A content audit is a systematic process of evaluating and improving the quality, relevance, and performance of your website's content. It can help you identify gaps, opportunities, and issues in your content strategy, as well as align your content with your goals and audience needs. In this article, you'll learn how to conduct a content audit in six steps.
Before you start auditing your content, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with it. Do you want to increase traffic, conversions, engagement, or authority? Do you want to update, optimize, or delete outdated or underperforming content? Do you want to align your content with your brand voice, style, and tone? Write down your specific and measurable objectives and use them as a guide for your audit.
Before diving into a content audit, it's critical we're clear about what we want to accomplish. Otherwise, we're just blindly sorting through content I'd recommend we decide on 3-5 specific goals to drive this project. For example, we could aim to: Increase website traffic > Cut webpage loading times in half. > Identify and fill content gaps. > Eliminate redundant, or outdated content. > Optimize on-page SEO elements. >Align consistent branding. The key is to make the goals quantifiable so we can accurately track progress. Once we've nailed down the objectives, we can use them as a north star to guide our audit. They'll help us laser in on actionable insights instead of getting overwhelmed by all the content.
Like most of the things in your life, start by asking yourself, what's the bullseye for your content? Looking to ramp up traffic, boost engagement, or skyrocket conversions? Maybe you’re on a mission to clean house – out with the outdated, in with the optimized. Objectives should shape your approach, dictate your focus, and define what success looks like. Make them specific, make them measurable. With clear targets in sight, your content audit transforms from a wandering exploration into a targeted mission.
A content audit is the process of analyzing your content marketing assets and strategy. Typically it is done on a quarterly basis. During a content audit, you should measure the performance of your content by looking at traffic, conversions, and engagement. Bounce rate, click-through rate, and session duration are important for content that lives on your website in particular. Pay attention to the topics and formats that generate the most results for your business. This is useful data that can tell you what to focus on. Additionally, you should analyze competitors and discover what gaps and opportunities are available to improve your content strategy.
The next step is to create a comprehensive list of all the content assets on your website, such as blog posts, landing pages, product descriptions, ebooks, videos, etc. You can use tools like Screaming Frog, Google Analytics, or a spreadsheet to crawl and collect your content URLs, titles, metadata, word count, format, and other relevant information. This will help you get a bird's eye view of your content quantity, variety, and structure.
If I were to do it in your place, I'll put together a big spreadsheet of all our website content - pages, posts, images, etc. - so I have everything in one place. I'll make notes on important details like URL, topic, and publication date. Next, I'll pull up our Google Analytics and SEO tools to analyze performance metrics. This will show me what content is resonating and what needs work. I'll also check for any technical problems like broken links or speed issues. Once I've gathered all this info, I can share my analysis and recommendations. The audit will give us a crystal clear view of where our content stands today and how to improve it going forward. You can follow this path, as it's the most direct it can ever be!
Once you have your content inventory, you can start analyzing its quality, relevance, and performance. Several criteria and metrics can be used to evaluate content, such as accuracy, relevance, readability, optimization, and performance. Content accuracy should be factual, up-to-date, and error-free. Content relevance should align with the audience's needs, interests, and pain points. Readability should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. Optimization should follow SEO best practices like keywords, headings, links, etc. Performance should achieve objectives like traffic, conversions, and engagement. Tools like Google Analytics or SEMrush can measure and track your content performance to identify what works and what doesn't.
As the inventory part gets done, you start deeply analysing every damn word on your website. See if the writing is compelling, keywords are used well, and it aligns with your brand voice. Flag anything that's outdated or irrelevant for removal. Check all links, images, and videos to make sure they work properly and load fast—you've fixed any technical issues you find. You should use tools to analyze readability, SEO optimization, and mobile experience. And look at traffic metrics to see what content performs best too. Lastly, identify any gaps where you need fresh content...... I know it sounds like a lot, but just take it step-by-step.
After your analysis, you should categorize your content into four groups. Content that meets objectives and satisfies the audience should be kept as-is, while content with potential should be updated with new information, SEO optimization, or more engaging content. Outdated, irrelevant, or low-performing content should be deleted or redirected to a more relevant page. Finally, missing content can be created by filling gaps in the content strategy, addressing new topics, or targeting new keywords.
The most effective way to categorize content after an audit is to group it into four buckets: Keep - This is content aligned with goals and resonating with users. No changes needed. Improve - Content with potential but needs better optimization, writing, formatting, etc. Delete - Outdated, irrelevant or poorly performing content that should be removed. Create - Gaps where new content is needed around target topics or keywords. This clear segmentation allows for decisive next steps: + Keep as-is the content that's already working well + Enhance good content through SEO optimizations, better formatting, etc. + Remove any content that is no longer useful to readers. + Produce new content around high-priority topics and keywords.
After categorizing your content, you need to prioritize your actions and create a plan for implementing them. You can use a simple matrix to rank your content by its impact and effort. For example, you can prioritize the content that has a high impact and low effort, such as updating a popular blog post with new data, over the content that has a low impact and high effort, such as creating a new ebook from scratch. You can also assign deadlines, responsibilities, and resources for each action.
Honestly, prioritizing feels overwhelming but just stick to the high-impact fixes first. Tackle the critical issues, create content people want, then work on refining the rest. If I were in your place... I'd start with the truly broken stuff - any errors or technical problems. Then I'd delete or update the really outdated or irrelevant content cluttering up the site. My next priority would be creating fresh content around topics people are actively searching for - kind of like putting out new inventory. For the decent but not great content, I'd give it some polish by improving SEO, adding visuals, tightening up the messaging. At last, my lower priority would be reworking older, lower-traffic content. This sums up everything.
The final step is to execute your plan and monitor the results of your content audit. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Ahrefs to track the changes in your content performance, such as traffic, conversions, engagement, etc. You can also use tools like Google Docs, Trello, or Asana to manage your content workflow and collaborate with your team. You should review your content audit regularly and make adjustments as needed.
A content audit should be done at least, every month for your business. It helps you assess: 1. What's resonating and working 2. What's not resonating or working 3. How you can refine your content 4. And what you can test next time around 5. What your core objectives are for your content Content isn't a matter of volume. It should ALWAYS be geared towards a goal or an objective. That could be to build trust, credibility, inviting your audience to take action.