How To Boost SEO With Already-Published Content: 15 Repurposing Tips

Forbes

6 days ago

getty
Boosting SEO doesn't always have to mean starting from scratch with new content. Content you've already published can become a powerful means of gaining fresh visibility—if you know how to work with it. From refreshing blog posts to breaking them out into videos or social media carousels, smart repurposing helps the best ideas work harder—and reach farther—across more platforms.
A strong content strategy is about meeting users where they are and speaking their language, whether it's via video, visuals or text. Here, 15 members of Forbes Agency Council share highly effective tactics for breathing new life into existing content. Check out their tips below to repurpose your best content in ways that will be rewarded by search engines.
One of my favorite tricks is turning an old blog post into a short video. It keeps the message alive while reaching people who prefer different formats. To embed these videos, I recommend using a platform like Wistia for the video uploads rather than YouTube. It keeps viewers on your website instead of getting redirected to YouTube. - Jason Hennessey, Hennessey Digital
My favorite trick is to identify evergreen content and update it with fresh data and examples, signaling to search engines that the content is still relevant and valuable. A key tip is to always consider the user intent for each platform when repurposing; what works as a detailed blog post might need to be a quick video or infographic elsewhere. - Datari Ladejo, Fernhill Digital Consulting
You can repurpose previously published content by simply reworking its headers and structure. For example, take the same core information and transform it into a list of 'Do's' and 'Don'ts,' a tip-based roundup, a step-by-step tutorial or a listicle. - Peter Boyd, PaperStreet Web Design
Adding FAQ sections to existing content is our go-to SEO repurposing strategy. We analyze customer inquiries and 'People Also Ask' results to identify genuine user questions, add concise and actionable answers, and implement proper heading tags and FAQ schema markup. This naturally incorporates long-tail keywords in a conversational format while increasing chances of appearing in featured snippets. - Meeky Hwang, Ndevr, Inc.
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My favorite trick is reworking high-performing blog posts into multiple content formats, such as social media carousels, short-form videos or infographics. This brings fresh eyes to the same topic while reinforcing keywords and internal links across platforms. Always update content with the latest stats, trends or examples. Google rewards freshness, so small updates that include strategic keyword adjustments can have a big impact. - Jennifer Friese, Protiviti
I remodel old content by turning it into interactive micro-guides that answer fresh user queries. By updating keywords, visuals and internal links, I rejuvenate the material without losing its core insights. This method, known as 'pivoting,' breathes new life into proven assets and reinforces long-term authority. - Vaibhav Kakkar, Digital Web Solutions
Authentic content that resonates with your audience is, and will continue to be, king—especially in the new realm of AI-generated content. That said, the content used in blog posts for SEO can have many different lives, from social media snippets and posts on your Google Business Profile to audio and video content for use on social media and websites. The combination of uses creates an 'evergreen effect.' - Terry Zelen, Zelen Communications
Using Google Search Console to find content that is almost breaking into the top five results on SERPs. Then, repurpose it with small, high-impact updates like refining H1s, refreshing keywords it already ranks for and mirroring top-ranking structures. AI tip: Run it through ChatGPT, and you can have a fully optimized, repurposed asset in minutes. - Amy Packard Berry, Sparkpr
If the original content was of high quality, simply recycling it is a bad idea. A good repurposing program will take content and repurpose it for a different persona or stage in the customer journey. Long white papers are bottom-of-the-funnel content, so create a short video out of one that is more suited to earlier stages in the customer journey, or re-create it with a different member of the buying committee in mind. - Mike Maynard, Napier Partnership Limited
Take your top-performing blog post, feed it into AI, and turn it into a 60-second 'hot take' for social media. Then, embed that video back into the original post. It's a double win: You boost time on page and rank higher with fresh, multimedia-rich content. Repurposing isn't recycling; it's reimagining! - Curtis Priest, Pixelcarve Inc.
One of my favorite tricks is transforming strong articles into resources that stay relevant long-term, like how-to guides or best practices. This helps SEO because the content keeps bringing in traffic over time. The key is to refresh the structure and add value so it stays useful and keeps converting new readers. Regular updates also improve technical SEO by keeping pages healthy. - Goran Paun, ArtVersion
The No. 1 repurposing trick is to divide all of your content into chapters. That way, you can break one piece of content down into parts, mix and match chapters, or even combine it with sections from different content. You can also transcribe a video, feed the transcript into AI and turn it into a blog post, infographic or other assets. Using chapters makes repurposing content for SEO far more powerful. - Austin Irabor, NETFLY
Use the month and year in your titles, as Google loves fresh and recently updated content, and most definitely put a time stamp on the content. If it's Q&A-type content, then the questions can stay the same; you just need to update the bullet points in the answers. And don't forget that Google hates duplicate content, so make sure enough of the content has actually been updated and/or modified. - Daniel Kamen, Serial Scaling
Look at what's trending and match a news item or hot issue to your past content. Adding references to people and organizations in the news and key points from the media dialogue (with hyperlinks where possible) can transform your older (but still relevant) content into timely commentary, and this is an incredibly efficient use of resources. - Thomas Faust, Stanton
Be careful—or you might be wasting your time. Search engines only provide SEO value where content is originally published; it will be considered duplicate content and ignored anywhere else. While there might be branding value in republishing content on other platforms, there is zero SEO benefit if it is republished verbatim. Either rewrite the content so that it is distinctly different from the original or refresh the content where it was originally published. - Michael Chagala, Rank Harvest Digital Marketing