So what’s all this got to do with your website?
Marie Kondo’s number one rule for deciding whether to keep something is pretty simple: Does it spark joy? In other words, does that article of clothing, book, or memento spark joy and love?
- Is this content signature content, or content that one should find at the top of a search results page?
- Is this content that members most want to find?
- Is this content valuable?
- Is this content of interest to lots of people? or your most important audiences?
- Your navigation will be easier to navigate
- Your search will return fewer, higher quality results
If you find that you just can’t part with content, move it to an offline archive. Monitor the amount of traffic to the old URL and track requests for the archived data. Just like the dress you haven’t worn in x months or years, once a certain amount of time has passed, you should consider that content permanently removed from your site. Remember that 20% of your website pages will drive 80% of overall traffic, so why not focus most of your attention on that 20% and make it great?
Just as our homes suffer from clutter, so too, do our websites suffer from digital clutter. Make 2018 the year your clear your website of unnecessary content that just doesn’t spark joy.
