Content decay is one of the most overlooked problems in SEO.
While many agencies go headlong into AI-written content–often writing mass-produced garbage for the sake of quantity–our Hyperocal Lead Generation and SEO-Driven Content Marketing services focus simultaneously on producing new evergreen content and optimizing existing content that is essential to your business.
While some people are reluctant to touch old content that may still drive tiny spurts of traffic, you could miss out on a huge opportunity for renewed engagement.
And with renewed engagement comes lead generation and, ultimately, revenue.
Content pruning is a strategy to optimize or redirect old and outdated content to help drive new user engagement to your website. This strategy often yields new leads and traffic quicker than trying to write something entirely new.
However, not all content should be saved, especially if it no longer applies to your core business beliefs or is just poorly produced.
By frequently pruning old and decaying content, you will see instant lifts in your traffic and leads across your digital marketing strategy.
Why Is Content Decay an Issue For Websites?
Much like us humans, our content can age and wither with time. As any website grows and scales onto bigger things, it’s not uncommon for a massive collection of legacy content to sit dormant, collecting dust.
While old, unranked content is not necessarily bad in and of itself, it can present many new problems for website owners as they embark on new endeavors:
- Keyword Cannibalization: Want to write a new, shiny blog about a burning topic in your industry? Well, what if you already had the same idea five years ago? Turns out that the new blog will compete with that old blog for keyword rankings, even though the old blog never did anything for your website whatsoever. If left unchecked, you could have several pages of content competing and preventing each other from ranking highly.
- Outdated Information: Working with several financial services clients, we understand how quickly information can evolve within an industry, whether it’s due to changing regulations or new wisdom. Unfortunately, having users click on old, outdated blogs could end up harming your business’s reputation and even the customer if the information is wrong.
- Outdated Products and Services: As businesses evolve, so do their products and services. Unfortunately, as advanced as Google is at crawling and indexing content, it still relies on aggregate data to make certain determinations. If you have thousands of pages dedicated to baked goods but have now evolved your blog into cooking recipes, Google might still not rank your new content because it thinks your website is still primarily centered around baking, not cooking.
- Lower User Metrics: While information is mixed, most experts believe that Google does take user engagement into consideration when ranking and ordering content. Unfortunately, old and outdated content tends to suffer from poorer engagement, including higher bounce rates and lower session durations, which could make your website as a whole suffer.
What Is Content Pruning?
Content pruning is the systematic process of auditing your website’s existing content and determining which pieces to update and which to redirect.
Like an overgrown shrub or tree, pruning allows you to cut away the dead growth and encourage new growth.
By pruning old content, you can eliminate errors from keyword cannibalization and signal to Google which content is most important in your information hierarchy.
When to Keep and Redirect Old Content
Now comes the age-old question: what should I do with my old and outdated content?
To get started, we recommend a full content audit of your existing website presence using tools like ScreamingFrog, SEMrush, or even Google Search Console to see what content is delivering value for your website and what is wasteful.
Using a spreadsheet, set up a column that will determine whether or not to keep or prune your old content. When deciding on what content we keep and prune for clients, we look at several factors, such as:
- Topical Relevance: Does the content we are looking to keep or redirect still apply to our core business values? If so, then it might be worth keeping.
- Multiple Related Topics: Do I have dozens of pages on the same topic in mind blog that are cannibalizing each other? If so, then I want to determine which piece of content delivers the highest user metrics to keep and which pieces should redirect.
- User Metrics: Does the content I am attempting to prune or optimize still deliver traffic, or has it delivered any value in the past? If so, it might be worth keeping and updating, as getting rid of this piece of content might be costly.
Once you have a list of content you want to optimize, copy those links onto a separate sheet and build out a task table to optimize them over the next few months.
However, for content that has been deemed for the chopping block (i.e., pruning), there are several different approaches we can take:
- Redirects: Content actively cannibalizing other content or is just of low quality should be redirected to a service page or a topically related blog that will deliver the best value for users.
- Consolidation: Another option may be to take a portion of the content you have written and add it to another related blog to help boost its value. As long as the original URL is redirected to the new one, there is no harm in repurposing old content on a better blog.
- Deleting: Only in rare cases where the content is actively malicious or harmful do we recommend deleting entirely, as it will result in a 404 error. While these errors are common among paginated pages or old service pages that get lost in a migration, it’s always practice to redirect a 404 page whenever possible.
Tips for Optimizing Existing Content
Content optimizations are a great way to get renewed value out of old posts, and they can often outperform what they once did years ago.
First, start with content that is central to your business, such as:
- Top-level service pages
- Blog pillar pages
- Landing pages
- Contact forms and CTAs
Once it’s time to tackle your blog, you’ll want to start with your current highest-performing blogs and then move down the list.
While there are lots of steps we follow for each content optimization, some of the primary best practices we follow include:
- Improving Metadata: Update meta tags, such as title tags, meta descriptions, and headers with target keywords.
- Enhancing Readability: Break up long text blocks with subheadings, bullet points, and images. This can have a large effect on bounce rates and session durations.
- Updating Internal Links: Ensure content links to relevant, high-performing pages. We recommend having at least 4-6 internal links per piece, as well as external links to relevant and authoritative websites.
- Optimizing for Search Intent: Align content with current industry trends and user search behavior. Recently, we have also been updating content to conform to new AI-driven search engines.
- Refreshing Media: Update or replace outdated images, infographics, and embedded videos.
How Often Should Content Audits Be Completed
Lastly, knowing when to prune and audit your content is important. Like all things in SEO, consistency is key.
Generally, we recommend at least an annual content evaluation to determine what is working and what can hit the wood chipper.
We also start any professional engagement with a content audit to determine areas of opportunity and learn more about our client’s brands.
Many professional organizations that handle large volumes of content tend to perform quarterly audits of all new and existing content to optimize in real-time to avoid content decay or any ongoing issues.
Of course, many businesses don’t have the resources required for this amount of work. That’s why it’s essential to partner with an agency you can trust that prioritizes the nitty gritty of SEO and is not just in it for the money.
If you’re looking to partner with an ethical agency for all of your content marketing and lead generation needs, click the link below to schedule your free, no-obligation consultation with the leaders at ContentMender.
FAQs
Why is content pruning important for SEO?
Old and unoptimized content can lead to keyword cannibalization, outdated information, and lower user engagement. Pruning helps improve rankings, user experience, and website authority.
Does Google penalize sites for outdated content?
Google doesn’t penalize outdated content directly, but low engagement, high bounce rates, and irrelevant information can lead to ranking declines over time.
Can content pruning help improve conversions?
Yes! By refining your website’s content, you remove distractions, improve page clarity, and ensure that your CTAs (calls to action) lead visitors to the most valuable pages.