Strategically Managing Blog Content
Photo by Alice Dietrich on Unsplash
Why I Deleted 390 Blogs and Why You Should Consider the Same
Content marketers and bloggers are often told to focus on generating new content for their blog. It’s easy to forget about the pre-existing content on the website and how it could be impacting the organization. While the focus is on the freshest content, old blogs on the website are still generating traffic and creating impressions of your organization.
While I was employed by Risdall Marketing Group, I went through over seven years of blogs. I deleted nearly 400 posts. Why would I do this if content is king? What are the benefits of deleting a whole heap of content?
The Value of Strategically Managing Blog Content
While a single post doesn’t necessarily lead to a conversion, the experience created over time with multiple blogs is much more likely to. If you haven’t kept your previous blogs up to current standards then they may not be creating the right kind of impression on your visitors.
There are a variety of reasons to manage your previous blogs:
Finding opportunities for better search engine optimization (SEO)
Finding content gaps
Unifying a better brand experience
Updating outdated statistics cited in the content
Being able to have content that works for you
Updating broken, or outdated, links
Having your blog content align with and support current company strategies and goals
Many opportunities gained by having to go through your old blogs happen because you’ve shone a light on the content and you are now aware of them. You’ll also begin to see common patterns within the content, such as:
The authors on the blog between 2011-2013 forgot to include meta descriptions and image ALT text
The categories used on the blog no longer make sense
One of the authors on the blog is obsessed with using GIFs and their posts are distracting and potentially obnoxious
Of course, in order to get the most out of this activity, you’ll have to go about the process strategically to avoid shooting yourself in the foot. This is where having a documented editorial guideline document will come in handy.
Why I Deleted What I Did
It started out because I was looking into what the top performing pieces of content were for the Risdall Marketing Group blog. I noticed that a few posts that were vastly out performing all of the other content.
When I looked at the blogs in question, I realized many of the stats and best practices were out of date or in need of some updating. This led to look at the other posts that were generating traffic and I found:
News and industry updates that were no longer relevant
Posts that no longer fit with the “brand voice”
Posts with content too thin to provide real value for the reader
Posts that were better suited as social media updates rather than blogs
The last point illustrates the need to make a habit (every two or three years) of going through the content, especially when you’re an early adopter of new tactics. As tactics, like blogs, evolve and best practices are established, it’s important to keep things up to date.
[This post originally appeared on the Risdall Marketing Group blog and has been posted with a rel canonical]
