Links and regularly updated valuable content are something we encourage at Digital Firefly Marketing. We’re rarely heard telling people to delete content but there are times when the best content marketing strategy is one of content management, which includes auditing content and getting rid of it. Today we’re breaking down how to assess whether something has passed its expiration date and strategies for content management that work for websites of all types and sizes.

Add Content Management to Your Content Marketing Strategy

Manage your content by auditing it regularly. You don’t have to do a full audit every time. We recommend focusing on your highest traffic pages. Look at the 10-25 pages that get the most attention (use Google Analytics or your CMS) and make sure they are up to date – if there is new information related to them, refresh the content and share on social to re-engage. Then focus on the lowest performing pages by asking these 4 questions.

How’s The SEO?

Make sure, before anything else, that any page live on your site is getting a green light from Google. Any top performing pages that are less than perfect should be triaged immediately. All other pages should be the second priority. Place low-performing pages with bad SEO on your hit list – we’ll get back to those.

Is The Topic Relevant?

If you’ve got pages wishing visitors a Happy National Ice Cream Day or rambling about how well your weekend went, place those on your hit list. These types of posts are nothing short of annoying and giving people a reason not to come back. Cut the clutter.

How’s The Tone?

Sometimes we’re all seized with the need to write snarky critiques that are thinly, or not so thinly, aimed at competitors. This is never a good idea. Put these on your list.

Does The Content Reflect Your Business?

When you started your biz you were planning events of all types but after a while you found that charitable causes were where you found your most authentic self. Once you’ve established yourself and moved toward only planning fundraisers make sure to cut content that doesn’t support this (including posts that say to call you to plan a wedding).

Audit Your Hit List

Now that you’ve put pages on your list it’s time to go through them to see what content can be deleted. Be sure to make a redirect plan so that you don’t end up with dead links.

If a page is low-performing and has bad SEO back it up and delete it. This page isn’t serving any purpose other than diminishing your rank.

If information is outdated back it up and delete it. As part of your content marketing strategy you might update readers with new advances in your field but at some point it becomes old news, even irrelevant. Don’t keep this content live. If there are just changes, see above and freshen it up.

Any content that criticizes competitors or influencers or uses sarcasm to “cleverly” critique others should be deleted immediately. You probably don’t even need to back it up.

Content that reflects what your business was instead of what it is can be backed up and deleted.

There are exceptions to every rule, even these about content management. If your content is snarky but gets significant hits, maybe tone it down a bit and keep it. If an old landing page about your business doesn’t reflect what you do now you can always add a note at the top explaining that your business has changed and directing them to an updated “about” or “services” or “FAQ” page.

Need Some Help?

We’re here to help. Digital Firefly Marketing has content marketing experts who can help you with content management and deciding whether it’s time to put some content to pasture. Contact us today for a free audit and find out how we can help you clean up your site so it ’s optimized with your best, most sought after, content.