{"id":9694,"date":"2015-09-08T12:45:36","date_gmt":"2015-09-08T12:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/?p=9694"},"modified":"2015-09-08T12:45:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-08T12:45:36","slug":"why-its-time-to-shear-your-website","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/","title":{"rendered":"Why it’s time to shear your website"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheep need to be shorn regularly. Letting all that fleece build up weighs them down, causes them to overheat, and could cause them illnesses. So when a sheep does appear that hasn\u2019t been shorn in years, it\u2019s definitely news.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Chris<\/a>

Chris the Sheep from the RSPCA<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Unfortunately, when a website that hasn\u2019t been shorn in years appears, it isn\u2019t news. It\u2019s just another day.<\/p>\n

But the same principles apply. Much like that angry sheep buried under kilos of wool, your website is buried under years of content. Blog posts. Contest rules. FAQs with questions no one asks any more.<\/p>\n

And by shearing it, just like a sheep, your website will perform better.<\/p>\n

\"Shearing<\/p>\n

Here are some tips for shearing your website:<\/p>\n

Get the latest site map<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re using a content management system, you should have a site map already in place, but have you looked at it recently? Have you seen everything you have in place and seen how it all connects?<\/p>\n

Revisit your site map, writing it out if necessary, and map out the links as well as how recently you\u2019ve worked on it. You might find you have pages that aren\u2019t linked anywhere. You might find a section you haven\u2019t touched in years. Even if you keep your website regularly updated and organised, there is always something that slips through the cracks, and a freshly reviewed site map can show you that.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Check your statistics<\/h3>\n

Normally, people look at what\u2019s doing well on their website \u2013 what\u2019s popular, how people are reaching the checkout, that sort of thing. And if you have many pages, you\u2019re much less likely to see what isn\u2019t doing so well.<\/p>\n

But you should be looking at them. Go to that last page of statistics and see what isn\u2019t performing. Those are the pages you should focus on. Nobody\u2019s visiting them anyway, after all, why not lose them?<\/p>\n

\"Google<\/p>\n

See what can be combined<\/h3>\n

A popular SEO technique in the past was to create separate pages for each variation of a product, assuming that searchers (and Google) would be looking for that variation. So you would create a \u201cblue extra-large shopping bag\u201d page, and a \u201cred extra-large shopping bag\u201d page, and a \u201cgreen large shopping bag\u201d page, etc. Or a page for your Nottingham branch, and a page for your Leeds branch, and a page for your Birmingham branch\u2026<\/p>\n

That isn\u2019t necessary any more. Rather than a bunch of pages with slightly different keywords and almost the same text, Google prefers one page with plenty of text. Make a single \u201cshopping page\u201d page. Or an \u201cOur branches\u201d page. Go through your pages and see what you can merge to make one awesome page filled with the information customers are looking for.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Out with the old<\/h3>\n

Do you still have up the rules for a contest you ran in 2011? What about a blog post introducing a product you no longer sell? While these pages might have been important at the time, now they\u2019re just cluttering up your site and frustrating potential customers.<\/p>\n

Review your past pages and see what could be removed. Most of these can be combined with other pages \u2013 for example, the terms and conditions for a contest you ran in the past can easily be added to the page with the contest winners. The blog post about an old product can redirect smoothly to the product that replaced it.<\/p>\n

\"Terms<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget your redirects!<\/h3>\n

Once you\u2019ve cleaned out the pages, don\u2019t forget to set up your 301 redirects! These automatically redirect any links, whether on your own site or on another site, to the page you specify, giving you a smooth transition without having 404 errors popping up all over the place.<\/p>\n

You can find out more about 301 redirects and how to set them up in \u201cHow do I redirect my site?\u201d on the Support Database.<\/p>\n

\"Example<\/p>\n

Cut out the extra fleece on your site and you\u2019ll be running with the rest of the herd in no time!<\/p>\n

\"Freshly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When a sheep hasn’t been shorn in years, it’s a news event. But when a website hasn’t been shorn, it’s just another day. Your website is buried under years of content, and here’s how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-your-website"},"yoast_head":"\nWhy it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Heart Internet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@heartinternet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@heartinternet\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Estimated reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28\"},\"headline\":\"Why it’s time to shear your website\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\"},\"wordCount\":694,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Your Website\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\",\"name\":\"Why it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00\",\"description\":\"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg\",\"width\":1620,\"height\":720},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why it’s time to shear your website\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/\",\"name\":\"Heart Internet\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Heart Internet\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp\",\"width\":992,\"height\":252,\"caption\":\"Heart Internet\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/heartinternet\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heart-internet-ltd\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28\",\"name\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-GB\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Eliot Chambers-Ostler\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/author\/eliot-chambers-ostler\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet","description":"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/","og_locale":"en_GB","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet","og_description":"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/","og_site_name":"Heart Internet","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/","article_published_time":"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1620,"height":720,"url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@heartinternet","twitter_site":"@heartinternet","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","Estimated reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/"},"author":{"name":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28"},"headline":"Why it’s time to shear your website","datePublished":"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/"},"wordCount":694,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg","articleSection":["Your Website"],"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/","name":"Why it's time to shear your website - Heart Internet","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg","datePublished":"2015-09-08T12:45:36+00:00","description":"Your website is buried under years of content, and here's how you can have it gambolling freely with the rest of the herd.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-GB","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/shearwebsite-background.jpg","width":1620,"height":720},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/why-its-time-to-shear-your-website\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why it’s time to shear your website"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#website","url":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/","name":"Heart Internet","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-GB"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#organization","name":"Heart Internet","url":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/HeartInternet_Logo_Colour.webp","width":992,"height":252,"caption":"Heart Internet"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/heartinternet\/","https:\/\/x.com\/heartinternet","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/heart-internet-ltd"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/58ed7f27cc0f3ab6e69135742a5eee28","name":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-GB","@id":"https:\/\/heartblog.victory.digital\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/cropped-Eliot-96x96.jpg","caption":"Eliot Chambers-Ostler"},"url":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/author\/eliot-chambers-ostler\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heartinternet.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}