What are the common content audit mistakes to avoid when using Screaming Frog?

1 Not setting up your crawl configuration

Before you start crawling your website with Screaming Frog, you need to make sure you have the right settings for your content audit goals. For example, you might want to exclude certain URLs, adjust the speed and memory usage, enable or disable JavaScript rendering, and choose the data you want to extract. If you don't set up your crawl configuration correctly, you might miss some important information, crawl irrelevant pages, or overload your server.

2 Not analyzing your crawl data

Once you have crawled your website with Screaming Frog, you need to analyze the data you have collected. This includes checking for issues such as broken links, duplicate content, missing or poorly written meta tags, low word count, slow loading speed, and more. You can use the filters, tabs, and reports in Screaming Frog to identify and prioritize these issues and plan your content optimization strategy. If you don't analyze your crawl data, you might overlook some critical problems or waste time on minor ones.

3 Not using custom extraction and integration

Screaming Frog can extract and integrate a lot of data from your website, but sometimes you might need more specific or customized information. For example, you might want to extract data from custom fields, schema markup, social media tags, or other elements that are not included in the default settings. You can use the custom extraction feature in Screaming Frog to do this, using XPath, CSS Path, or regex. You can also integrate Screaming Frog with other tools, such as Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Majestic, to get more insights into your traffic, rankings, and backlinks. If you don't use custom extraction and integration, you might miss some valuable data that could help you improve your content.

4 Not updating your content audit regularly

A content audit is not a one-time project, but a continuous process. Your website's content and performance can change over time, due to new pages, updates, errors, or external factors. Therefore, you need to update your content audit regularly to keep track of these changes and make sure your website is still optimized. You can use Screaming Frog to schedule and automate your crawls, compare different crawls, and export and share your data. If you don't update your content audit regularly, you might lose your competitive edge or harm your SEO.

5 Not taking action on your content audit findings

The final and most important step of a content audit is to take action on your findings. This means implementing the changes and improvements that you have identified from your crawl and analysis. For example, you might need to fix or redirect broken links, rewrite or consolidate duplicate content, optimize or add meta tags, increase or reduce word count, improve loading speed, and more. You can use Screaming Frog to monitor and measure the impact of these changes on your website's performance and SEO. If you don't take action on your content audit findings, you might waste your time and resources and miss out on potential opportunities.