Local SEO Content Strategy: What To Create, Improve, Merge, And Avoid

A local SEO content strategy is a plan for creating, improving, organizing, and maintaining pages that help a business rank for local search demand, prove local relevance, and convert local buyers.

It should decide which pages exist and which do not. It should define what intent each page targets, what proof each page needs, how pages internally link, how pages support GBP and local pack visibility, how performance is measured, and when pages should be updated, merged, noindexed, or removed.

A local SEO content strategy should decide which pages exist, what job each page does, what proof each page needs, and how each page supports visibility, trust, and conversion.

That last part matters. Most local content planning only addresses the creation side. The strongest content systems also address the removal side, because pages that dilute topical clarity, cannibalize stronger pages, or consume crawl budget without contributing leads are a drag on the pages that do.

Before building a system, it helps to understand why local content fails. The failure modes are consistent enough to be predictable.

It starts with blogs instead of money pages. Most local businesses do not have a blog problem. They have a service page, location page, proof, and conversion problem.

A roofing company with fifteen blog posts about roof styles and no strong page for "roof repair [city]" has the wrong content priorities. Blog content can contribute to local visibility, but it rarely produces the revenue impact of a well-built service or location page.

It treats city names as relevance. A page that says "serving Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, McKinney, and Allen" twelve times has not created local content. It has created a keyword list.

Local relevance comes from proof: reviews from Dallas customers, photos from a Fort Worth job, details about the McKinney branch, not city names in a paragraph.

It creates pages without proof. No reviews, no photos, no case studies, no branch details, no service history, no real evidence that the business serves the place or the need the page claims to serve.

It scales geography faster than reality. Pages get created for every suburb and neighborhood before the business has service coverage, proof, or operational capacity there.

This is how a site ends up with two hundred thin city pages that earn no impressions and confuse Google about what the business actually covers.

It ignores conversion. A page with traffic but no visible phone number, no clear CTA, no trust signal, and no form or booking option is not a business asset. Rankings without calls are a data point, not a result.

It never prunes. Weak pages accumulate over months and years until the site is bloated, overlapping, and harder to understand. Bad local content does not just fail to rank. It makes the site harder to understand.

Most local SEO content advice explains what you can publish. It does not explain what you should publish.

Before creating any local page, run it through five checks.

• Demand. Are people searching for this service, location, problem, or question? Is the intent commercial, research, branded, or informational? Is there enough search opportunity to justify a dedicated page? What does the SERP show for this query: local pack results, service pages, directories, maps, ads, or informational guides? The SERP tells you what Google believes the searcher wants, which tells you what kind of page to build.
• Proof. Can the business prove it serves this intent or location? Are there reviews, photos, case studies, projects, branch details, staff bios, or service history to support the page? Is there a real location or real service coverage? A page that claims to serve a geography the business cannot document is not a local page. It is a gap.
• Conversion. Can this page generate calls, forms, bookings, quote requests, or qualified leads? Is the service or location commercially valuable enough to justify the build? Is there a clear CTA? Is the page trackable? Is the lead quality worth the investment?
• Architecture. Where does this page fit in the site structure? What links to it? What does it link to? Does it overlap with another page that already serves the same intent? Does it support a service cluster, location cluster, or city cluster, or does it sit orphaned with no structural role?
• Maintenance. Can this page be kept accurate over time? Who owns updates? Will the proof become stale? Will service coverage change? Should the page be merged or removed if it does not perform within a defined period?

If a local page cannot pass demand, proof, conversion, architecture, and maintenance checks, it should not be published as an SEO asset. It may still exist as a user-facing resource, but it should not consume indexation budget or rankings capital while contributing nothing.

Demand decides opportunity. Proof decides whether the page deserves to exist. Conversion decides whether it was worth building.

A local content strategy is not a pile of pages. It is a system where each page type has a job. That system has seven layers.

1. 1. Core service pages
2. 2. Location pages
3. 3. Local landing pages
4. 4. City pages
5. 5. Service area pages
6. 6. Supporting local content
7. 7. Content maintenance and pruning

Each layer depends on the ones below it. Supporting content without strong service pages wastes its potential. City pages without service pages have nowhere to send buyers. Location pages without local proof are shells. The system only works when the foundation layers are solid.

Core service pages capture high-intent commercial demand. They are the pages closest to revenue and usually the first pages that should be strong.

Examples: emergency plumber, roof repair, dental implants, personal injury lawyer, HVAC installation, estate planning attorney, pest control, commercial cleaning. The unifying characteristic is that someone searching for these terms is actively looking to hire.

A strong service page should include: a clear service explanation; who the service is for; service area or locations served; the process or approach; pricing or payment factors where relevant; local proof: reviews, testimonials, project examples; FAQs that address real buyer questions; service-specific CTAs; internal links to relevant locations, cities, or service areas; and schema where appropriate.

Strategy notes: build primary services first. Separate services when intent differs meaningfully. A business that offers both commercial and residential cleaning may need separate pages if buyers search differently and the proof differs by segment. Avoid splitting pages when the SERP shows one intent clearly.

Connect service pages to location pages and service area pages through internal links. Use reviews and project examples to support service credibility specifically.

Core service pages are usually closer to revenue than local blog posts. Fix these before publishing supporting content.

Location pages represent real branches, offices, clinics, stores, or locations with customer-facing presence. Each real location with its own GBP should have a location page.

A location page should include:

• a unique URL
• location name
• NAP
• hours
• map or directions link
• branch-specific photos, not stock
• reviews and testimonials tied to that branch
• staff or team details where relevant
• services available at that specific location
• parking and access details where useful
• nearby areas served
• local FAQs
• conversion actions tied to the branch
• internal links to relevant services
• LocalBusiness schema
• the GBP URL with UTM tracking

Strategy notes: do not use one generic location page to represent multiple GBPs. Do not use duplicate pages where only the city name or address has changed. Connect each GBP to its correct location page.

For businesses with multiple branches in the same city, differentiate with real branch-level proof: different staff, different service mix, different photos, different reviews.

A location page should prove the location exists, serves customers, and gives buyers a reason to choose it. Multi-location content strategy requires templates, local proof, and branch-level governance to make this work at scale without creating duplicate content problems.

Local landing pages convert specific local intent around a service, geography, and buyer need. They combine the commercial specificity of service pages with the geographic specificity of location pages.

Types of local landing pages: service plus city; service plus neighborhood; service plus branch; service plus local problem; service plus industry plus location.

Local landing pages should combine service proof, local proof, trust proof, and conversion proof. Service proof shows the business can do the work. Local proof shows the business has done it in or near this geography. Trust proof, reviews, case studies, credentials, shows the business is safe to hire.

Conversion proof, a visible CTA, a clear phone number, a form or booking option, gives the buyer a path forward.

Strategy notes: build local landing pages when the intent is specific enough that a dedicated page serves it better than a service page with a city reference. Use for high-value service and location combinations. Avoid building hundreds of them before validating the first batch.

Measure qualified leads, not just impressions or traffic.

City pages capture organic local demand in cities where the business has real service capability. They are distinct from location pages in that they may not represent a physical branch, and distinct from service area pages in that they target city-level search demand specifically.

City pages should only be built when demand, proof, and SERP opportunity justify them.

That means: search demand exists for the service in that city; the SERP shows organic page results rather than only map pack and directories; the business actually serves the city; local proof exists; the page can convert to qualified leads; internal link support exists; and someone can maintain the page.

Do not build city pages because a spreadsheet has city names in it.

A city page should include: services available in that city; proof of work or customers in or near the city; reviews or testimonials; response time or operational coverage information; local FAQs; local regulations or issues where genuinely useful to buyers; CTAs; and internal links to services and nearby areas.

City pages are not map-pack hacks. They are organic local pages that need demand, proof, and conversion value. Without those three, they are index bloat.

Service area pages document real coverage for service area businesses and support organic discovery for areas beyond a physical location's immediate proximity.

Service area pages should document real coverage, not fictional availability. A service area page for a plumbing company should reflect where the company's technicians actually go, what they offer there, how quickly they respond, and what the work looks like.

Service area settings in GBP do not create proximity, and service area pages that claim coverage the business cannot operationally support create lead quality problems and trust risk.

A service area page should include: real coverage documentation; services available in the area; response times; service capacity; project or customer proof from the area; reviews or testimonials; lead qualification copy that helps buyers understand whether the area is well-served; CTAs; and accurate areaServed in schema where used.

Strategy notes: track lead quality by area. Service area pages that attract high inquiry volume from areas where the business cannot profitably operate are a cost, not an asset. Connect area pages to service pages and real proof.

Supporting content includes everything that is not a primary money page but contributes to the local content system. When it is done well, it supports service and location pages, earns internal links, helps buyers make decisions, and builds the topical depth that makes the site credible.

Examples: local cost guides; seasonal service guides; local regulation or permit guides; local buyer guides; comparison or alternatives pages; problem and solution pages; FAQs; case studies; project gallery pages; local resource pages; staff or practitioner pages; review landing pages.

Supporting content should support money pages. It should not become a random blog treadmill.

Good supporting content does at least one of the following: answers real buyer questions that arise before or during the purchase decision; earns links from local or industry sources; strengthens internal linking toward service and location pages; proves local expertise or operational depth; improves conversion on pages buyers visit before converting; helps sales conversations; or builds topical and entity relevance.

Bad supporting content: generic "things to do in [city]" articles, local news nobody asked for, AI-written filler with no real proof, event recaps with no business relevance, blog posts that attract informational traffic with no purchase intent, and pages with no internal link role.

Blog content is useful when it supports the local content system. It is waste when it becomes the system.

Supporting content can create local link opportunities when it is genuinely useful to other local sites, directories, or organizations, but that usefulness has to be real, not assumed.

A local content strategy is not only what you publish. It is what you refuse to publish, merge, or remove.

The maintenance layer keeps the system clean.

It includes:

• updating stale pages with current proof
• refreshing reviews, photos, and case studies
• merging overlapping pages that dilute each other
• consolidating cannibalizing pages into stronger ones
• redirecting dead or moved pages
• improving low-converting pages with better CTAs and proof
• noindexing pages that are useful to users but not search assets
• removing pages with no demand, no proof, and no value
• auditing indexation, internal links, and schema accuracy
• monitoring performance by page type so decisions are based on data

Prune or merge pages that: get no impressions; do not convert over a meaningful test period; overlap and weaken a stronger page; cannibalize service or location pages; have no local proof; target areas the business no longer serves; attract irrelevant or unprofitable traffic; create doorway page patterns; or are no longer accurate.

Pruning is not failure. It is how you keep the local content system clean. A content audit should identify thin, duplicate, cannibalizing, or unsupported local pages before they accumulate long enough to become a structural problem.

Use this matrix to assign a job to every page. If a page does not fit a job, it needs to be redesigned or removed. If a local page has no job, it has no reason to exist.

Most local content fails not because of strategy or architecture, but because there is no proof to put in the pages. Do not scale local pages before scaling local proof.

A proof inventory is a structured collection of every evidence asset the business has. Building it before creating pages ensures that every page published has something real to say.

The inventory should include:

• reviews and their themes
• GBP review content
• customer testimonials by service and location
• photos organized by branch, service type, project, and date
• case studies with location, scope, outcome, and ideally visual documentation
• project or job records
• staff and team information
• practitioner credentials and bios where relevant
• branch details including history, access, parking, and local landmarks
• service history by geography
• local awards and certifications
• local partnerships and community involvement
• local media mentions
• real customer questions and objections
• local regulations or permit requirements the business navigates
• pricing factors specific to local markets
• service area coverage with actual response times
• operational capacity

Organize this as a database with fields for: proof asset type; location or service it relates to; source; the page it should appear on; status; and any notes on how to use it.

Proof feeds service pages, location pages, city pages, service area pages, FAQ sections, and conversion blocks. It is what makes the difference between a page that describes a business and a page that proves one.

GBP categories and services should align with website content. When they do not, the business sends mixed entity signals: the GBP says one thing about what the business is, and the website proves a different or weaker version of it.

The alignment check: the primary GBP category should have a matching, strong service or location page on the website. Secondary GBP categories should have supporting pages where they represent commercially important services. GBP services should match the service architecture on the website.

Reviews that mention specific services should feed proof into the corresponding service pages. Location pages should reflect the services listed in the GBP for that branch. The GBP URL should point to the correct location or service page, not the homepage.

UTM parameters on the GBP URL should separate GBP traffic in GA4.

GBP categories and services should align with website service pages because the GBP is often the first thing a buyer sees. GBP can show what the business is. Website content should prove it.

The alignment check goes both directions. A business with a strong emergency plumbing page that never mentions emergency plumbing in GBP is leaving category signal on the table.

A business with emergency plumbing listed as its primary GBP category and no emergency plumbing page on the website is making a claim the site cannot support.

Internal linking is how pages in a local content system connect to each other and how authority and intent flow from supporting pages toward money pages.

Service pages to location pages. When a service is available at specific branches, service pages should link to those location pages and identify which locations offer the service. "Available at our Austin, Round Rock, and Cedar Park locations" with links to each.

Location pages to service pages. Each location page should link to the services available at that branch, not just to the top-level services page.

City pages to service pages. A city page for Dallas should link to the specific services available there, creating a clear path from geographic demand to service conversion.

Service area pages to city and service pages. Service area pages with sub-markets should link to relevant city pages and service pages so buyers in different parts of the territory can find the most relevant content.

Supporting content to money pages. Cost guides, FAQ pages, project galleries, and comparison pages should link to the service and location pages they support.

A buyer reading about roof replacement costs in Dallas should be one click from the roof repair service page and one click from the nearest location page.

Nearby location links. For multi-location businesses, location pages should link to nearby locations where that helps buyers who may be looking for a convenient branch.

Internal links should help users choose the right service, location, or next step. If they only exist for anchor text, they are weak. The test is whether a buyer following the link would find it useful. If not, the link is for Google, not for the buyer, and its value is limited.

Geographic expansion is where local content strategy most often breaks. A business grows into new cities, the marketing team creates pages for those cities, and six months later the site has a hundred thin pages earning almost no impressions because the proof was never there.

Do not scale geography faster than proof.

The expansion sequence that prevents this:

First, validate that search demand exists for the service in the new market. A city with no meaningful search volume for the target service does not need a city page. Second, review SERP difficulty in that market.

A highly competitive local pack dominated by established businesses with hundreds of reviews may require a different approach than a city where competition is weaker. Third, confirm the business actually serves the market with real operational capacity.

Fourth, check whether the economics work, whether the leads from this area are profitable given travel time, service complexity, and average job value. Fifth, collect proof or establish a minimum viable proof threshold before the page goes live.

Sixth, build a small first batch of pages rather than the entire geography. Seventh, internally link from existing service, location, and area pages to the new content. Eighth, track indexation, impressions, clicks, and qualified leads over a meaningful test period.

Ninth, improve the pages that earn impressions and clicks but are not yet converting. Tenth, merge, noindex, or remove pages that earn nothing. Eleventh, scale into additional markets only after the first batch proves value.

The first batch of local pages is a test. Do not turn a test into 200 pages until the data earns it.

This sequence applies whether the expansion is a service area business adding coverage cities, a retail chain adding location pages, or a franchise adding franchisee locations. The question is always the same: does the proof exist to support the page before the page goes live?

Pruning is not failure. It is how you keep the local content system clean. A bloated local content system can look productive while making the site weaker.

Local content architecture differs by business model. The same seven layers apply, but the weight and sequencing change.

Storefront Businesses

Priorities: location page with full branch proof; core product and service pages; directions, parking, and access information; store-specific reviews; local FAQs about hours, stock, and appointment availability; and offers or events where genuinely useful.

The location page is the primary SEO asset. Supporting content and local blog posts are secondary. Watch out for using a generic store page that could represent any location in the chain, and for overinvesting in blog content before the location page is strong.

Service Area Businesses

Priorities: service pages; service area pages for real coverage; city pages only where demand and proof exist; response time and coverage proof integrated into pages; project examples with location specificity; local case studies; quote and call CTAs with tracked phone numbers; and lead quality tracking by area.

Watch out for fake geography, wide service area claims that produce low-quality leads, and city pages for areas the business cannot profitably serve.

Multi-Location Businesses

Priorities: location pages with branch-specific proof; scalable page templates with localized evidence; a working location finder with static crawlable links; regional hub pages where location clusters exist; service-location architecture connecting services to the branches that offer them; duplicate and cannibalization controls; and content governance workflows that ensure proof collection happens at the branch level.

Watch out for duplicate location pages, proof collection gaps, and no branch-level reporting to surface underperforming locations.

Franchises

Priorities: brand-controlled page templates that franchisees cannot damage; franchisee-contributed local proof: photos, reviews, staff details; review integration into location pages; approval workflows for local content additions; local offers and events where compliant with brand standards; and branch-level page update cadences.

Watch out for franchisees creating off-brand content or unauthorized pages, corporate templates with no local evidence, and slow approval workflows that leave location pages stale.

Professional Services

Priorities: service or practice area pages; location pages with practitioner availability; real practitioner pages where the practitioner is a primary reason buyers choose the firm; consultation and appointment pages with clear CTAs; local process or regulation content that buyers need to make decisions; and trust proof: credentials, case results where compliant, testimonials.

Watch out for compliance restrictions that limit what can be said in reviews or case studies, unsupported claims about outcomes, and practitioner and location page cannibalization when both target the same queries.

Build the pages closest to revenue before publishing supporting content.

Critical, fix immediately. Missing core service pages for primary service offerings. Missing location pages for real GBP-verified branches. GBPs that point to the homepage when a specific location page should exist. No tracking on calls, forms, or bookings.

Thin pages targeting the business's most commercially important services or locations. Cannibalizing pages targeting the same intent with no differentiation.

High impact, invest here. Improving existing service pages with better proof, CTAs, and internal links. Improving existing location pages with branch-specific content. Building justified city pages for validated demand. Building justified service area pages for real coverage.

Adding local proof to pages that rank but underconvert. Improving internal linking from supporting content to money pages. Refreshing CTAs and conversion blocks on pages that get traffic but few leads.

Supporting, build after money pages are strong. Cost and pricing guides. FAQs organized by service or location. Case studies and project pages. Comparison and alternatives pages. Seasonal service guides. Local regulation and permit content.

Local SEO statistics can support content prioritization, but first-party performance data should decide what gets scaled.

Low priority, avoid by default. Generic local blog posts without a clear buyer intent. Thin neighborhood pages without demand or proof. "Near me" pages, which serve proximity intent that search behavior already handles through location detection. City pages without proof.

Event posts with no business or buyer relevance. Content targeting areas the business cannot serve.

Local content reporting should measure impressions, clicks, conversions, leads, and pruning decisions by page type, not just in aggregate. A report that shows total organic sessions across all local pages hides which page types are contributing and which are not.

Service pages. Track rankings for primary commercial terms, Google Search Console impressions and clicks, calls and forms and bookings attributed to these pages, conversion rate, assisted conversions, and revenue where CRM data allows it.

Location pages. Track GBP UTM sessions separately from organic sessions, calls tied to location-level tracking numbers, form or booking completions, direction requests where measurable, and review interaction and growth at the branch level.

City pages. Track indexation status first, then impressions and clicks, then qualified leads and lead quality. City pages that are indexed but earn no impressions after a meaningful test period are candidates for pruning.

City pages that earn impressions and clicks but produce no leads need conversion improvement before scaling.

Service area pages. Track impressions and clicks by area, call and form volume with area attribution where possible, lead quality by area, conversion rate, and whether the leads produced are profitable given operational costs.

Supporting content. Track internal clicks to money pages, assisted conversions, links earned, ranking support for service and location pages, and any direct sales enablement usage. Supporting content that generates direct leads is a bonus.

Supporting content that earns no internal clicks, no links, and has no measurable influence on conversions is waste.

Local content ROI should be judged by qualified leads and revenue, not page count. Page count is an input. Revenue is the output. The ratio between them is what the strategy should be optimizing.

Tools help organize the system. They do not decide whether a page deserves to exist.

Keyword and SERP research. Ahrefs and Semrush for keyword volume, SERP composition, and competitor content gaps. Google Search Console for real query data from the business's own pages. Google Keyword Planner for search volume baselines.

AlsoAsked and People Also Ask for question-based content opportunities. Manual SERP review to understand what Google currently ranks for target queries and what format it rewards.

Content planning. Airtable and Google Sheets for content inventories, proof databases, and the Local SEO Content Strategy Matrix. Notion, Trello, or Asana for workflow management. Screaming Frog and Sitebulb for crawl-based content audits.

Local proof collection. GBP review exports for identifying review themes by location and service. CRM data for project history, customer geography, and service records. Customer service logs for FAQ content. Photo libraries organized by branch, project type, and date.

Branch manager or franchisee submission workflows for local proof assets.

Content performance. Google Search Console for impressions, clicks, and query data by page. GA4 for session and conversion data with UTM-based source segmentation. Looker Studio for custom reporting dashboards. CallRail or WhatConverts for call attribution by page and location.

CRM for lead quality and revenue attribution. Local rank tracking tools for geo-grid visibility by branch.

Content QA. Screaming Frog and Sitebulb for identifying thin pages, broken internal links, duplicate titles, and indexation issues. Google Rich Results Test and Schema Markup Validator for structured data accuracy. Duplication checks for detecting city-name swap patterns in location or city page content.

• Publishing city pages with no proof. A city page that names a city but offers no evidence the business works there is not a local page. It is a keyword placeholder.
• Writing local blog posts before fixing service and location pages. Blog content compounds on a strong foundation. It cannot substitute for one.
• Using city-name swap templates. Pages that share identical copy with only the city name changed are not local content. They are a duplication pattern that serves neither users nor search engines.
• Creating pages for areas the business cannot serve. Pages that generate calls the business cannot handle, or from markets too far away to serve profitably, are a cost disguised as a content asset.
• Building pages for every suburb without demand. Geographic granularity should be driven by search data, not by the desire for comprehensive-looking coverage.
• Treating word count as local relevance. A 3,000-word page about a city is not locally relevant because of its length. It is locally relevant because of its proof.
• Ignoring reviews, photos, projects, and proof. The absence of real local evidence is what makes most local pages useless, not the absence of more words.
• Publishing duplicate location pages. Two location pages for the same city with different addresses but the same copy are not two distinct pages. They are a problem.
• Letting blog traffic hide money-page weakness. A site that gets strong organic traffic from informational blog posts but weak traffic and leads from service pages has the wrong priorities.
• Creating content with no conversion path. A page with no visible phone number, no form, no booking option, and no CTA is a dead end regardless of its ranking.
• Ignoring cannibalization. Two pages targeting the same commercial intent compete with each other and divide signal. One of them needs to be merged into the other or redirected.
• Ignoring internal links. Pages that are not linked from other pages in the site do not receive internal authority and are harder to discover. Every published page needs an internal link role.
• Not aligning GBP categories and services with website pages. GBP and the website should tell the same story about what the business is and does.
• Never pruning stale or useless local pages. Content that does not contribute to visibility, trust, or conversion should be merged, redirected, or removed. Leaving it in place penalizes the pages that do work.
• Creating "near me" pages. Search engines handle proximity through location signals and user context. A dedicated page with "near me" in the title is not a strategy. It is a misunderstanding of how local search works.
• Using AI content to scale weak local proof. AI-generated content that describes a service or location without real proof behind it is not local content. It is generic content with a location name in it.
• Ignoring business economics and lead quality. A page that generates leads from areas with low job values, long travel distances, or poor conversion rates is not a good asset even if it ranks.
• Publishing pages no one can maintain. Content that becomes stale, inaccurate, or outdated without any process for refreshing it is a trust and quality risk.
• Creating practitioner or location pages that compete with each other. In healthcare, legal, and professional services, poorly structured practitioner pages can cannibalize location pages. The relationship between them needs to be designed, not assumed.
• Reporting page count as progress. The local content question is not "how much can we publish?" It is "which pages deserve to exist, and what proof do they need to earn that right?"

The output of a local SEO content strategy should not be a giant keyword spreadsheet. It should be a prioritized content roadmap showing which pages to create, which pages to improve, which pages to merge, which pages to remove, and which pages are not worth building yet.

Local SEO content strategy is about decision-making, not publishing velocity. Every page needs a job. Every local claim needs proof. Every important page needs to help the buyer take the next step.

Service and location pages usually come before supporting blog content because they are closer to revenue. City and service area pages need demand, proof, and conversion value before they are worth building.

Supporting content earns its place by supporting money pages, not by being a content treadmill that produces traffic without business results.

Pruning is part of strategy, not a sign of failure. A local content system that never prunes accumulates bloat: pages that consume crawl budget, split internal authority, and confuse Google about what the site is actually about.

Measure content by qualified leads and revenue, not page count. A site with fifty strong, well-proven local pages outperforms a site with five hundred thin, duplicated ones.

The best local SEO content strategy is not the one with the most pages. It is the one where every page has a job, every local claim has proof, and every important page helps the buyer take the next step.

Build what deserves to exist. Improve what has potential. Merge what overlaps. Remove what only adds noise.