42. What to Do with Old Blog Content

Stephanie 0:00

The weather is warming up and spring is finally here. If you want to harness some of that spring cleaning energy and tidy up the back end of your blog, keep listening. We're going to chat about what to do with old blog content that might be cluttering your website.

Stephanie 0:18

Hey there, teacher, business owner, it's time to give your bank account a break and pause that ad campaign. I'm your host, Stephanie Royer, and I'm going to show you how to pay less for traffic.

Stephanie 0:30

Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed Monetization March, and you've had a chance to dive into the new monetization module of bring your own traffic. I'm excited that so many of you are interested in making the most of your website, but now we're going to shift gears, and we're going to take some of that spring cleaning energy that's so common this month, and we're going to apply it to our blogging efforts.

Stephanie 0:57

When I started to think about cleaning up old blog content, I couldn't help but think about the process of cleaning out a closet. If we don't regularly go through our wardrobe and clean things out, the space in our closet becomes almost unusable. Hangers are packed in so tightly that it's hard to even see what you have. I know I've had my closet packed so tightly before that clothes would go into the closet completely ready to wear, but then when I would pull them out, they were totally wrinkled from being squashed so tightly. And this happens when we bring more new clothing into our space than we take out.

Stephanie 1:41

The same is true for our websites. If we're only ever focused on new content, issues can arise as that old content continues to pile up. One of the biggest challenges is that it becomes difficult for Google to make sense of our blog content, and so this is why a content audit is one of the first recommendations for bloggers who want to start getting serious about their SEO.

Stephanie 2:10

Now, a content audit is just a fancy way to say that you take stock of your current blog content before you start with a fresh strategy. So just like a closet clean out, it's not something you do once and then never do again. Instead, it's important to regularly look through your existing content and decide if it's time to take action on an old post, just like you go through your closet every so often to see if there's something you need to donate, alter, or mend.

Stephanie 2:40

So with that said, there are three things that you should ask yourself as you audit your existing content. The answers to these questions will help you decide what you should do with an old blog post. And because I am the way I am, I can't quite let go of this whole cleaning out the closet analogy. So when you pull out an old piece of clothing from the closet, one of the first things you look at is whether or not the item is still in style. It might be something you purchased during the height of a trend that died out a while ago, it might be something that you bought a long time ago, but the classic style means that it's timeless. And so when it comes to cleaning up the content on your teacher blog, you kind of want to think about the same thing. Is this content still relevant? Is it still up to date? Just as an example, you might have a blog post that's focused on reading instruction techniques that really aren't backed by the most up to date research. So as best practices ebb and flow, it's important to make sure that your website reflects these changes. But on the other hand, your blog post might be on an evergreen topic that could serve your website for years to come.

Stephanie 3:59

Now let's go back to our closet clean out for the second thing to consider. You might pull out a pair of jeans from back in your college days that just don't reflect the you of today. So whether that's a change in body shape, or your preferences for comfort, or even a changing career, it's important that your wardrobe matches who you are right now. And the same is true for the blog content on your website. When you look at an old blog post, take a moment to consider if it fits within the current keyword strategy that you have for your website. Does that content match the message that you're trying to send to Google about who you are and what you write about?

Stephanie 4:48

The final thing to ask yourself about a piece of clothing before making a decision is whether or not you've worn it or plan to wear it in the future. At the end of the day, the proof about whether or not that item of clothing is of value to you, is if you ever use it. And this relates to one of the most important things to consider during a content audit. Is this old blog post generating traffic and or revenue for your business? And so whether that traffic comes from Google, Pinterest, or both the traffic that you get from that post is going to be a huge deciding factor in what to do with the old content.

Stephanie 5:31

So once you've answered those three questions - Is this post relevant? Does it align with who I am and the message I want to send to Google? And is it generating traffic? Once you've looked at those three factors, you're not quite done with a content audit. The final step is deciding what you want to do with these pieces of content. So in the closet, clean out scenario, you have likely created different piles in your bedroom as you clean things out, like a donate pile, a mending pile, and maybe even a pile for reselling on Poshmark or Facebook marketplace. The key is that these decisions are made on an item by item basis. The same thing should happen as you audit your content. You'll make a decision about each post as you take a minute to analyze the relevance of the content and the traffic and revenue that the post is generating, and you're going to end up with several piles. There's different decisions that you can make about your old content. And so one would be updating the post where you fix broken links, adjust keywords, make sure the content is aligned with current best practices, just all of those little updates. This is a great option for posts that are doing well on Google and Pinterest. These posts are assets for your business, so you want to make sure that they stay in tip top shape with regular updates. The next option for an older post is to redirect it, and this is when you send the traffic from this older post to a better option that might be a little better optimized. Maybe it converts better to TPT sales, whatever the reason, you can take the traffic that's already going to that older post and send it to a related newer post. You might also decide to just delete or no index a post if it serves absolutely no purpose in your blog strategy, and you don't want that post to muddy the waters for Google.

Stephanie 7:43

The other option I wanted to make sure I mentioned is becoming more and more popular in the current Pinterest climate, and that option is to republish your old content with a fresh URL. And we've talked about it before, but Pinterest absolutely loves brand new blog posts, and so some bloggers are capitalizing on this by using content that they've written for lower performing posts, and they create brand new posts. So instead of starting from scratch, they copy and paste from these older posts and then use their current SEO knowledge to enhance the post, but they're doing it on a brand new URL, and this gives the post just a slight edge to help it perform better on Pinterest, because it's a never before seen URL. I would just suggest redirecting, or no indexing the post that the content is copied from so that you don't get dinged for duplicate content with Google.

Stephanie 8:46

I know that this was a quick introduction to what a content audit is all about. The main goal for this episode was just to inspire you to take a closer look at your existing content to make sure it fits the big picture for your brand. The good news is that if you're a student of bring your own traffic I go through this whole process in more detail in lessons 2.2 and 2.3 and there's even a sample airtable base to help you kind of stay organized during that process. If you're not enrolled in bring your own traffic, you can head over to stephanieroyer.podia.com to take a look at the free course preview and again, you can find that at stephanieroyer.podia.com or you can find the link in the show notes.

Stephanie 9:37

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, I'd love it if you could share it with a teacher biz bestie. You have created high quality resources now let's help teachers find them. I'll see you next time.