How to remove outdated content without decreasing SEO traffic? Jump right into this post for the complete guide to breathing life into your old content.    

87% of the results’ sources stem from Goaogle when searching for information on the internet. Therefore, online businesses should optimize website contents that adapt the search console for stable web development. According to Google’s search quality evaluator guideline, content with less attention to accuracy and meaning compromises SEO traffic due to the low-quality rate. As an effective way for boosting your rankings, removing outdated content that contributes no value to business metrics is recommendable. 

However, choosing the right low-quality old pieces of content to delete requires careful consideration through many factors. Without a detailed removing stages plan, your website will be deeply underneath top Google search engines’ results. On account of helping businesses to update outdated content, this article summarizes all the important-to-consider factors and tips for optimizing without driving less traffic.              

Critical Factors To Consider Before Removing Your Outdated Website Content 

When identifying the outdated content, you can spot a discontinued product, a former employee profile, or an event with non-updated time. Before removing these old pieces of content, you should conduct multiple content audits to check their performance. 

Should You Keep Or Remove Your Website’s Old Content? 

When Should You Keep It?

Not all outdated content brings downtrend effects to the website’s performance. In reality, some old pieces of content deliver the right messages to the clients without being out of track with the business offers. If the old content still brings value to customers and meets businesses goals, you should optimize other ranking factors before thinking of removing it.    

When Should You Remove It? 

Situations that you should remove outdated content:

– The website has a discontinued product that is not available in manufacturing. Besides, it can be about the items whose expiration date is wrong. 

– The advertisement content remains the same despite the changes in service offerings.

– The website has sensitive-time content such as financial advice or medical advice. 

– The website has changed the domain and location without updating information on blog posts.  

Critical Factors To Consider Before Removing Your Outdated Website Content

1. Performance vs Goal

As with any on page SEO factor, you should check outdated content’s performance whether contributing to conversion goals or not. 

Here are the signs pointing out low-converting content that you should remove:

– High bounce rates 

– Lack of new subscriptions through forms linking to the blog posts

– Irrelevant content with error messages and unattractive copy   

2. Google Ranking

When redirecting outdated content to the new one, the business must ensure the same or higher ranking in Google organic search results. If the updated content does not reach the expected keyword performance, leaving the old stuff alone is recommendable. To create high-ranking new content, you should conduct meticulous keyword research and multiple tests.           

3. Click’s Data

According to click’s data on the Google search console, you can evaluate the efficiency of content performance. If the clicks through rates metric (CTR) is low, that might be a sign of worthless content to be on remove. Otherwise, you should keep that piece of content active.    

4. Website Traffic

A common problem that most businesses encounter is the misconception about website traffic. When the website welcomes super-various random visitors, it is not a reliable sign of good content performance.   

The previous traffic data contributes much to the content-removing decision. If the website witnesses stable traffic from target users, you can conclude that the landing page is performing well. Along with deep research on users’ searching behavior through each content, you will have an abundant source of traffic data that is relevant to the business’ goals.      

Ideas & Tips For Old Website Content

To breathe life into the outdated website content, you have multiple approaches for repurposing and improving its quality. By applying the following ways, you will regenerate the content structure without decreasing the existing traffic results.

Best Ways For Using Old Website Content

1. Backlinks

To improve the old page’s performance, you need to request new backlinks that bring more referral traffic to the website. An aging landing page that has the power of multiple quality backlinks will hold a better SERP position.

Building an effective link structure requires patience through various tests. When conducting a link-building strategy, you can take reference from the following tips:

– Apply link-building tools to identify content marketers, bloggers, and journalists for requesting backlinks. By comparing a wide range of potential publishers, you can filter out the appropriate link sources. 

– Make a relationship with influencers whose profile is relevant to the website content. As a long-term tactic, you have to put a lot of effort into supporting the work of influencers. Consequently, you can use their social platforms to promote the website content. 

– Buy legitimate websites and domains as new backlinks to your old posts. However, when transferring link juice from acquired websites, your landing page might not inherit all the benefits immediately.                 

2. Direct To New Content

When the outdated content surpasses the updated alternative in ranking, you can utilize it as a backlink. By taking a 301 redirect, you will navigate users to the latest relevant pieces of content without dropping SERP scores and quality backlinks. 

Besides, users can avoid accessing the broken link through the old URL, which gives a comfortable experience. Apart from deactivating the old version, you can leave it active with a short notification to inform users about the substitute content. 

 

Ways To Breathe Life Into Your Outdated Website Content 

1. Give It A Good Check: 

Before deciding whether to keep or remove a piece of content, the website needs to undergo a meticulous analyzing phase to spot the low-quality data. The technical SEO tools such as Google Analytics and Penguin will guide you through areas that witness a significant drop in website traffic.  

The Penguin tool focuses on link schemes and keyword stuffing to evaluate the natural level of content. Any misuse of SEO tricks to secure a higher ranking will be visible for further adjustment. For instance, you should not use the acquired backlinks from irrelevant and low-quality sources. Besides, the tool will spec the keyword repetition to help you optimize the content. 

To identify pages with unstable traffic flow, you can use Google Analytics. Through the specific data on the dashboard, you will have a general view of the content performance quality. For more accurate analysis, you must ensure the traffic matches the target users of your business. Specifically, the checking process should go from the behavior area to site content and then all pages.                     

2. Refresh It

To breathe new life into old content without losing the existing benefits, you should go for updating. 

Here are the tips to help SEO marketers improve the relevancy and timeliness of the content:

• Rewrite and add new paragraphs with updated information. 
• Research new keywords with higher search volume. 
• Rewrite the headings with a more engaging interpretation.
• Add internal links to navigate users to new pieces of content. 
• Replace low-quality images with more modern substitutes.
• Update charts, infographics, and videos relating to the current time. 

Apart from the power of quality backlinks, these updating tasks will enable better rankings and new traffic to the post.