Have you cleaned up those old articles?  Just like your garage needs a little spring cleaning, your website can benefit greatly from some cleaning and even upgrading.

Maybe you recall those good old days when mom would say "Its time for Spring Cleaning, get excited!" and this would ultimately cause all of the children to groan harmoniously?  Well I'm sure what I'm about to say will illicit the same response, but its a good time to start thinking about cleaning up your site.  Since spring is coming in a few weeks (at least for our friends in the northern half of this world, those in the south will soon enjoy the fall, but regardless) and it that makes it a wonderful time to sit back, reflect, and then jump into some cleaning.

A disclaimer, I am in no way talking about adding new features or changing templates.  That is a completely different process, and here I am only talking about cleaning up unused or extra content.

Imagine you are at a party, and all of your articles, images, videos, etc, are your guests.  As you are in your living room, are you constantly bumping into quality guests or finding yourself mingling with guests you didn't mean to invite?

Helps you control your content

One big reason for cleaning up your site is so you can better control your backend (by this I mean your content).  I'm not saying to remove all articles that are under performing, but there are probably half written pieces of content, old images you have accumulated, and empty categories/sections.  Do you need it?  If you haven't used it in the past few weeks then no.  You can always remake it.  When I first started with Joomla I was afraid to remove the default content that came with my template, but then I got lost in the number of modules and extra articles that were unpublished.  You don't need them, because you can always remake them.

Cleans up the site for visitors

I've noticed occasionally a website will have a plethora of modules and articles everywhere.  Its chaos basically, and the lack of control over the content severely impaired my ability to use the website.  This is not just Joomla, this is anything.  Visitors are seekers, but they don't really like a wild goose chase.  Don't you hate it when you have a search result that sounds great, but upon arrival you can't make heads or tails of it?  You can reduce that on your site by clearing out the clutter.  It can be helpful to look through the content with someone more or less impartial to it.

How do I clean up my Joomla site?

There are many things you can do when working to clean up your site.  I suggest that you first inspect your site, and that you ask questions like these:

• Do you really use all of the extensions?
• Do you have old content or images?
• If someone saw your site, would they be able to find the best things easily?
• Does each module provide a necessary function?

When you've assessed your site, then carefully remove old things.  You can delete them, and they will go to the trash in case you need them again.  You need not fear, you have to empty the trash to actually delete content.

Also assess areas or extensions that aren't being used, even if you wish they were.  Do you have a dead forum?  No forum is better than one that sits there attracting spam, so take it down and provide the ability to send email or comments instead.  These are the kinds of things that will really spruce up your site.

So site managers, go forth and find some time this month to do a little Spring Cleaning.  Your site will thank you, and so will your users.

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