How to Repurpose and Update Content for SEO

SEO is one of the most approachable and challenging marketing tasks that small businesses need. SEO is farily simple to get started on with a fresh website, but what if you’ve been running a blog or social media account for several years? Many small business SEO strategies benefit from the ability to update and repurpose content across channels and over time.

The information in your industry may not change much from year to year and often times your most in-demand content is at risk of going stale. The blogs that rocked the house a year ago (or much longer) will lose “relevancy” compared to more recently published pages, even if your brand has the best information on the web. It’s possible you might have a social media post that sparked very high engagement and you would like to capitalize on that through other SEO content.

Today, we’re walking through how to repurpose your content for SEO. This includes updating your old/best content for new, competitive SEO scores.

Creating Multi-Channel SEO From Original Content

First, let’s talk about multi-channel. This means SEO across multiple forms of media for different types of searches, audiences, and platforms. You can absolutely repurpose your best content into equally hard-hitting SEO for other channels and content forms. The 4 essential channels are:

1. Blogs
2. Social Media
3. Videos
4. FAQs

Repurposing FAQs Into Blogs and Social Media

FAQ’s (or Frequently Asked Questions) can be one of the best sources of inspiration that often goes unacknowledged when thinking about content. Your FAQ is a list of questions that customers ask and useful inormation and answers in response by your business. First, each FAQ page can be broken up into dozens of interest-engaging social media posts or used as SEO-rich teasers for expanded blog content. Second, each FAQ question & answer can be expanded into a full-length blog that answers each question in more detail.

Repurposing Blogs Into Social Media and Videos

Next, take a look at your most popular blog posts. These blog pages already have great search visibility with higher amounts of clicks and readers. Any blog can be harvested for a few different social media posts or expanded into fun videos.

For social media, either highlight the questions answered in the blog or use your catchiest points  in the content. Think about repurposing blogs into social media as a form of question and answer. You want to spike curiosity or make statements that cause people to want to read more.

When repurposing a blog into promotional videos, focus on the conversation. Either create an animated/demonstrated how-to guide, or have an expert host sit down and explain the blog’s content like a knowledgeable friend might explain their area of expertise at a barbecue.

Repurposing Social Media Into SEO Blogs and Videos

You can also work the process backward starting with your best social media posts. If some of your social media content really took off, sparked a discussion, inspired curiosity in your viewers, wrote a blog, and/or created a video that runs with the concept.

Creating an SEO-rich blog or video from a social media post is a lot like starting from your FAQ. Be prepared to expand. State your viewer’s curiosity with a lot of detail, fun facts, and insider information inspired by the social media content and your audience’s reaction.

Repurposing Videos Into Written SEO

Lastly, you can turn any successful video into an SEO smorgasbord starting with the transcript. Pair the written and video content for a double-whammy of engaging content. Always have a closed caption file and a written transcript available so that crawlers can “read” your video for accessibility purposes.

From there, you can write a blog post about the content of the video. Discuss the concepts therein and create teasers or discussion-starting social media posts that link to clips of the video and tease the full-length content.

Updating Old Content for New SEO

Another common challenge is how to keep one of your top blogs or videos relevant when the information does not change from year to year. Google rewards recently published pages both as search results and as valuable links through other sources. What if your guide on how an air conditioner compressor works, how to stage a house for sale, or how to measure for tailored clothing is still the same as it was last year?

If your SEO is structured well, optimized properly and was once getting decent traffic but now has dropped, here’s a few ideas on how to keep these pages fresh when you republish them for SEO competitive relevance.

Update Your Facts and Numbers

First, go through and make sure that any facts, numbers, links, and references are relevant to recent data. Replace old links and review your facts to ensure that publishing the article again will read as fresh and new.

Expand Solid Information With New Tips

Build on your original content with more in-depth insights, tips, or useful FAQ answers. Enjoy the fact that you don’t have to fully re-write your content because it is already high quality and instead seek to add value to the article instead. This provides updated value to readers and is also great for maintaining search visibility as expected page lengths become longer.

Add New Images and Infographics

Make the article look and feel fresh with new images and customized infographics. Original infographics based on your already-solid content are valuable in and of themselves. With proper metadata, you could turn this great content upgrade into a new wave of image search result clicks and backlinks from the infographics or demonstrative photos alone.

Create an Annual Report

If your previous top-ranking content was highly relevant to the year, consider rebuilding the same popular content into an updated annual report each year. This is how many now-trusted information source brands got started. Post one phenomenal overview, review, or product guide that really hits home with your audience, then write a new one each year using new information, data, and/or products. Be sure to replicate both the easy-to-read format you used before and the personable expert voice of the earlier writing to create hard-hitting SEO-rich content with every update.

Repurposing for SEO Is Easier Than You Think

Once you understand how SEO and great content strategy works hand-in-hand, almost any content can be repurposed across multiple content channels and updated over time to rebuild your best-performing SEO strategies again and again. Contact us today for more excellent SEO insights that will boost your visibility, start conversations, and build trust. We’re here to make people-first, organic SEO easy.