Do You Need to Add or Subtract from Your Blog?

A few months before the publish date of this guest post I deleted 100’s of blog posts from Blogging From Paradise.

Why?

My intuition told me that each post needed to go to free me to grow.

I had to delete content to accelerate my blogging success.

Rewind.

Back things up for a moment.

How many bloggers preach the importance of subtracting from your blog?

Read a few popular blogging tips blogs right now. Even though most seem helpful, you rarely see any high-level pro stress the importance of subtracting or deleting content to promote quality traffic and blogging business.

Most seem to teach how to:

• add
• gain
• increase

because most believe that success is based on the idol of: more.

I know.

I bought the whole more thing too for many years, blogging-wise and life-wise.

I believed that more articles, more calls to action, more online courses, more eBooks, more links, and more stuff on my blog yielded increased blogging success.

Reality smacked me upside the head.

Mindlessly adding more held back various aspects of my blogging campaign. Point blank; when you publish anything but thorough, outstanding content you cannot significantly increase targeted blog traffic, blogging business or brand awareness.

People want quality not volume. Customers desire detailed content to earn their trust. Brand advocates want to feel good about sharing blog posts across social media.

Dropping 10 calls to action to join your email list via a low quality post that 10 people read does you no good.

If no one sees the 10 calls to action no one takes the 10 calls to action.

However, dropping 1-2 calls to action to join your list via a detailed, 1200 word, targeted blog post attracts 500, 1000, or even 10,000 highly-targeted, interested visitors who see the 1-2 calls to action to join your list.

When 10,000 targeted people see one clear call to action, you better believe your list will grow by 20 to 50 to 100 subscribers or more sooner than later.

Nobody sees your 5 high-quality, long-form blog posts if said posts appear to be buried by 100 thin posts.

The thin posts need to go for your blog to grow.

Readers need to see ONLY your best work through every post published to your blog.

Less Sometimes Leads to More

I eventually discovered that less leads to more by subtracting what does not work to make room for what works.

100’s of posts on my blog:

• consumed server resources
• diminished the user experience
• attracted brief comments not conducive to discussion, brand expansion, and business growth
• never powerfully hit the mark in terms of offering thorough, detailed blogging resources
• blocked, covered and obscured my few winners

Subtracting each post via a painstaking process felt freeing but scary too. Would Google penalize me? What would readers think? Would deleting a hefty volume of posts hurt my blog?

I felt really good about only seeing detailed, high quality content on my blog after cutting the dead weight. Doing so fortified my reputation. I also felt clearer on only publishing detailed content going forward.

But I shuddered in my blogging boots concerning dead links, a potentially unpleasant UX and lessened blogging course and blogging eBook sales. Trashing 100 plus blog posts meant 100 less links pointing to my blogging courses and blogging eBooks, right?

The Verdict: Addition by Subtraction

Turns out, I achieved addition by subtraction.

Deleting what did not work left what did work. What did work – my most popular posts – gave each greater attention.

Giving each post the love it deserved promoted increased social sharing and greater passive blog traffic since long-form content encourages organic sharing.

At the current time, I have not achieved a surge in course or eBook sales based on the post deletion but suspect that the slow and steady momentum appearing to build will boost passive blogging income through the blog too.

As each quality post drives more traffic organically through either Google or other channels, I expect course and eBook sales to expand too.

I know right now that every single post on Blogging From Paradise adds credibility to my blog, brand, and business.

But I had to muster up the courage to subtract versus adding to reach this point.

Taking this leap of faith felt highly uncomfortable.

Who enjoys trashing months or even years of blogging work, even when the work does not genuinely perform for you?

Do You Mistakenly Add When You Need to Subtract?

As a rule, bloggers add content, sidebar elements, pages, calls to action, internal links, external links, and pretty much everything but the kitchen sink in a mad dash toward traffic and income.

But adding without quality control hurts your credibility. Damaging your credibility prevents your blogging success.

For example, short-form blog posts usually generate little to no traffic. 10, 20 or even 100 thin blog posts spanning 500-600 words drive scant traffic.

Attracting little blog traffic prevents your blogging success.

Imagine publishing one thin blog post daily for the next 3 months.

At the 90-day mark you will have little traffic and virtually zero passive traffic passing through your blogging real estate.

Adding 90 low quality posts did nothing for you, your blog, your reputation, your traffic and your business.

Perhaps you kept busy adding content to your blog but busy-ness never leads to business.

Quality, detailed blog posts lay a foundation for a thriving blogging business.

Everything else needs to go because blogging dead weight does nothing for your blogging business, save holding it back.

Stop Mindlessly Adding When You Need to Subtract

Picture the above scenario.

Trashing all 500-600 low quality posts you simply cannot salvage feels scary but adds to your:

• blogging credibility
• blogging reputation
• blogging brand
• quality blog traffic

Plus, adding valuable content to the few potential quality posts you keep and optimizing this content increases your Google traffic.

Versus adding 10 more thin posts you simply make each of the 10 to 15 posts left on your blog truly outstanding by optimizing each post.

Add to each post to hit a 1500 word count.

Build each post around a long tail keyword aligned with your niche.

Add ample practical tips to make each post useful.

The 10 to 15 high quality posts fortify your blog, brand, and business.

Conclusion

One quality blog post beats 20 thin blog posts.

Before you add more content to your blog, catch yourself.

Publish only detailed, long-form content to lay another quality building block to your blogging foundation.

If you published thin content in the past just subtract it.

Let go to grow.