I know what you are thinking right now. Why would any one want to pause and reflect on previous posts they have blogged on? Well I would. And do you what to know why? Because some of my older posts are, well quite frankly terrible! 😉
However, I would NOT delete them as they show your development as you progress becoming a professional Blogger. Also the content written in the past is still valid even if you go…Oh my, did I write that! 🙂
You should not be too embarrassed about your past blogging activities. A large percentage of bloggers delete their website after the first year or never take much action. At last you are being consistent and willing to take action.
As you do so you become far more greater, creative and stronger.
Here is a few posts that I thought I would delete and reflecting what on earth was I thinking!
Okay, well at least I am posting better content from now on and getting more focused. 🙂
Should You Delete Older Posts?
This is a hotly debated topic within the blogging community. I would say NO, for the reasons given above as it helps others see how you have grown and developed over the years.
Many people say get rid of them because they do not serve any purpose for their audience. From an SEO perspective, I would disagree with this as the search engines such as Google do not like broken links.
I would strongly suggest if you do not like your previous blog posts going years back or even a few months, to look at updating them and changing the content. Along with this you could write a new post that expands on the topic of the original content.
Alternatives To Deleting Previous Content
If you are really feeling uncomfortable about some of your older posts here is some options you could look at.
- Redirect the URL of pages or posts to newer and updated content.
- Non-Index of pages and posts that you rather your visitors did not see.
- Or simply update the original article and replace with new content.
If you configure your old pages and posts to ‘noindex’ inside WordPress, this tells the search engines not to index and crawl those particular articles. This option is one favoured by a number of online entrepreneurs.
I would vote against this, and suggest and recommend never to delete or ‘noindex’ since you will take away the SEO advantages that such older content could be giving your website.
If you feel that your posts are irrelevant and have a high bounce rate or give poor CTR, I would propose to just rewrite the original content including the Title and keywords you are using for SEO in the meta data. This also includes changing the images and screen shots you may have within the existing content.
Never, ever change the URL and just keep it intact. This will keep Google happy from frowning on changed and broken links and you keep the benefit of retaining your social media shares counts. Also remember to update the date of the post or page inside WordPress in this way your audience can see that the article has been updated.
Going Forward
I will be updating some of my older static pages such as:
If you really despise your old posts then of course remove it. However, to be transparent you may keep and just update with your most recent thoughts of what you originally wrote. Only delete your posts if you think it is damaging to your brand or you just don’t believe in it anymore.
There is no right and wrong answer and I will leave it up to you but wanted to give my own reflections about this topic.
On closing, here is an interesting article on why deleting your old posts is crazy. I really liked the article as it raised some interesting points.
Enough to say going forward, I will be updating some of my older posts and I advise you to do the same. I will be ignoring the ones I felt embarrassed about and moving on, publishing fantastic valuable content in the future.
My last post on my review of the eleven40 Pro Theme, I am very pleased with it. Not least as it is ranking on page 1 in the search engines. I took the time getting focused on writing awesome content I feel it is one of my best articles so far.
I suggest you do the same and don’t waste to much time on irrelevance such as older rubbishy posts as it is not a money making activity. Writing detailed solid helpful content increases your Google rankings, increases your following, increases your email list and best of all increases your revenue stream.
How do you feel about this? I love to know your thoughts in the comments below. My next post will be about Wealthy Affiliate and if it is a Scam. See you in the next explosive blog post!
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