This is another great question we get a lot from new clients. And the answer is complex. Because a website redesign can be a big undertaking, it’s important for your SEO and AI visibility to not delete anything of value. But, you also don’t want to be unnecessarily weighed down with old content or pages that are not part of your current business model.
When we explore a website redesign, we always look at the value of landing pages and blog posts from multiple lens to decide what to keep from the old website and what to delete. There’s always a third option of refurbishing or editing an old blog, I’ll save that answer for another post.
To begin, I want to know if the pages we’re considering are needed or necessary to help convert prospects into clients? You can assess this at a gut level because you know the questions perspective clients ask before hiring you. You also know what links you give to prospects in your auto-responders, emails and any followups you send after your sales calls. If the content is something you reference in your sales process, it’s worth keeping.
Next, we get a little more technical.
If you have Google Analytics and Google Search Console set up, you can take a look at the click and impression value of the pages. What you want to understand is how important a page is to how Google sees your business. Pages that get impressions are chosen by Google to have some intrinsic value to consumers and therefore, assumed to be of value to you. If that’s the case, the page is worth keeping. If the page is getting impressions but it’s NOT aligned with your current sales practice, the pages may be working against you because Google sees it as “worth” showing to the public over others on your website.
This can get tricky because sometimes, clients have pages that bring in good traffic but are not “closing” or “buyer’s journey” pages. This signals that the page is at the “top of the funnel” or on a topic that some consumers explore on their buying journey, but not necessarily a part of the buying experience from you.
Let’s use an analogy to explain this better.
Imagine you were a bakery and you sold pies for a living. On your blog you may have an old article about the best kinds of flour to use for pies. Now imagine that article, because you’re a professional baker, is seen by Google as an “authority” piece on determining the right kinds of flour to bake with. And, because you’re a legitimate expert, your article is getting tons of traffic from home bakers.
Sounds good, if you’re getting tons of traffic. The topic is on-point for what you do for a living and it’s connecting you with the right audience. But, it’s also misaligned because it’s not leading people to buy your pies but rather instructing them on how to bake their own.
Should you keep it? Maybe yes, maybe no. That all depends on what those readers are doing for you.
If the article is teaching Google that you’re a bakery with a solid reputation for instructing other bakers, then it may stand to reason that you’re also a talented baker in your own right. Perhaps your pies are amazing to eat since other related pros are using your advice to inform their baking. The trick is to make sure that on balance, all of the content you see getting impressions in Google Search Console are telling the right story about your business. Otherwise, the math of your site will instruct Google to go in the wrong direction.
In this case, if your other high impression pieces are about the kinds of pies you sell, location specific pages about your bakery and a few other baking tips sprinkled in, the article about flour types may make sense to keep. But, if all you see are baking tips with no content about coming to your store or buying your pies (assuming you have that content) then, you may be telling Google the wrong story. And in that case, deleting or reworking the flour article may benefit your business.
The whole thing is tricky which is why so many people hire us to do this kind of analysis for them.
Keeping content from your old website is not something to take lightly. Deleting a piece that has value (even if it’s merely related to what you sell) can be the wrong move if your marketing strategy relies on that traffic in some way.
Deciding what to keep for your new website and what to either refurbish or delete requires exploring the bigger picture of your marketing plan. I often tell clients that marketing is a pie chart. Most people do a little of many things, which can be fine if it’s done with intention and clarity on the goal. But a spaghetti plan for marketing when you’re at a critical juncture of updating the site can easily backfire.
The important goal here is to make yourself away of what the landing pages and blog posts are doing for your overall traffic goals. Once you understand this, it’s easier to make educated decisions about what you should keep when you update your website and what may need to be updated or removed from the site.
You can read our latest case study here for further details on how we approached this question with one of our clients.
We’re here if you have other questions.
Melanie
