
After finding a stellar post, finding a fresh angle can be as simple as instilling your brand’s unique writing voice.
Popular bloggers and thought leaders do this all the time by using their personal conversational tone. As a result, their audience always feels like they’re reading an original piece.
There’s no need for a step-by-step guide here.
To keep things simple, here are tips on how to find your brand’s unique voice:
- Start with your brand’s mission statement
- Learn how your target audience communicates
- Get to know your writing style by looking at your existing content
- Practice reading drafts aloud
- Be sure your voice matches your industry
Still don’t know where to start?
Perhaps this brand voice chart from the guys at CoSchedule can help.
Always remember: balance is the key.
While sounding casual and friendly is good, you need to fulfill the user’s intent with an air of expertise, too.
That doesn’t mean you should litter your content with jargon to make yourself sound smarter than you are. Rather, go with simple words to get your points across with the least friction possible.
People would happily click away from your website and look elsewhere otherwise.
5. Compile Information from Various Sources
Throughout history, people have had the power to aggregate information from what others discovered in the past.
To come up with an original angle by yourself, read up on as many reputable sources as you can find. Then, compile everything you’ve learned in one solid listicle.
Here’s exactly what you can do:
- Start with at least three sources. Search for three comprehensive posts from vetted sources. Feel free to look for more sources to make your content as epic as possible.
- Get their key takeaways. Identify the most important points from each post. Organize them according to priority, category, or both.
- Build your listicle. Flesh out the takeaways by adding step-by-step instructions, definitions, and tips. Make your content flow by adding transition sentences and finishing with a strong conclusion.
That’s it.
You don’t need to be a seasoned content marketer to make this process work.
Just bear in mind that you’re not just presenting content from a new angle. Instead, you’re presenting the most important ideas from all angles.
6. Mix Up The Headline
It takes more than well-structured and interesting content to capture the reader’s attention.
Your content’s headline is the touchpoint that bridges you and the reader. More importantly, it establishes the reader’s expectations and sets the tone for the rest of the post.
Different headlines also enable content writers to cover topics from a completely different perspective.
For example, instead of writing about the best SEO practices, you can talk about the pitfalls everyone should avoid.
Below are some quick tips:
- Look at the opposite side of the spectrum. If the original content is about tips, write about the mistakes.
- Create a “how to” guide. You can also easily build a “how-to” guide by taking out actionable insights from an original source.
- Feature a product. If the original content is a “how to” guide, write a review or product tutorial.
- Build a list. If the original content is a tutorial, build a list of the “top strategies.”
- Show some numbers. Look for a case study, build your content around the results, and highlight the numbers in your headline.
A good title makes or breaks the decision for your reader to engage in the piece. Be creative, intriguing, and don’t let your audience’s down.
Conclusion
Finding fresh angles doesn’t have to be difficult.
Know your brand voice, find high-ranking keywords and content, and don’t be afraid to get inspiration online.
Feel free to bookmark this post and return whenever you need a dose of inspiration for your next content. If you have questions or suggestions, write a comment below.
Good luck!
