How can you use content pruning to improve your organic search performance?

Content Pruning is not only about deleting the content from the website. You have to take a wholistic perspective to it. The objective is to improve sitewide quality. The quality in this context could be loosely defined as how much of your content(pages) is relevant and useful for users. To evaluate this, you need to see whether the content you have on your website answers the intent for a set of search queries. The near best way to do that is to do keyword research and SERP-based clustering. To do that, review each page, and figure out what set of keywords(cluster) this page is worthy of ranking on. If you can't find it then, Delete it. If you find two or more pages then, Consolidate them.

To use content pruning to improve your organic search performance, you should first identify the low-quality content on your website. You can do this by looking at your Google Analytics data to see which pages have low traffic, high bounce rates, and low conversion rates. You can also use a tool like Google Search Console to see which pages are generating the most errors. Once you have identified the low-quality content on your website, you can either remove it or update it. If you remove a page, be sure to redirect it to a relevant page on your website. This will help to avoid any broken links and ensure that users are still able to find the information they are looking for.

Frankly, in the age of AI-powered search, I believe the traditional approach is becoming less relevant. While addressing broken links and technical issues remains crucial, even content that humans might deem outdated can help AI algorithms understand your business better, potentially boosting your brand’s visibility.

Yes, content pruning is mostly about looking at overall website pages and figuring out how to improve one's website experience for users. It involves updating or deleting unwanted, outdated, or low-quality content, as well as improving the quality of existing content. Here are some specific ways to improve the user experience of your website through content pruning: 1. Remove duplicate content. 2. Delete outdated content. 3. Improve the quality of low-quality content. 4. Merge similar pages. 5. Redirect users to the most relevant page. By following these tips, you can use content pruning to improve the user experience of your website and boost your SEO results.

Content pruning isn't just about removing old content; it's a more nuanced approach to enhance overall content quality. While you should eliminate irrelevant, outdated, and underperforming content, it's essential to choose the right strategy to avoid harming your site. Improve It: Enhance underperforming content to boost its quality and organic visibility. Update: Keep time-sensitive content relevant through regular updates. Combine It: Merge similar pieces on the same topic to avoid competition and improve authority. Move It: Bring hidden, valuable content to prominent positions on your site for increased visibility. Remove It: Eliminate old, low-value content, optionally using 'noindex' or redirects.

Two pruning options that are often overlooked: - Use a 410 return code to tell search engines that the content is gone and won't return. This option makes sense when the page you're pruning has no significant rankings or traffic you'd want to retain using redirects. - Merging two or more closely related content into one new piece. It's not just a copy/paste situation; you'll have to edit everything to make it coherent and flow naturally. After merging the content into one piece, only keep your best-performing URL and add a permanent redirect from the other ones.

Not all content should be pruned. There is a lot of value in old and even outdated content. Old news should be there for archives. Old press releases are your brand’s history. Basic pruning rules: - DON’T redirect unless you have something exactly the same, serving exactly the same intent. Irrelevant redirects make a terrible user experience. - UPDATE when there’s value. E.g. someone searching for Google+ probably know it no longer exist. Updating your article with a quick reminder that the platform is no longer there is fine, but adding a bunch of new stuff, like new networks, etc. is irrelevant

There is no simple answer to if you should delete, redirect or update old/ non relevant content. There is no best practice. In some cases you may want to preserve your previous rankings or backlinks. In other cases, you might want to pursue a fresh SEO strategy and are looking for a fresh start. My advice is to work with an SEO coach or expert that can help you identify your goals and what would be the best option for your particular case.

To enhance your organic search performance through content pruning, consider these unique strategies: - Data-Driven Analysis - Quality Over Quantity - Keyword Optimization - Redirects - User Engagement - Mobile Optimization - Update Evergreen Content - Internal Linking - User-Generated Content - Schema Markup - Geotargeting - Competitive Analysis - Content Syndication - Content Refresh Schedule - User Feedback Remember, content pruning is an ongoing process that requires adaptability and constant monitoring to maintain and improve your organic search performance.

A critical step in evaluating pruning options is checking current traffic, rankings and backlinks to all pages. Pages that have accrued value must be protected. Develop a rating scale to determine which pruning option to use Delete, Update or Merge. If content is dated or incorrect on high value pages, use it as an opportunity to update or edit content instead of deleting the page. Merge content from closely-themed pages to combat thin content If your website has pages which are rendered redendant regularly such as event pages, develop a standard operating procedure. If page is sparse then redirect post event. If it is content rich and has a potential to be further enriched with content like reviews then make it part of the process.

Start small:?Don't try to prune all of your content at once. Start by identifying the most egregious offenders and removing or updating those pages first. Be careful:?Don't remove pages that are still generating traffic or backlinks. If you are unsure about whether or not to remove a page, err on the side of caution and leave it up. Redirect your users to the most relevant page:?If you are removing a page, be sure to redirect users to the most relevant page on your website. This will help to avoid broken links and improve the user experience. Monitor your results:?After you have pruned your content, it is important to monitor your results of traffic and ranking by Google Search Console.

I strongly feel that implementing pruning actions is the pivotal third step. Delete marked pages, remove them from sitemap and links, and request Google removal. Redirect pages with 301 redirects, updating sitemap and links. Enhance content, titles, and keywords for updated pages. These actions streamline the website, maintain SEO value, and improve user experience.

Links that redirect are inefficient, links that are broken are actively damaging - for search engines AND for users - so updating internal links is key. A great tip here is to crawl your site (e.g. with Screaming Frog, Lumar, or Botify) to identify all internal links towards the content you intend to prune - depending on the size of your site, you may have to compartmentalise different sections or verticals - and action a plan for updating those links. Diagnostic tools like Search Console will always flag errors during a process like this. Be careful not to dismiss these errors as simply a delay between search engines seeing your pruning and the updated links: these reports can also flag overlooked areas that still need to be addressed.

Make sure you have a system that covers all public pages and includes assigning next steps to each page or set of pages you analyze. The next steps should include instructions such as - improve, redirect, keep as is. For the pages you are updating you should provide more specific instructions like "add more descriptive metadata" or "add alt tags for all images". Also make sure that pages that you are going to remove are not deleted but redirected, thus directly naming it that way. This will ensure that all backlinks collected by these pages keep attributing to the performance of the website in search. When done, communicate the changes to the appropriate teams (usually web team and marketing) and support them through implementation.

Your first priority is to ensure the losses to your key performance metrics are what you anticipated: you should have evaluated the contribution (e.g. visits, conversions, revenue etc.) of the content you're removing and the impact to these key metrics should be in line with what you expected. If they are greater, analyse page-level performance pre- and post-pruning to ensure nothing was removed or redirected in error. Beyond that, your second priority is to be patient. Improvements to overall site-wide quality metrics take time to be reflected in user response and ultimately search engine response - content pruning is a smart but long-term play, building a stronger foundation of quality for the future, not a short-term lever or tactic.

By diligently monitoring and analyzing these factors, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your pruning strategy. This data-driven approach allows you to make informed decisions and adjustments to further enhance your website's SEO performance and user experience.

Work closely with the implementation teams (web team and marketing) and monitor the results of the changes you made. Prepare a before and after crawl in Screaming Frog, and custom reports in GA4 to make sure you have a good grasp of the before and after changes data and how they affected organic visibility, traffic, rankings and leads.

A tip here is to look beyond performance metrics if content is not providing value: assuming you pruned the lower quality content and are only producing higher quality content, why might that high quality content not be performing for you? Take time to analyse the competing pages in search results to ensure you are meeting user needs and that you are adding valuable information above and beyond what can be gained on competitors. Ensure you are promoting pages to your users in the right places, with the right messaging. Analyse session recordings and run user surveys on key content to get perspective directly from your users and their behaviour. Are all of your assumptions on quality correct, or is there still opportunity for improvement?

I strongly feel that repeating the pruning process is vital to keeping a website fresh and relevant. Regular audits, evaluating options, implementation, continuous monitoring, and adaptive strategies ensure that content aligns with performance metrics and quality standards, enhancing the website's overall quality and SEO effectiveness.

Wait enough time to get statistically significant amount of data to analyze it and issue insights about how the website is affected by pruning. What works, what doesn't work. Based on the dynamics in content production for the website, set a repeating process where you regularly prune and update website pages by using insights from the last pruning cycle.

This may come across as unpopular but I think it is better to not overthink about pruning, optimising for SEO etc., and just focus on “relevant content”. And while we are at it, keep the content to the point and terse. As long as the content produced is relevant and useful to target audience, everything else will gradually fall in place. We have entered a phase where “dark social” or exchanges people have in social channels has overtaken the effects of SEO. So, keep it simple, straight and relevant and everything else will fall in place.

Avoid pruning for pruning's sake. Often, people utilize tactics without putting much thought as to why they are doing it. In many cases, simply repurposing the content may be sufficient. However, if your company has gone through a significant rebrand, change in values or services, or a tone overhaul then archive your pruned content offline and find ways to rephrase, repurpose and consolidate it. Also be sure that the content does not have a lot of internal (and external) links pointing to it, and verify if it still is receiving traffic and/or rankings. We can use a combination of Screaming Frog and Google Analytics to identify these factors and sort the content by traffic, internal / external links and date, then make decisions there.

In my opinion, following best practices for content pruning is crucial. Always back up content, test pruning actions, and prioritize candidates based on impact. Communicate actions to stakeholders, avoiding over-pruning of high-value pages. These practices optimize organic search performance while safeguarding existing SEO results.

Some pruning best practices to consider include: 1. Pay attention to the historical impact of a content piece and its "freshness". The more prone a piece is to freshness the bigger the chances it is safe to prune it. 2. Always align the content to user intent. Intent and value an end user gets from the piece should always be a main factor what next steps to assign to it. 3. Consider the long-term content strategy - does the pruning efforts align with SEO and business goals. How these changes will affect the brand and messaging?

Not all underperforming content needs to be pruned away. Sometimes, you're dealing with content that's duplicative or in a highly competitive space. In such cases, the content may not need to be removed or combined; it might just need a technical SEO facelift. Optimizing for Google Core Web Vitals, such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, can breathe new life into these pages. This approach allows you to keep valuable content while enhancing its performance and user experience.

Consider how selectively removing outdated or off-target content aligns with your updated SEO strategy. Simply pruning content that no longer serves your business blog has limitations. It's crucial to replace it with a content/SEO approach focused on providing valuable resources for your current business audience.

The overarching pruning decision should be based on serving the user intent and business value. Data can be misleading and it is important to use common sense and make informed decisions based on business strategy and user personae to avoid undesired changes in web traffic and leads from organic.

Avoid doing content pruning and changing the domain at the same time. Sometimes both are done as a part of a website redesign. The problem is, it's difficult to monitor the results of the pruning. Also doing both can result in a major drop in traffic.