Marketers often prioritise adding new content to their websites, believing that constantly churning out new content is the way to better marketing. However, that might not always be the case. The ultimate content marketing strategy isn’t solely centred around creating the next best content; it’s also about leveraging what you’ve already got. As it turns out, your existing content could be the key to levelling up your SEO performance. 

If you’re aiming for the top spots on search engine results pages (SERPs) and aim to satisfy your target audience, quality is key. Ensure each piece of content on your site delivers true value to readers. And once you’ve posted your blog or article, you can’t just set it and forget it. It’s important to regularly audit your content, update the high-performing ones, and kick out the ones that don’t drive results – that’s what we call content pruning. It might sound slightly unconventional, but sometimes embracing the “less is more” philosophy can work wonders.

You might already be pruning your content to some extent, but this guide is all about taking it up a notch. I will show you how to become more systematic with it. Plus, I’ll throw in some tips on how to streamline the entire process. 

What is Content Pruning?

Content pruning is the process of removing the low-quality content that doesn’t perform on your site – low traffic, conversions, maybe a bit thin or duplicated, or just not resonating with your current audience. Whatever the reason may be, it’s time to give your website a little makeover to make sure both search algorithms and your audience sees you as a trusted source. Harbouring old content on your site can seriously hurt your website’s performance, dragging down your traffic and ruining your search rankings. This is why content pruning exists to make sure each and every piece of content on your site is up-to-date and relevant. 

The term pruning comes from the gardening process of trimming plants. You trim away the plants that aren’t flourishing to make way for fresher and newer plants. Think of it this way—pruning is to gardening what content pruning is to keep your website in top shape. 

The name of the game is to get rid of content that is dead weight. But what exactly counts as dead weight in content?

• Outdated content that is no longer relevant to your audience.
• Time-sensitive news that users aren’t searching for or interested in.
• How-to guides based on redundant technologies.
• Events or product announcements that have already taken place.

Once you’ve identified the low-quality, it’s decision-making time. You need to decide whether you want to delete the content, update it, or set up a redirect for it. Hitting the delete button on your content is the easy way out, but it’s not always the best option. If your content is outdated yet still relevant, you may want to update the content and give it a content makeover. If the content is low-quality but has a high ranking in the search engines, set up a redirect to a different page on your website so users are navigated to a piece of content that’s worth reading.

Benefits of Content Pruning:

The most obvious benefit of content pruning is you open up the opportunity to score higher in search rankings. This is especially the case with the recent Google helpful content update which revealed that Google will penalise your entire site if your site’s holding onto some low-quality content. Here are some other benefits of content pruning:

Remove outdated content on your website:

Ever found an article that seems to be the answer to all your questions, only to realise it was posted in 2008? Talk about frustrating. You definitely don’t want users to stumble upon pages with outdated content, services, or products. It damages your reputation and paints the wrong image of your company. Users want fresh information so, do yourself a favour by getting rid of old content. Sure, that article from 2008 used to be a hit, but it’s probably filled with information that no longer applies to today’s world. 

The worst thing about having outdated content on your site is that it still gets crawled by search engines. This may not seem like a huge issue, however search engines only index a set number of pages in a given timeframe. This is known as your site’s crawl budget. Here’s the catch: your crawl budget can’t be directly increased. So, the more pages you have on your website, the less budget is available for Google to index the rest of your content. And if you have a lot of pages on your site, your crawl budget is one thing you don’t want to waste. 

When your crawl budget takes a hit, it’s not just your website getting scanned less often – it also means the new content you post aren’t getting indexed as frequently as they should. This lowers the chances of your new content even showing up in SERPs. 

Prevent keyword cannibalisation:

If you’ve been creating content on your website for some time, you’re bound to end up with content similar to what you’ve written before. This results in a bunch of pages on your website competing against each other for the same or similar keywords. Now, at first glance, it seems like a great idea from an SEO perspective – more content on the same keyword should mean a better shot at ranking high, right?  Well, not always. It can lead to confusion for search engines in determining which page to rank for a particular query. The consequence? Your pages might end up with lower rankings and not getting much love from search engine algorithms.

But it doesn’t just end there.This content competition can also leave your site’s visitors confused as they try to figure out which piece of content is the answer to their questions. This confusion isn’t great for user experience, potentially leading to higher bounce rates as users click off in search for an article that is a lot clearer.

Now, updating a huge amount of pages on the same topic is an extremely time-consuming task, that ultimately won’t deliver the results you’re hoping for. Instead, merge all the content together to create one powerhouse page that covers the topic inside out. This will help create an article that stands out in the eyes of search engines. 

Organise your content:

High-quality content is not the only key to unlocking SEO success. Organisation matters too. Having a well-structured website can make your content pop and make its mark.

If your content is structured well, it helps guide your readers on a smooth user journey where they can find what they need. On the other hand, if your content is scattered with no direction, it leaves users having to actively search for the content they need. This triggers a chain reaction where visitors become frustrated and end up leaving your website. 

This is where content pruning comes in. By strategically removing outdated or less impactful content you end up saving users time and have a much more positive experience with your site. Users can head straight to the good stuff without the wild goose chase. 

This is extremely valuable for businesses who operate in competitive niches. In an industry where there’s information everywhere, gaining your audience’s attention is a rarity. How you organise your content is a game-changer and can be a true make or break factor on deciding whether a user continues to read or hit that ‘x’ button.

Increases site speed:

Site speed is an SEO factor many businesses overlook, even though it has a real lasting impact on your website. Content pruning declutters your site and removes excess content you don’t need. The less content you have, the faster your website loads. Faster loading time makes navigating your website a breeze and search engines love when users have a great time on your website. 

Read the blog here to find out how to improve your site’s speed.

Resource optimisation: 

After posting a blog or article, don’t leave it to collect dust. You need to maintain and update your content to keep up with your competitors and search engine algorithm changes. Each piece needs attention, and as your content grows, so does the effort to keep it thriving. 

By pruning your content you’re able to get rid of the content that’s pulling your website down. This way, you’re not just saving time – you’re directing your energy where it really matters. Focusing on content that delivers results to help it stand the test of time. 

The Process of Content Pruning:

• Define Goals and Objectives: First things first, what do you want to achieve with pruning your content? Are you looking to improve SEO, amp up your user experience, or get rid of the articles you posted over a decade ago? Identify your goals and objectives to make sure your pruning efforts have intent behind them.
• Audit your content: It’s time for a content audit. Assess the performance of each piece of content and think of metrics – page views, engagement, and conversations. This is a good starting point to determine what content drives results and what doesn’t. 
• Create a strategy: Set some ground rules to determine what content to prune. This will help create a sense of direction to start deleting content. 
• Remove content: Now the tough part – getting rid of content. Don’t be afraid to send content to the chopping block. Holding onto outdated or irrelevant content can do more harm than good for your website. 
• Update and optimise content: For the content worth saving, it’s time to give it some well-needed TLC. Make it accurate, and relevant, and ensure it aligns with today’s trends. You may also want to add more bulk to content which has the potential to rank high. Things like FAQs or a key takeaways section add depth to your blog post or article. 
• Add in 301 redirects: If you’re removing pages or URLs, add in 301 directs to keep things smooth with users and search engines. It’ll help direct users to the right content and make search engines aware that the content is still there, just in a better location.
• Monitor and analyse results: After you’ve pruned your content, it’s time to watch those metrics closely. What’s changing in your position rankings? How are users engaging with your content? Get the tea on how effective your content-pruning strategy is.