Six Steps To Delete, Recycle & Up-cycle Your Blog Content

Have you been blogging for a few years now?  Hurray for you!  Now, how’ve you been doing with your content housekeeping?

Our direction in business has likely changed over the years and if that’s true, your content marketing goals have certainly changed.  Chances are you have older content that no longer serves you or your audience as well as it once did.

I’d like to challenge you to schedule a few afternoons to giving your blog a complete content review and make healthy use of the delete key.

#1. Remove What Doesn’t Work Anymore

Remove content that simply lacks anything useful for your audience today. Delete if it…

• Points to services you no longer provide.
• Points to products you no long sell.
• Points to affiliate products that are no longer available.

When I say remove, I do mean delete – but I recommend you check your stats first.  I don’t like to totally remove a page that is getting significant search engine traffic.  If I have a page getting 50 or more visits a month, but it promotes something I don’t have anymore, I’ll brainstorm some way to redirect the traffic to something useful – preferably through a new affiliate link.

When you delete a page that gets some small amount of traffic, these visitors will land on your ‘404 page’ so make sure you have one set up and that it’s working nicely for you.

#2. Check For Broken Links

You’ll want to scout out broken links and clean those up.  I use the broken link checker plugin in WordPress but there’s another a website that will let you do a check as well.

#3. Check For Broken Images

If you’ve ever used one of those free image plugins in the past, you may have some of those ugly ‘image missing’ blocks here and there in your content.  This happens when the photographer takes away access to the photo.  You’d have no way of knowing if they do – one reason I don’t love those plugins much.  (It may also have happened if you’ve embedded a Pinterest image or used image code provided by someone else.)

#4. Check For Broken Videos

I often embed tutorials and motivational videos into my content.  It’s not at all unusual to find these videos have been removed after a year or so.

Do you want to make a few new video? If not you, is there something current you’d like to add from someone else?

#5. Recycle The Good Stuff!

I have found content that’s still useful, update it, republish with a current date and promote them like any item of fresh content.  This brings the content back up to the feed for RSS subscribers or brings it up to the home page if you’re displaying new content there.

#6. Add Fresh Images To The Best Content

While you’re taking out the trash and recycling, you’ll find great content that has stood the test of time really well.  That’s terrific!  I bet these items could use a graphic update though.  Add a wonderful social friendly image and give it a fresh go around of promotional buzz so it can get the attention it deserves.

I’ve been writing content into this blog for eight years, so the housekeeping process has taken a long time.  I’m still working my way through older items that need refreshing.  It’s been well worth it though. I bet it will be for you too!

Images Are No Longer Optional.

• We NEED images in our content.  Images draw the eye and help to support the message of our words.  The best images invite more Likes, Shares & Pins from social savvy readers.
• We NEED images of the physical products we sell.  You can’t imaging buying something without seeing it first, right?  As digital cameras and smart phones with decent cameras have become more common, we’re less tolerant of crappy images – we expect something that shows clear detail.

There are a lot of ways to tackle your website images. My favorite tool is Photoshop – mostly because a lot of the PLR we buy come with Photoshop source files that save a lot of time.

Look For Every Opportunity to Add An Affiliate Link

You always want your content to stand alone to meet needs for your people but how often is your audience going to be served by a relevant recommend? Every time it makes sense!

If Affiliate Marketing is outside of your comfort zone, my Affiliate Beginner’s Challenge is your next learning project! It walks you through the basics of affiliate marketing and gives you step by step actions to take to get rolling.

Your content works for you long term IF you keep it updated – so schedule a new round of content housekeeping every six to 12 months.