Tips for Performing a Content Audit on 3000+ Posts

Performing a content audit on a large number of posts can be overwhelming, but there are effective strategies to streamline the process and make it more manageable. Here are some tips based on industry best practices and expert advice:

1. Utilize SEO Tools for Data Collection

• Connect tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console (GSC) API to Screaming Frog and conduct a full crawl of the blog to gather comprehensive data on all pages.
• Filter the crawl results to include only HTML pages and then input the data into Google Sheets for further analysis.

2. Filter and Categorize Content

• Sort the pages in Google Sheets by clicks and impressions, filtering out pages with 0 clicks and 0 impressions and no backlinks for potential removal
• Identify pages with low clicks but high impressions, and assess whether they have backlinks. These pages can be earmarked for potential optimization or redirection to more relevant content.

3. Optimize or Redirect Low-Performing Content

• For pages with low clicks but high impressions, consider optimization strategies such as adding internal links with consistent anchor text, merging content from multiple pages, or implementing a 301 redirect to a more relevant page.

4. Focus on High-Performing Content

• Recognize that a significant portion of the performance may be centralized around a smaller subset of pages, potentially around 200 out of the 3000+ posts.

5. Consider Bing and Analytics

• While Bing may not be a significant source of relevant traffic, it's advisable to check analytics to assess the impact on the site's performance.

Addressing the Impact of the Helpful Content Update (HCU)

It's important to consider the impact of Google's Helpful Content Update (HCU) on content performance. The HCU has led to significant changes in rankings and traffic levels, particularly affecting websites with low-quality, unhelpful, or poor user experience content The update emphasizes the importance of creating valuable and user-centric content to maintain or improve search result rankings .