Content Audit: Why and How to Do It

A content audit is often the neglected hero of digital marketing. While many marketers eagerly pump out new content, few remember to look back at what’s already published. Auditing your content is essential because it lets you evaluate the performance of each piece, ensuring your strategy is optimized for success. In fact, conducting regular audits is one of the most effective ways to improve your SEO, increase user engagement, and boost conversions.

Auditing your content isn’t just about throwing away outdated posts—it’s about finding opportunities you may have missed, optimizing poorly performing pages, and strategically aligning your content with your ongoing marketing goals.

In this article, we’ll dive into why content audits are vital for a healthy website and how to perform an effective one, ensuring you drive better performance from your existing content.

Why a Content Audit is Critical

1. Improves SEO Performance

Search Engine Optimization strategies continuously evolve. Some pages that once ranked well may no longer appear as high in Google's SERPs due to dated SEO practices or changes in search algorithms. By auditing old content, you can identify pages that need updating and optimization. This means refreshing your keywords, adding internal links, or even enhancing on-page SEO elements like meta descriptions and alt text.

According to Moz, content audits are a crucial part of maintaining long-term SEO performance. Old, outdated content can drag down your search rankings, while optimized material can outperform even newly created content.

2. Keeps Content Relevant and Up-to-Date

As industries shift and new trends emerge, some content that once brought value to readers becomes obsolete. Auditing ensures that you maintain up-to-date material to meet evolving audience expectations. For example, your 2018 article discussing "2019 marketing trends" may need a heavy revision to stay relevant today.

Conducting a content audit also helps you identify low-hanging fruit. From refreshing outdated statistics to updating linked resources, these relatively small changes can lead to significant upticks in performance.

3. Streamlines Your Content Strategy

Content without a clear purpose wastes time and resources. An audit provides insight into which content is generating results and which content is falling flat. With this information, you can align your future content production with audience demand. HubSpot emphasizes that content audits allow marketers to see what resonates the most with their audience and helps fine-tune future content planning.

Getting Started: How to Perform a Content Audit

Step 1: Set Your Goals

Before diving into your first audit, it’s essential to establish clear goals. Ask yourself: What’s the primary aim of this audit? Are you trying to:

• Improve search engine rankings?
• Boost engagement (e.g., page views, time on page)?
• Identify gaps in topics related to your brand?

By identifying your primary objectives, you'll have more focus on which audit metrics to prioritize.

Step 2: Collect Your Content Assets

The next step is gathering all your content. If your website has hundreds or thousands of pages, you’ll need an efficient way to collect them. Using a tool like Screaming Frog can help crawl your website and compile a list of all existing URLs. You can also manually pull data from Google Analytics or your CMS (Content Management System) to ensure no page is overlooked.

Make sure to collect critical data such as:

• URL
• Page title & meta description
• Date published (and last updated)
• Word count
• Organic traffic over time
• Backlink profile
• Engagement metrics (e.g., bounce rate, average session time)

Tools such as Ahrefs can also help uncover valuable insights about each page’s organic performance and backlink volume, useful data points during your content audit.

Step 3: Evaluate Performance Metrics

Once you have your content inventory in hand, it’s time to evaluate its performance. Google Analytics offers a treasure trove of insights and should be a cornerstone in your content audit workflow. Focus on these metrics:

• Organic Traffic: Identify which pages are getting traffic from search engines and which aren't.
• Engagement Metrics: Look for low page views, short session durations, and high bounce rates, which could be signs that the content needs improvement.
• Conversion Rates: Check how well each page contributes to your overall conversion funnel, whether through lead generation or product purchases.

If a piece gets consistent page views but has a high bounce rate, it might mean the content isn’t resonating, or the design needs improvement. Other high-ranking but low-conversion pages may need better internal linking or more robust CTAs.

Step 4: Categorize Your Content and Take Action

Once the evaluation is complete, sort your content into relevant categories:

• Keep: Content that’s performing well and is up-to-date. This will likely be your top-performing or evergreen material.
• Update/Optimize: These are pages that generate decent traffic but could drive even more if refreshed. Consider adding new keywords, updating stats, or expanding the content to make it more valuable.
• Consolidate: Content that overlaps or competes with another article can benefit from consolidation. Combine related topics into a stronger, more comprehensive piece.
• Remove or Redirect: Certain content may hurt your SEO performance. Dead pages, excessively short posts with no value, or outdated long-form content that's no longer aligned with your business objectives should be removed or redirected.

According to Search Engine Journal, removing or consolidating underperforming content helps improve your crawl budget and focus Google’s attention on quality pages.

Step 5: Update Content for SEO and UX

After categorizing your content, start implementing updates. This involves refreshing outdated material, adding media or internal links, optimizing headline SEO, and improving keyword targeting. Make sure to:

• Refresh headlines and title tags to include updated keywords.
• Ensure readability by enhancing formatting—use headers, lists, and bullet points.
• Add relevant call-to-action (CTA) buttons and internal links to guide visitors to relevant content or landing pages.

For external tips on optimizing SEO post-refresh, Neil Patel provides a detailed guide on how to approach these refresh rules.

Step 6: Measure and Monitor

Your content audit doesn’t end once the necessary content updates go live. Consistent monitoring ensures you’re getting the desired results from your improvements. Check performance metrics for pages that were updated:

• Is there an increase in organic traffic?
• Did engagement time improve?
• Are there improvements in conversions?

Tools like Google Search Console can provide performance updates post-optimization, allowing you to fine-tune underperforming content further.

Conclusion

A content audit is an indispensable tool in every digital marketer’s arsenal. By regularly auditing and optimizing your content, you’ll improve your SEO rankings, boost user engagement, and drive conversions—all while making better use of existing resources. Although it may seem tedious at first, the long-term rewards of a robust content strategy far outweigh the initial effort.

Remember to leverage handy tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog to facilitate the auditing process, and ensure you align your efforts with clear goals whether that's boosting traffic, improving engagement, or increasing conversions.