The Sunk Cost Fallacy in content marketing and SEO
I tend to be very reluctant to remove old content, because Internet Bit Rot is a serious problem. Has been for decades: even in 1998, 6% of all links were broken! Removing more content exacerbates a systemic problem: it’s hard to find old-but-good information when you need it.
But over time, I've softened my "keep all content forever" position. Some content stands the test of time, and like a well-built building, should be kept to serve future generations. Other content was never more than a badly pitched tent. There's no need to keep that tent up forever, flapping uselessly in the breeze.
So let’s link out today to a great post by Jimmy Daly at Animalz: The Sunk Cost Fallacy in Content Marketing.
Key takeaways from Daly’s blog post:
1. A blog watered down with content that no one reads is actually doing your website a disservice.
We recently shared the story of the QuickBooks Resource Center. SEO lead Will Waggoner deleted several hundred thousand dollars worth of posts—and traffic increased by 44%.
2. Reasons why to prune your old content
Google can penalize an entire site for “cruft pages” […] Pruning increases the density of high-quality content.
The less content you have, the more accessible it is.
It’s forward-thinking. […] Outdated, lightweight content is not something you want associated with your site. You’re better off with no content than bad content.
The real benefit is more traffic. Content pruning can increase rankings. And small ranking improvements offer outsized traffic returns.
3. How to prune content without arousing your boss's ire
Bosses and clients are notorious for falling prey to the sunk cost fallacy. They spent money on making content, so gosh darn it, they're gonna get their money's worth!
So how do you show them you're wringing a little more value out of those maybe not-so-good posts? Combine and repurpose.
3 (a) Combine pages or blog posts
Most blogs have overlapping articles […]
The content isn’t exactly duplicate, but it’s not necessary to have two or more posts that aren’t significantly differentiated.
3 (b) Repurpose valuable but underperforming content
If you have content that you believe to be high quality, but isn’t getting traffic, you can remove it from your site and repurpose it as a gated lead generation tool or include it in an email campaign.
This is a much easier sell than simply deleting it altogether […]
Deal with the 404’s
Daly doesn’t mention this, but I’ll add it: When you delete old pages, you may be causing 404’s (broken links). Check your analytics and backlinks to see if anyone is visiting or linking to to those pages. If so, add redirects to the newly freshened-up pages with content that helps the visitor.
If the content is truly gone gone, though, it’s okay to let it be a 404 Document Not Found.