You want your business’s website and social media platforms to have engaging content that keeps new visitors and followers interested. When you don’t adjust your content to meet industry trends, engagement and interest can fall. A digital content refresh, also known as content pruning, keeps your blog and social platforms up-to-date and on-trend.
What is Content Pruning?
While content pruning may sound similar to rebranding, there are some definite differences. While rebranding takes a more aesthetic and strategic approach, content pruning removes outdated content from your website and social platforms, and may even replace it with more valuable content. You don’t want old content weighing your business down. Fresh, new material benefits your audience. Content pruning is a great way to take inventory of your online presence, remove unnecessary information, and replace it with current content.
4 Questions to Ask Yourself
Are you still unsure whether your website needs to be pruned? Maybe you’re not confident about whether your content really needs that refresher. If you’re asking yourself these questions, try asking yourself the following questions instead.
Have You Redesigned Lately?
If you answered yes, only light pruning may be needed – such as getting rid of outdated content. If you answered no, you may want to refresh old content on your platforms. Inventory your website and social pages to see if the content and design still connects with your audience. If your industry has seen big changes recently, you may want to decide whether to do a content refresh or to completely overhaul your business with a rebranding. If your business could use some tweaks here and there to content and graphics, that can be done with some content pruning.
Is Your Content Outdated?
You want the material on your website and social media platforms to be up-to-date with industry trends and standards, as well as your offerings. The funny thing about trends is that they change constantly; keeping up with them is a job all its own. That’s why content pruning is such an important task to take on when it comes to maintaining a modern business. Comparing your business pages to other businesses can help you decide what material should stay and what can go. Another helpful strategy is conducting a content audit. This helps you find what is totally outdated, what content is still timely, and what just needs a few tweaks. Changing out old links for newer sources is a great way to quickly update your content.
Are the Offerings Still Available?
Some businesses go months, sometimes years, without realizing some website and social content includes products or services they don’t even offer anymore. We are all human and get lost in the chaos that comes with building a successful business. That chaos can make old website content linger longer on platforms because a more important task or project came up.
Content pruning your website pages and social platforms allows you to get a close look at what your business still has available and what can be digitally dismissed. Finding unused products or services usually happens when you take that initial inventory of your content. Once that first step is conducted, you get a clearer look at what you want to keep, update or adjust.
Have You Created Better Content?
Businesses grow and learn with every sale. This means that the original website content you launched a decade ago (or even a year ago) may not bring that same excitement now when reviewing it. Let’s face it, a lot of triumphs and failures come with the territory when trying to make a business thrive. The same thing goes with your website.
As your business team grows, so does your understanding of the industry and your target market. That growth should be reflected on all of your digital platforms. Content pruning allows you to make adjustments to show your audience how far your business has come.