We all get a kick out of watching television shows about hoarders and hermits, but did you know that clutter doesn't just happen physically in our homes, but online as well. Digital clutter is just as common, and possibly harder to recognize and take care of. So what exactly is digital clutter, and why does content hoarding matter when there is seemingly endless amounts of space online? It all comes down to the fact that too much content can affect your website's organization, structure, quality score and organic ranking in search engines. Here are some ways that you can determine if you are hoarding content and what you should get rid of to better benefit your business.
Is the Content Still Relevant Today?
To answer the earlier question, content hoarding can negatively affect your website’s quality score and bounce rate, so too much old content can be hurting more than helping. From a human perspective, I know I wouldn’t view an article written 4 years ago as the most relevant source of information. The problem with these articles still appearing on your website is that Google will still show them as results but, if over time, Google notices that your content is not being clicked on then it will assume that you are not the top authority on the subject matter.
What Should Stay? What Should Go?
So then how do we decide what content should be kept and what should be removed? A helpful tool for making this decision is an analytics tool, such as Google Analytics. These tools can show which pages of your site are bringing in traffic and which ones have a high bounce rate. In addition to this, Analytics can tell you what keywords your pages are showing up for, which can be another factor of what content you should have on your website. If your analytics tool shows that a lot of your blog posts haven’t received any views in months, then it might be time to consider either updating them or archiving them. Another helpful tip is to look at your competitor’s content to see what they are currently writing about and what keywords they are ranking for.
Is Your Website Properly Structured?
When reviewing your website content, you should also make sure that the site structure is sound and optimized for Google to understand. This means making sure your header is clearly labeled and pictures have alternative text included. If these things are missing, then Google won’t know how to read your content and will be less likely to recommend your website in search results. If you do end up updating old content, make sure to change the date so that your audience knows that what you are posting is current and relevant.
Less Can Be More
The main thing to remember when it comes to blog content is that sometimes less is more. It benefits your website if you have fewer, high quality blog posts rather than a bunch of low quality content that people will spend ten seconds reading and then click out of. If you keep this in mind and complete regular website audits then you will be able to avoid content clutter.