When you think of spring cleaning, you probably think about cleaning your home from top to bottom. The same idea can be useful when it comes to your website content. Giving your website a good “deep clean” will keep your website up-to-date and valuable to your readers and give you better SEO results.
If your old content isn’t aligning with your business initiatives any longer, a content cleanup is a must. Over time, updates become essential to every business. But doing too much content elimination can end up hurting you. Finding that happy medium and “sweet spot” for capturing better SEO results is critical to the success of your business now and in the future.
Why Clean Out Old Content?
Some of the best reasons to clean up your content include:
1. Writing and Editing Changes Needed – You’ve learned more about your business and have most likely refined what you do compared to when you started your business. If your older content has become outdated or is no longer applicable to your company, getting rid of it will ensure better SEO results by attracting the right customers.
You may also find that your content contains typos or isn’t written as well as you would like. Edits like this can help your material flow better and give more clout to the message you’re trying to put out there.
2. Outdated Content – Fresh content is always needed to keep readers and search engines happy. If you, as a reader, see an article that is eight years old, you may question the current reliability of the information. Products and services change frequently, so keeping your content up to date is crucial to attracting potential customers.
Changing out old images or video content is important as well. There’s nothing quite like being excited about a product that you want to buy and then being let down by outdated pictures that make you feel like you’re behind the times with your purchase.
3. Duplicate Content – Sometimes, the same topic can accidentally be written about more than once. It can be a lot to keep track of when there are so many articles on your site. If you can eliminate duplicate information, you will see better SEO results.
Benefits of Cleaning Out Your Website
We’ve discussed why you should seriously consider doing some spring cleaning on your website. Now let’s look at a couple of benefits you’ll find in doing so:
- More Organic Traffic – Clearing out old content and updating information, including images and videos, will make your website easier and more exciting to read. Search engines will also notice the updates and give you better SEO results and ranking.
- A Fresh and More User-Friendly Look and Feel – Getting rid of content on your website that is no longer relevant or contains duplicate information can help your website feel fresh and re-energized, making people want to visit often and stay longer to discover all that is offered. It’s incredible what some small changes can do to your website and business!
Disadvantages of Website Spring Cleaning
If you don’t clean up your website the right way or handle it appropriately, you can unknowingly create the opposite effect that you were going for and end up losing the organic traffic increase you’ve hoped for. Some of the main cons of content cleanup include the following:
- Deleting Keywords and Links – During your cleanup, make sure you’re not losing important keywords or links that you wrote your article on your site for in the first place. Losing those links in an outdated article could be detrimental to your website’s SEO. If possible, don’t delete these articles. Instead, try updating them with more relevant information.
- Potential Loss of Social Media Traffic – Losing content, even if it’s older, can lead to possible social media traffic loss. Again, updating content instead of deleting them altogether can help reduce the risk of losing existing SEO you’re getting from social media links.
- 404 Page Errors – When you delete a page on your website, you’ll often find it is “404’ed” and shows a “page not found” error when someone clicks on a link. Search engines realize the errors and read them as no longer functional, in turn, lowering your SEO rankings.
Cleaning up Content the Right Way
There are things you can do to ensure your website is cleaned up and fresh while still preserving important links, keywords, and information.
- Delete Content with Low Web Traffic. This will help ensure that your SEO is not affected much, if at all.
- If you Delete a Page, Use 410 Deleted Status. If you intentionally delete a page from your website, tell Google that it was deliberate by serving the “410 Deleted” status. This will direct Google to remove the page from its search results.
- Redirect Users. Using “301 redirect” lets you go from one webpage that automatically redirects to another, updated page. This can be especially useful if you redirect users from older content or products to newer ones.
- Renew Existing Content. Think about updating a webpage if it’s still attracting traffic and ranking well. Adding new information, images, and other media to already existing content can improve the look and feel while still maintaining the traffic and rankings you need to be successful. Move paragraphs around, add bullet points, change headings, and add sub-headings to change things up.
Better SEO Results Beginning Now
If you know your website needs some updating and a major cleanup, now is the time. You may not feel like you’re up for the challenge or don’t have the time to go through blog posts and web pages. That’s where ARYU Advertising can help. Our group knows what a great website consists of and is ready to get yours exactly where you want it. Contact us to learn more about how we can help you see better SEO results and sales.
