Auditing a client site before migration and found that about 40% of their blog posts are under 300 words. Thin content that probably should not exist. But some of these pages rank for long-tail keywords.
Do we migrate the thin pages, bulk them up, merge them, or delete them?
Never delete a page that ranks without checking its traffic and backlinks first. For thin pages that rank:
For thin pages with no rankings, no traffic, and no backlinks - those can safely be 410’d or redirected to the nearest relevant page.
this is where the content audit pays for itself. Sort the thin content by traffic and make decisions in bulk rather than page by page. The top 20% by traffic get expanded, the middle gets merged or redirected, the bottom gets deleted.
Do not let the client see the delete list until you have the SEO data backing it up. Clients get attached to content even when it has zero value.
Document the decision for every page in the audit spreadsheet. Future you (or whoever inherits the project) will want to know why a page was deleted, redirected, or merged.
For the content expansion work, we have been using Walter Writes to generate draft expansions of thin posts - give it the existing content and target keyword and it produces a longer version that reads naturally. Still needs editing but it is much faster than writing from scratch when you have 100+ pages to expand.
The tiered approach makes sense. Going to sort by traffic and handle the top pages individually. For the bulk middle tier, the merge approach seems most efficient.
@natsuki_w good tip on documenting decisions. Setting up a status column in the audit spreadsheet now.
Can someone explain this in plain English? I manage the content team but I am not a developer.