Guest Post today courtesy of one of my trusted SEO partners: Tanja at Chunky Squirrel Services

Before I give you all the goodies from Tanja, a little backstory:
I don't even remember how Tanja and I crossed paths initially, but she's a member inside of MarketingClub.ca (a membership I co-host with a colleague) and she's been so generous with her SEO knowledge and expertise to our community. In fact she's even taught one of our workshops for us to bring some much needed clarity and simplification to SEO for our members.

You might think "This is weird, Brittany is sharing a post and linking to a website of someone else who does websites?"... but to me it's not weird at all. Collaboration has always been the key to my success and the success of those around me, and I actually end up referring a lot of site and SEO business to Tanja when it's clear that what I offer isn't quite the right puzzle piece for a potential client.

While it's true that both of us build websites, we each have a unique specialty. I know Podia inside and out and have shifted from building WordPress websites, and Tanja is quite literally the WordPress queen ;)

So naturally, as I began cleaning up my own Podia website that had over 110 pages (yikes right?!), I thought to myself "Am I doing more harm than good by cleaning up my website?".

So I sent an email to Tanja and asked her if she would be willing to write a guest blog for me (and you!) about how to clean up your website without hurting your SEO for Podia users.

Here it is!

Cleaning Up Website Pages on Podia Without Hurting Your SEO

If you’ve had your website for a couple of years, chances are you’ve been collecting a lot of pages! 

Old offers, landing pages you’re no longer using, demo pages you created while building other pages, etc.

At some point you look at your page list and you realize there are over 100 pages and many of them are no longer relevant. For example before writing this article, Brittany told me she has 110+ pages of which many need to go! 

Cleaning up your website is a great idea. However, it’s important to first make sure you’re not accidentally about to remove pages that bring a lot of traffic to your website. 

Here are five simple steps to clean up your Podia website without damaging your SEO.

1. Identify all pages that are outdated

Create a list with all the URLs that you feel are no longer relevant and that you want to delete. (don’t do it just yet!)

2. Check if the page gets traffic

While you might think a page is not relevant, sometimes it still brings in a lot of traffic and you can find out with Google Analytics or Google Search Console. 

For an SEO impact we’re specifically looking at organic search traffic.

Google Search Console is great, because it also shares keyword data with you, which also shows if it’s even relevant search traffic. Aka: do people find your page for the right reasons?

If you don’t have it set up yet, here’s how to do so! (For a newly setup account, it’s best to wait 3 months to collect solid data on your traffic)

Here is how you can find the relevant info in Google Search Console:

Click on “Performance” in the left sidebar and next “Add filter” and click on “Page”.

Here is where you can paste the URL from the page you want to check.

After entering that URL, you should only see the URL you want to check here below. 

This page already gives you a good overview of what is going on on this page. In our example, you see this page got 81 visitors over the past 3 months.

Next when you click on “Queries”, you’ll see a list of keywords (search queries) that the page is currently ranking for. (If these are irrelevant, that might impact your decision to keep the page or not)

3. Decide whether to delete, update, or reuse the page

Once you’ve reviewed your pages, you’ll usually end up with three options:

Delete
Pages that have no traffic, very little traffic or irrelevant traffic and no future use. What “very little” is, might depend on your business! For some businesses, getting 10 clicks per month may be insignificant. For others, especially if it’s highly relevant local or niche traffic, that might be enough reason to keep the page.

There is no one-size-fits-all rule here. Use your judgment and consider how valuable that traffic actually is.

Update
Pages that still receive visitors but contain outdated information. If information on a page is incorrect, it’s always best to fix it, regardless of SEO. Outdated or inaccurate content can create a poor experience for visitors, especially if they read about an offer or service that no longer exists.

Updating the content allows you to keep any search visibility the page already has while making sure visitors get the right information.

Reuse
Pages where the URL could still be useful, but most of the content needs to change. Reusing a page URL can be especially helpful on platforms like Podia, where URL management is simpler but less flexible than some website builders.

When reusing a page, try to keep the topic somewhat related to the original content so search engines can more easily understand the change.

4. No redirects on Podia

On platforms like WordPress or Shopify, it’s common practice to redirect deleted pages to another relevant page using what’s called a 301 redirect.

This helps guide visitors and search engines from the old page to a new one.

At the moment, this type of redirect control is not available on Podia. That is one of the reasons it can often be a better idea to update or reuse an existing page instead of deleting it entirely.

That said, it’s perfectly normal for websites to have some deleted pages that return a 404 error. Search engines understand that websites evolve over time.

The main thing to avoid is frequently publishing pages and deleting them shortly afterward. If possible, try to plan pages with a longer lifespan or reuse existing ones when updating your offers.

5: Check internal links before deleting a page

Before removing a page, quickly check whether other pages on your site link to it. If they do, update those links so visitors don’t encounter broken pages.

For example, do you have older blog posts linking to a now-expired offer? Make sure to remove or update those links. It’s also worth checking things like buttons on sales pages, course descriptions, and older launch content, as these often link to specific landing pages that may no longer exist after a program or offer has changed.

This keeps your site easier to navigate and ensures search engines can still crawl your content smoothly.

Internal broken links happen when a page on your website links to another page that no longer exists. These are not great for users and they’re also not ideal for your SEO.

Ready to start your web page cleanup? 

Cleaning up outdated pages is healthy for your website. It makes your content easier for visitors to navigate and helps search engines focus on the pages that matter most.

For Podia users, the key is simply to pause before deleting anything and check whether the page might still have value.

A thoughtful cleanup can make your site clearer, more focused, and easier to maintain as your business grows.

Tanja's offers:
Google Search Console Quick Setup Call, where we set up the tool together.

SEO support through Chunky Squirrel, where I help small business owners clean up, improve, and optimize their websites so they’re easier for both visitors and search engines to understand.

Big thank you to Tanja for writing this article for Podia users and if you have any questions about the Podia SEO or how to clean up your Podia website, we're here for you!