What to Kill, Keep, or Revive: Content Audit Tips That Save You Time… and Budget

When you open your company’s content library, do you ever feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of materials, unsure of what is still valuable? 

Many B2B teams possess a gold mine of content that remains either unused or underperforming. In industries such as fintech, cleantech, or healthcare, where trust is essential and buying cycles are lengthy, outdated or ambiguous content not only represents a missed opportunity but also poses a significant risk. 

You don’t have to start from scratch; instead, you need a more innovative strategy to leverage what you already have. 

Enter the Kill / Keep / Revive methodology. This straightforward yet powerful framework empowers you to make quicker, more informed decisions about your content. This approach allows you to stop wasting time and budget while starting to achieve tangible results. 

Content overload is not just an issue for SEO; it’s a critical concern regarding brand clarity. Don’t let unclear messaging hold you back. Let´s take control.

• Your team continues to request new assets, but they are unaware of what already exists.
• Sales continues to create one-off presentations instead of utilising existing materials.
• You have blog posts, long videos, PDFs,  podcasts or even meeting transcripts and emails that no longer reflect your current offers, tone, or priorities.
• And your website? It’s confusing at best, misleading at worst.
  
  

When content accumulates without organisation, it becomes difficult to manage, utilise, and trust by your ICP. Marketing leaders not only create content but also ensure that each piece serves its purpose, ideally more than once. A content audit helps you:

• Enhance efficiency by repurposing content rather than starting from scratch.  
• Optimise your budget by eliminating underperforming elements.  
• Discover untapped potential for improving SEO, engagement, and conversions.  
• Foster consistency in your brand narrative across all teams and channels.  

KILL: What to Let Go Of (Without Guilt or Remorse)

Let’s start with the challenging task of deleting content. Not all content should remain indefinitely; some may be outdated, while others may not have performed well initially. Keeping such content can clutter your ecosystem, negatively impact your search performance, and confuse your audience. This raises an important question: what should be removed? 

• Outdated or incorrect content: Old pricing, expired offers, or regulatory references that are no longer valid.
  

• Duplicate or low-value posts: Especially if they add nothing new to the conversation.
  
• Pages with no traffic, no conversions, and no internal links: for over 12 months.
  
• Content that no longer reflects your brand’s tone, audience, or service offerings, or that contradicts your current value promise.
  
  

Tools to help identify what to kill:

• Google Search Console: Sort pages by impressions/clicks to find dead weight.
  
• Sales and CS team feedback: Ask what content they never use or avoid sending.
  
  

Pro Tip: Before deleting a page, check if it has backlinks. If yes, set up a 301 redirect to a more relevant or updated piece. That way, you keep any SEO value.

When killing content makes sense:

• It’s pulling down your average time on page or bounce rate.
  
• It’s showing up in search for the wrong queries.
  
• It contradicts your current messaging or positioning.
  
  

You’re not erasing history, you’re making space for clarity.

KEEP: What’s Already Working (and even better, Strengthen It)

Managing content involves identifying what effectively drives results and ensuring its continued effectiveness. This includes your foundational content or support for your audience, whether it is written, visual, multimedia, or even podcasts, all of which successfully attract, educate, and convert.

What to Keep:

• Created evergreen content such as buyer’s guides, how-tos, explainers, or walkthroughs that remain aligned with your offerings.
• Included supportive content like FAQs, onboarding documents, and process explainers to reduce the workload for your sales and support teams.
• Case studies or success stories in various formats (written, short and long videos, static visuals, and published podcasts) that showcase your best work.
• High-performing posts, reels, carousels, landing pages, or campaign videos that bring in leads or engagement
• FAQs, onboarding decks, or even internal meeting transcripts that reduce workload for support or sales

When to optimise “Keep” content:

• The headline could be more relevant or optimized for SEO. 
• The call-to-action (CTA) no longer aligns with your current sales funnel.
• The formatting is difficult to scan on mobile devices.
• Internal links are outdated or missing.

Pro Tip: Use your top-performing content as hubs. Link newer or revived content back to these pieces to improve site structure and increase session duration.

Even great content benefits from a check-up.

REVIVE: What to Refresh, Reuse, or Reposition

Most of your untapped opportunities are right here. Reviving content doesn’t require you to rewrite everything; it involves identifying valuable content that is underperforming, not easily visible, or slightly outdated, and making minor adjustments that can lead to significant improvements. 

This approach is particularly useful when you have limited time or creative resources but still need to maintain a consistent publishing schedule.

What to Revive:

• Blog posts that attract solid traffic but have low conversion rates may be due to a weak call-to-action (CTA) or an outdated offer. 
• Older content that remains relevant but needs updated data, static posts, long and short videos, or structured infographics. 
• High-quality posts that are buried in your archive, especially those with strong backlinks or that were previously top performers. 
• Landing pages, webinars, or campaign materials that can be repurposed into evergreen resources. 

How to revive content:

• Update stats, examples, and internal links.
  
• Rewrite the intro and headline to reflect current pain points or keywords.
  
• Add new visuals, infographics, or video snippets to improve engagement.
  
• Transform a blog post into a concise LinkedIn carousel, an engaging newsletter, or a short video.

Pro Tip: If the original URL ranks in search, don’t change it, just update the content. Google will treat it as fresh and keep its SEO value.

It´s not always about creating new content; it could be about making your existing content work harder.

A Simple Framework to Start Auditing Today

You don’t have to audit every piece of content all at once, start with content that aligns with current goals, such as an upcoming campaign, key landing pages, or high-traffic blog posts. You can use this table as a template:

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Confusing traffic with value: A webpage may have high traffic but low engagement, indicating a need for a better call-to-action (CTA) or improved user flow.
• Over-optimising content that is already performing well can be counterproductive; sometimes it’s best to simply maintain it.
• Deleting content without checking for backlinks can result in losing valuable SEO strength.
• Over-auditing occurs when too much time is spent creating complex audit systems instead of taking action on the issues that matter most right now.

Final Thoughts: Make It a Habit, Not a Project

For teams juggling multiple responsibilities and limited resources, the best kind of content strategy is one that prioritises progress over perfection.

Auditing content isn’t a one-time fix. It’s a habit. With the Kill / Keep / Revive method, you can:

• Focus on what works
  
  
• Cut what doesn’t
  
  
• Unlock quick wins that align with your goals.
  
  

Whether you run this audit monthly, quarterly, or around key campaigns, it’s one of the most powerful tools you have to drive clarity, performance, and impact.

Start Small. Start Smart.

Block one hour this week, choose 10–15 blog posts or landing pages tied to a current goal. Sort them into: Kill. Keep. Revive.

That’s it. You’re on your way to a leaner, more innovative, and more strategic content engine.

If you’ve identified content worth reviving, you’re already halfway to a stronger content strategy. But don’t stop at updating a few links or headlines.

The real value comes when you repurpose that revived content into new formats that reach more people:

• Turn a long blog post into a LinkedIn carousel
  
  
• Turn an old case study into a short video
  
  
• Turn a high-performing how-to into an email sequence or guide.
  
  

This is how you build consistency, stay visible, and extend the life of every idea, without starting from scratch every time. So once you’ve sorted your content into Kill, Keep, and Revive, ask yourself:

What else could this become?

Because the smartest content isn’t just the newest, it’s the content that keeps working for you.

Want to make your revived content go even further? You might not need to start from scratch.

Click here for a practical way to start doing more with less.

Thanks for reading.