You're facing a website migration. How do you prioritize outdated content for a better user experience?

The first step in prioritizing outdated content during a website migration is a thorough content audit. I recommend using tools like Screaming Frog or Google Analytics to identify underperforming pages, outdated information, and broken links. Focus on metrics like traffic, engagement, and relevance to determine which content still adds value and which needs to be revised or removed. This audit provides a clear roadmap of what content to prioritize during the migration, ensuring the user experience improves post-launch by eliminating irrelevant or low-quality pages.

Auditar o conteúdo de um site durante uma virada tecnológica é crucial para garantir que ele continue alinhado tanto com as novas demandas técnicas quanto com a estratégia de produtos. Alguns conteúdos com abordagem evergreen, que mantêm relevancia ao longo do tempo, n?o perdem sua validade, mas é importante reavaliá-los à luz das estratégias atuais de SEO. Isso garante que esses conteúdos ainda estejam otimizados para novos algoritmos e práticas de busca, mantendo seu desempenho. A auditoria também ajuda a identificar possíveis gaps, desatualiza??es ou oportunidades de aprimoramento, assegurando que o site reflita a nova fase tecnológica e estratégica, maximizando seu potencial de alcance e convers?o.

During a website transfer, undertake a comprehensive assessment to prioritize old material. Identify top-performing sites that require modifications to remain relevant and enhance SEO. Remove or combine low-traffic material that is no longer relevant to your audience's needs. Focusing on relevance and value improves user experience and simplifies navigation.

I employ a 3-step process to identify outdated content: - Thorough content audit to identify pages that haven't been updated in a significant period. - Search engine rankings and traffic data analysis to determine irrelevant or non-performing content. - User and stakeholder feedback to identify outdated or inaccurate content.

After the audit, it's critical to prioritize updating essential content that directly impacts user experience. Start with high-traffic pages, cornerstone content, and any SEO-driven pieces that still attract users but need refreshing. I’ve found that updating product pages, FAQs, and service descriptions with current information enhances both usability and search engine rankings. Ensuring the essentials are up to date before migration reduces the risk of losing valuable traffic and maintains a seamless experience for returning visitors.

Actionables from the outcome of content audit: - Update outdated content that requires minimal effort to remain accurate and relevant. - Create 301 redirects on irrelevant content to point users to more relevant pages. - Remove useless content i.e. content that’s no longer adding value.

After the website content audit, you had a list of popular pages based on visitors’ activities. Some pages looked fine and were left unchanged. Some others, obsolete yet popular, were updated, aligning with the company’s current values and tone of voice. The next step is to merge pages with similar content. You can approach this task in different ways: - Find a better location on existing pages and set the outdated pages aside for future removal. - Carefully merge two or more pages with similar content into one, keeping all the information. - Create new pages from the duplicate content. Each updated page might need additional adjustments to ensure a logical sequence, consistency across the site, and adherence to the new guidelines.

Content categorization by relevance and impact i.e.: - I cannot emphasize this enough, “think like a customer”. Is the content adding any value to your users? User experience is the key. - Outdated content can negatively impact your SEO rankings and traffic. Conduct analyses to see what’s working in your favour and what’s hurting you. - Assess how the outdated content fits with your current business requirements. - Update or repurpose content based on the scale of effort, merge where relevant and discard what cannot be repurposed or archived.

The next step is to remove duplicate, obsolete, and unnecessary content from your website. “Measure twice, cut once” is solid advice, but don’t become overly cautious, keeping pages or paragraphs “just in case” or moving them to some kind of “archive”. Remember: you know your content. You’ve already gone over it multiple times, placing and replacing what’s necessary, writing new material, and updating or merging existing content. What’s more? In fact, you can double-check metrics, like the number of visitors, to confirm that only a few users visit the pages you consider unnecessary. That’s fine. But also keep in mind that these users might be consuming outdated content that no longer reflects your company’s current policies.

- Archive content that serves a legal purpose or for historical reasons depending on your business context. - Ensure accessibility of archived content for the future. - These archives will come in handy in a number of technical, legal, or training situations. - Don't hoard. :-)

When you're moving a website to a new version, make sure to set up special links called 301 redirects for any old pages you’re removing or combining. These redirects automatically send people to the right new page, so they don’t get stuck on broken links. This helps users find what they need and keeps the website's ranking in search engines from dropping. You can set up these redirects using simple tools on your web server.

Testing and validation of migrated content is non-negotiable: - Test the migrated website thoroughly to maintain accessibility, accuracy and functionality of the content. - Validate the content through user feedback and identify any issues or areas for improvement.