SEO Tip: Have a Regular Content Audit

Maximize your search engine performance with a regular clear-out of your old website content.

You probably noticed that we recently changed the Silicon Dales website.

If you are on our newsletter list, you definitely noticed, as we told everyone on the newsletter about it when we launched this new look!

But after the change of look, we also did a couple of additional things:

1. An SEO review
2. A Content Audit

Both of the above things are geared at the same target: to increase the usefulness and relevance of our website.

When we launch a new look, or add anything to this website (including this section, which used to be a “blog” but, owing to the increasing number of non-blog items (articles, tutorials, etc) posted here, we’ve renamed “Magazine”), we put it through a simple test: the Brand Lens test. Does the content help you to view us through our Brand Lens?

Simply – and without revealing the specifics of our brand lens at this point in time – we are WordPress and WooCommerce expert developers.

So we completed an SEO review, which made sure content was sensibly located (hierarchically and from menus) and we made sure 404 and 301 redirection was working correctly. Then we carried out a content audit.

What is a Content Audit?

Simply, this is a review of all content to see if it now fits with the brand lens. Businesses change. Brand lenses change. We are Digital Experts – so does that item posted 3 years ago still fit with that? No. Then you have two options:

• Edit it
• Delete it

Review every item of your website with the above in mind. Yes. I mean everything, for WordPress website, that means you should audit:

• Pages
• Posts
• Categories
• Tags
• Custom posts / taxonomy pages
• Links
• Sidebars
• Footers
• Headers
• Menus

Anything in there that doesn’t quite fit with what you want your website to be, broadly speaking, “about” you should either edit or delete. And be ruthless. You’ll soon spot areas where you are weak, if you are truly objective during this process, and don’t worry about the time you spent creating this content!

If the items in question are long articles you spent a long time creating, you may want to back them up, send them off to a more relevant website which accepts guest posts, or otherwise do something with them, but for me, I just hit delete. Yesterday’s news is today’s chip paper. Yesterdays digital news is basically nothing at all. In my view, if it is no longer relevant, just wipe it and move on.

Why Are We Doing This?

To keep your current website as relevant as possible to the subject(s) you want to be associated with today.

The SEO Benefit of This

Our golden rule here is always relevance.

Google and other search engines want to send users to the most relevant web page to their search. If you focus on areas of true expertise, rather than continually diversifying into wider and wider (more diluted) pools, you will be able to show the search spiders that you remain relevant to these areas.

Users will enjoy a subject-specific website which provides everything they need to know about subject X (the subject they are thinking about right now) than a website that describes a little (or even a lot) about subjects x, y and z.

Think about the user, and his or her needs, and you won’t go far wrong!