Ahh yes, the ancient art of content pruning is seeing a renaissance in the wake of Google’s Helpful Content update.

Except pruning content isn’t that old of an SEO technique and is one that has been feared (rightly so) by many SEOs. As the power of a successful prune can breathe life back into a website, an ugly hack job can seriously harm your website’s performance.

So, be mindful of who you’re handing those pruning shears to.

In this blog post, we’ll look at what content pruning is exactly, how it impacts your SEO and the best way to go about conducting a successful content pruning strategy.

What is Content Pruning?

Content pruning is the practice of identifying underperforming or non-helpful web pages and removing them from your website to improve your site’s overall SEO health.

This can be done through a number of methods, such as deleting outdated blog posts, removing low-quality pages, merging similar content, or redirecting URLs to more relevant content.

The full pruning process involves auditing and analysis to determine your content’s fate—whether it be reviving, repurposing, or ultimately the removal of low-quality content.

The goal of content pruning is to improve your website’s overall health by removing the dead weight—thus improving user experience and focusing your site’s energy on authoritative content that is helpful for people (and Google).

Why Prune Content?

Content pruning is one of the most underutilized SEO techniques that can deliver results for your website.

By removing poor performing pages, you can improve the ratio of high-quality indexed pages that exist on your site. The higher the ratio of quality pages compared to the total number of pages on your site can lead to an enhanced performance in the SERPs, as the overall ‘value’ of your site has improved.

Benefits of Content Pruning

With Google’s latest helpful content  and core algorithm update launching within the last month or so, now is a perfect time to clear out some lackluster content from your site. This is especially true if it has been a while or you have never audited your content in this fashion.

With a further emphasis on creating better experiences and more helpful content, its become more of a necessity to reevaluate the pages on your website and see if it is helping or hurting your overall site health.

Some of the major benefits of content pruning include:

Higher Quality Content

Elevate your overall quality of content.

When you remove outdated or poor-quality content from your website, you improve your site’s overall quality. This impact is two-fold: (1) you’re able to remove old content that is often unhelpful or outdated for visitors and (2) search engines, like Google, consider the overall quality (and authority) of a website when determining its rank within the search results.

Improve UX

Helping people find the right stuff.

If there’s a lot of low-quality or outdated content on your site, it can be hard for people to find the accurate information they’re looking for.

No one likes to read an article, only to find out the post is from 7 years ago and no longer reflects the modern advice they should be receiving.

This poor user experience can speak to your credibility as a business and website—leaving people feeling frustrated and like you wasted their time. Rough.

Maximize Crawl Budget

Getting the most from Googlebot.

Search engines may not index all the pages on your site if they think they’re low quality. When you prune pages from your site, you’re maximizing your crawl budget by helping Googlebot more easily find your best content—helping you get the most out of each crawl.

Helpful Content Era

For the people…and Google.

As the helpful content update continues to expand its scope, diligence with high-quality content will remain a priority. Continuing to monitor your site’s performance while removing or updating underperforming content periodically can help your site stay current with this next wave of algorithm advances.

Optimized Linking

Pointing to the right places.

A strong link strategy, for both internal and external links, can help your website on a number of levels.

Not only are you directing users to the most helpful content on (or off) your site, but you are also ensuring that you’re passing link authority to the right places on your site—helping elevate your over performance.

How to Prune Your Content

Let’s get into it! How to approach a strategic content pruning session. There are five-main-steps when thinking about a content pruning process for your website:

1. Collect Your Content: Get a list of pages on your site.
2. Gather Your Data: Grab performance data from available sources.
3. Conduct a Content Audit: Evaluate how your content is performing.
4. Finalize Your URL’s Fate: You’ve got options.
5. Backup, Rollout & Monitor: Execute your plan and track its impact.

Step 1: Collect Your Content

Creating a list of all the pages on your website.

For this step, you can export a list of URLs from your CMS. If you’re unable to export from your CMS, you can grab a list of URLs from Google Analytics or Search Console.

The Analytics option won’t necessarily yield a complete list of URLs, as someone needs to visit a page for Google Analytics to record a visit. However, this can still be a great starting point, you may just be missing some pages that don’t see any traffic.

After you have collected a list of URLs, make sure to remove any duplicates, as this will serve as your master list in the content audit portion of this process.

Step 2: Gather Your Data

Grab page specific performance data from available sources.

You want to look at all the available data you have to help gain as many insights as you can on the URLs in question. The source data you accumulate here will help keep you from making any costly errors, such as mistakenly eliminating the wrong pages.

You can pull in a host of data from various sources including (but not limited to):

Google Analytics:

• All traffic — a breakdown of visits, unique pageviews, bounce rate, exit rate, conversions, page value on a page-by-page basis. In Google Analytics, Behavior > Site Content > All Pages> Export.
• Organic traffic — You can filter the All Traffic report to show only organic traffic by applying an Organic Traffic segment.

You’ll want to pull in data from the last 12 months along with data going back a few years. This can be helpful when determining the fate of your content—by understanding if the page has ever performed well, and not just how it has done in the past year.

Google Search Console:

• External Links — These are links pointing to your domain from another website. You want to consider the number and quality of links pointing to your site. It’s very important to not get rid of any URLs that are receiving quality links from other sources. In Search Console, navigate to Links > External Links > More > Export.
• Internal Links — These are links within your website that are linking to other pages on your own website. In Search Console, Links > Internal Links > More > Export.
• Search Results — This report allows you to export impressions, clicks, click-through-rate (CTR) and average position in the Google search results for each of your URLs. Within Search Console > Search Results > Pages > Export.

Bing Webmaster Tools:

• Backlinks — An alternative method of downloading your site’s backlinks provided by Microsoft. This data can help you understand how many other domains are pointing to your website.
  • In Webmaster tools, Backlinks > Backlinks for Your Site > Pages > Download All.
  • To get a numerical value of links pointing to each URL, you can quickly run the Excel function =UNIQUE(C:C) this will get you a list of all unique URLs listed in the target URL column.
  • Then you can run another Excel function =COUNTIF(C:C, x2). The ‘x’ represents the column where you have your list of unique URLs. So, if you put your list of unique URLs in column ‘D’, the function would be =COUNTIF (C:C, D2). This will get you the number of backlinks pointing to each unique URL.
• Search Performance — This report provides insights into the number of impressions, clicks and average position in the Bing search results each page on your site has achieved.
  In Webmaster Tools > Search Performance > By Page > Download All.

Content Management System:

In WordPress, there are several plugins that can help you export this data.

• Publish date — This displays when the post was originally published.
• Last updated — This shows you when the post was last updated.
• Word Count — An export of words per page can help identify thin content. You can also grab this info from site crawling software like Screaming Frog.

Google Search Operators:

• Indexed content — Using the search operator site:example.com. You can gather a list of URLs that google has indexed for your site.
• Dated references & content — using this advanced search operator, site:example.com intext:”2016″ | intext:”2015″ | intext:”2014″ | intext:”2013”. You can search for content on your website that has any of those years listed in the body of the page copy.

Quick note: there are several Chrome extensions that can help you quickly extract a list of the URLs listed on the SERPs when you conduct these searches.

Paid Tools:

There are many tools out there that can provide additional insights into your website’s performance on a page-by-page basis. If you have access to any of these advanced tools, please include this data to help you evaluate the performance of each page on your site.

Step 3: Conduct a Content Audit

Use data and evaluate how your content is performing.

It’s time to compile all that data into a content auditing document. You can use your data tool of choice such as Excel, Google Sheets, R, Power BI, etc.

We’re looking to match each URL up with the corresponding data points from each of our exports.

From there it’s a matter of weighing and evaluating each of these metrics on a page-by-page basis, compared to the overall performance of your website as a whole.

Your content auditing document should help you identify opportunities on what to do with each page of your site.

Using the exported data, the Excel document above correlates each of the data points to the corresponding URL and compares it to the overall performance of the website.

The spreadsheet should help identify any pages that are:

• Not getting any traffic
• Receiving minimal organic traffic
• Not leading to conversions
• Not assisting on the path to conversion (page value)
• Not getting many backlinks
• Featuring (potentially) outdated information
• URLs with a low word count (thin content)

The final column gives a suggested outcome for each page. Please keep in mind each URL should also be subject to a manual review (Step 4). Data can help us, but it can’t paint the full picture here.

Step 4: Finalize Your URL’s Fate

What are you going to do with all that content? You’ve got options.

Ok, so you have your content audit document and you’re now ready to determine the fate of your URLs. If you added a suggested outcome column, you’ll have an idea of where the data is leading and you can begin sorting your content into three groups:

1. Keep it: do (basically) nothing. That was easy 😅
2. Update it: Improve, update, combine or repurpose
3. Remove it: 301, noindex or canonical

Now, each URL is still subject to manual review—just because your content audit suggests an outcome, does not mean it’s final. So here are a few more columns I add to my spreadsheet during a manual review before making any final decisions:

• Target keyword: The focus keyword/ phrase for the page. (Some paid tools can help automate this for you!)
• Ease of updating: Rate how easy the content would be to update (Scale 1-10).
• Notes: Any additional notes or thoughts.
• Final outcome: Note the final decision for each URL.

Whether you address these last few items or decide to skip them, you’ll at least want to make sure you add the ‘Final outcome’ column to your spreadsheet to mark the action you plan to take with each of these URLs after your manual review.

The “Keep It” Group

Do (basically) nothing.

This is the easy group. These are pages that are doing well—they drive traffic, have backlinks, convert users and generally rank well organically.

Additionally, this group will include any pages that should not be removed, like your privacy policy, contact page, terms and conditions and recently published pages that have not had time to properly evaluate.

You’re going to want to note the target keywords for each of these pages and look for any cannibalization that may occur from pages that don’t perform as well. We’ll identify those URLs in the next group and deal with them accordingly.

Content marketing might seem like an ambitious strategy for a small business. But the numbers tell us it really is effective, no matter the size of your organization.

In this guide, we’ll hear from various content marketing experts working with small businesses. We’ll also take a look at how to create and distribute effective content.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing uses blogs, social media, infographics, videos, downloadables and other engaging content to catch the interest of your target audience, as well as to engage, delight, convert and retain customers. It’s all about delivering value beyond your product offering.

Ultimately, it is a method of marketing that aims to generate repeat organic visitors to your website. It helps you capture relevant leads and grow your business.

Does Your Small Business Need Content Marketing? 

We analyzed results from the State of Content Marketing Global Report, focusing solely on responses from leaders in companies between 11 and 250 employees.

We found that 60% of these respondents had a “fairly developed or advanced content marketing strategy.” And it seems to be paying dividends for them: 95% claim that they are enjoying some degree of success.

Benefits of Content Marketing for Small Business

Besides fuelling your marketing efforts, there are a number of clear benefits of content marketing for small businesses. Here’s how they break down.

1.Differentiate your business: 

It can be hard to stand out online. But your content can take the lead, showing your brand values and giving your audience useful information.

2.Develop a brand:

Whether you’re providing a product or a service, it’s your brand that makes a lasting impression on your audience. With a strong social and organic presence, you can get people talking about you.

3.Connect with customers:

Your blog, social media and newsletter campaigns provide multiple touch points for your audience, and offer more opportunities to connect with your customers directly.

4.Show the benefits of your product:

Product descriptions and ads are great, but bottom-of-the-funnel content like case studies, product demos and guides can really show the benefits of using your products.

5.Attract organic website visitors:

Optimized website and blog content can bring in targeted, long-term organic traffic for years after publishing. Marketers can find themself at the mercy of social media ad platforms and fluctuating prices. Get longer-term value from high-performing SEO content and become less reliant on ads.

6.Create a community:

Comments, likes and shares on social media posts tap into your audience’s network. Grow your following, increase engagement and see more traffic come your way

When and How Should Small Businesses Start with Content Marketing?

Start yesterday! The slow and steady approach works for content marketing as long as you are adding value and servicing your customers with your content. So start now and build a library of content that attracts organic traffic.

What Are the Key Questions to Ask Before Engaging in Content Marketing?

Content will probably form the backbone of your marketing activities. After all, even ads need content!

But that doesn’t mean that everybody should blog or run a YouTube channel—it won’t make sense for every product or service.

Marketers and small business owners should therefore ask themselves three core questions:

1. What is my key expertise?
2. How can I make each piece of content interesting for my target audience?
3. On which channels will this content be most effective?

How to Establish Your First Content Marketing Goals?

Regardless of when you start, you’ll need to set goals for your marketing team. Ambition is good, but you can’t expect to start ranking at #1 in the search engine results pages overnight.

Based on our research, small businesses have a number of different uses for content marketing.

The biggest is to create brand awareness (46% of responses included this answer), that’s followed by boosting website traffic (41%) and improving sales results (40%).

Here’s How to Balance Your Short and Long-Term Goals

1.Think about what you want to achieve

It’s important to think about the short-term and long-term gains you hope to achieve with content and plan accordingly.

How

Your goals should be rooted in business outcomes. Perhaps you want more leads, more sales, or more referrals. Consider how content can help you achieve this (for example, a downloadable guide might help you grow a mailing list).

2.Break down your goals

Do not try to do everything all at once. Smaller goals are more manageable and realistic.

How

For example, rather than just having a goal to launch your Instagram channel and increase your client base, you could break your goals down like this:

Goal one

• Set up an account by the end of the week
• Add logo and brand description with a link to the shop

Goal two

• Work with a designer to decide on the look and feel of the content
• Test content types to see what gets the most engagement
• Create a four week batch of content for testing by the end of the month

Goal three

• Reach our target of 1,000 followers by the end of the second month
• Get engagement and messages from our followers
• Showcase products in stories or reels to get 10% more traffic to our website
  3.Set a timeline

Break down your goals into short, medium and long-term

Final Thoughts

With over 97% of businesses including content in their marketing strategy, it’s time for your company to jump on this trend and build a foundation for attracting customers organically. Be sure to focus on providing valuable and high-quality content and document your strategy.

To make your efforts more organized and data-driven, try the Fin-eX Digital Services. It will help you improve your online visibility, reach new customers, and grow your business with content.