In Australia it’s still summer, and autumn is next in line. So why am I talking about spring cleaning? Because content pruning doesn’t care about the calendar. Do it regularly — say, at the start of each quarter — and the whole thing goes faster and is far less painful than wading through dusty pages once a year.
Let’s look at what you’ve got and figure out which content is still pulling its weight, which needs a rewrite, and which should be put out of its misery. The technical term is “content pruning,” and as a passionate gardener — it’s literally my name — I’m a firm believer in cutting back hard in the right places to encourage new growth. Think rubber gloves at the start and velvet gloves at the finish.
Of course, knowing where and how deep to cut matters (in the garden, a bad cut can kill the plant — it’s all about the material and a clean cut). And here’s the thing: when the authors or content owners do the pruning, they tend to keep more than they should. It’s understandable — they know exactly how much time and heart went into each piece. That’s why it often helps to have someone from SEO or marketing cast a less emotional eye over the inventory.
So how do you go about it?
Content inventory — get the lay of the land. Do you have a list of everything you’ve published? That list is your foundation. You can burn a lot of time (and money) making it perfect, but at a minimum, note when each piece was published and who the target audience is. Bonus points for capturing the headline and opening paragraph. Share this list with stakeholders early. They can flag what’s no longer needed, and the transparency alone tends to spark ideas for content that’s missing.
Cut — old rubbish out. This step is really many small steps. Start by removing everything that’s outdated, irrelevant, or was driven by someone else’s short-term agenda (“Can you quickly put something up about xyz? My marketing boss wants to push this topic with the CEO…”). You’ll probably spot things you can delete immediately. For the ones you’re unsure about, do a quick gut check against your audience: does this still knock people’s socks off? Is it shareable? If not — out it goes.
Rewrite — give it a new life. Hopefully you still have plenty of content left. Use your list to mark what just needs a refresh (new numbers, updated facts, new products and internal links), and what needs a deeper rewrite (SEO-friendly headlines, better intros, clear subheadings every two or three paragraphs, shorter sentences). This is usually the bulk of the work.
But then there are pieces that are still relevant yet somehow don’t land. They’re missing a narrative thread, a better story, maybe just more substance. Before you dive in, ask yourself whether it’s worth it — because rewriting these often turns into writing from scratch, which means more people involved and higher costs.
Another thing that tends to happen during a content audit: you discover new article ideas. It happens to me constantly. I’ll read through an older post that’s still relevant, and two or three new ideas pop up. Put those on the list and discuss them later. Often you can write these quickly, because you don’t need to explain everything from scratch — you just link to the related content.
Depending on your budget, you might also rebuild graphics or create videos to freshen things up.
Consistency — bring it all together. If you’re already going through every piece, pay attention to consistency. You’ll probably notice from the list alone that headlines were written by different people in different styles. Try to align them to a consistent tone. I’d also strongly recommend reviewing subheadings. And yes, get the SEO team involved early (Step 1) to review and suggest keywords. In my experience, their keyword suggestions aren’t always brilliant. But I do try to work them into the text subtly.
As you can see, there’s a lot to consider when you’re giving your content a proper clean-up. But the payoff — a leaner, sharper, more relevant site — is well worth the effort.
This started life in German on reinergaertner.de, my blog since 1997. The English version was AI-assisted. My German-trained eyes may have missed a few things along the way. She’ll be right.