How to do an SEO content audit

A content audit is a strategic process that provides a clear snapshot of your website’s content health and its alignment with SEO best practices. By systematically reviewing your content, you can uncover hidden opportunities, eliminate inefficiencies, and sharpen your overall content strategy. For marketing leaders, this process is crucial in staying competitive and maximizing the return on content investments.

What is a content audit?

A content audit is a methodical evaluation of your digital content—from blog posts and landing pages to multimedia assets. It involves collecting, categorizing, and analyzing every piece of content to determine its effectiveness in driving organic traffic, meeting user needs, and supporting your business goals. This process is essential for marketing leaders looking to stay competitive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

For example, a B2B software company might audit their blog posts, case studies, whitepapers, and product pages to ensure they’re targeting the right keywords and addressing their audience’s pain points effectively.

Why conduct a content audit?

Conducting a content audit offers several benefits:

Improved SEO: By removing low-value or duplicate content and optimizing key pieces, your site becomes more search-engine friendly. This helps prevent issues such as duplicate content penalties and boosts overall site authority. For instance, a company might discover that consolidating several similar blog posts into one comprehensive guide improves their ranking for a target keyword.
Enhanced user engagement: An audit helps you identify which content resonates best with your audience. This information is critical for reallocating resources to high-performing content and addressing user intent more effectively. A retail brand might find that their how-to videos generate more engagement than text-based guides, informing future content creation decisions.
Optimized resource allocation: Instead of creating new content from scratch, an audit allows you to repurpose high-performing material, ensuring that your efforts are cost-effective. A popular blog post could be transformed into an infographic or a webinar, extending its reach across different formats.
Data-driven strategy refinement: Concrete metrics and performance data guide your next steps, enabling you to fine-tune your content marketing strategy in line with your business objectives. This might involve shifting focus to topics that generate more leads or adjusting content length based on engagement metrics.

Key metrics to track

When auditing your content, focus on these key performance indicators:

Organic search traffic: Measured via tools like Google Analytics, this metric helps you understand the overall reach of your content. Look for patterns in traffic fluctuations and correlate them with content updates or algorithm changes.
Keyword rankings: Identify SEO gaps using tools such as Ahrefs or SEMrush, which highlight where your content stands for targeted keywords. Pay attention to keywords where you’re ranking just outside the top positions, as these present immediate optimization opportunities.
Engagement metrics: Metrics like time on page and click-through rates indicate how users interact with your content. A high bounce rate on a key landing page, for example, might signal a mismatch between user intent and content delivery.
Backlinks and authority: Monitoring these through Screaming Frog or similar SEO tools helps gauge the credibility of your content. Identify which pieces attract the most high-quality backlinks to inform your link-building strategy.

Step-by-step content audit process

1. Define your objectives

Before diving into the audit, clarify what you want to achieve. Whether your goal is to increase organic traffic by 30% in six months or improve user engagement across key product pages, having a clear objective will guide your audit process. For example, a SaaS company might focus on improving conversion rates from blog posts to free trial sign-ups.

2. Create an inventory

Gather every piece of content on your website. A comprehensive content inventory should include page titles, URLs, publication dates, word counts, and performance metrics. Consider using a website content inventory template to organize your data efficiently. For large sites, tools like Screaming Frog can automate much of this process.

3. Categorize your content

Segment your content into logical groups based on type, performance, and strategic goals. This could involve grouping by blog posts, product pages, landing pages, and multimedia assets. Categorization helps in identifying content that requires updates versus content that should be repurposed or removed. For instance, you might group all your “how-to” articles together to assess their collective performance against your “thought leadership” pieces.

4. Analyze performance

Assess how each piece of content performs against your established metrics. Look for trends such as:

Pages with high engagement versus those with declining traffic.
Content gaps where new topics could be introduced, utilizing a content gap analysis approach.
Outdated content that requires refreshing to remain relevant and competitive.

For example, you might discover that your industry trend reports consistently outperform other content types, suggesting an opportunity to produce more of this high-value content.

5. Develop an action plan

Based on your analysis, determine specific next steps:

Keep: High-performing content that meets current SEO standards.
Update: Content that remains valuable but needs SEO enhancements or updated information. This might include refreshing statistics or expanding on topics to match current search intent.
Remove: Underperforming or redundant content that may be dragging down your overall site performance. Always consider redirecting removed pages to relevant alternatives to preserve link equity.
Repurpose: Adapt content into different formats (e.g., turning a popular blog post into an infographic or video). This strategy can help you reach new audience segments and reinforce key messages across multiple channels.

Tools for success

To simplify and enhance your content audit process, consider leveraging these tools:

SEO and analytics tools: Platforms such as Ahrefs and SEMrush give you in-depth data to inform your analysis. These tools can provide keyword rankings, backlink profiles, and competitor insights to guide your content strategy.
Content organization solutions: Use Google Sheets to establish a collaborative and flexible content inventory. For keyword insights, try our free keyword grouping tool to cluster keywords effectively, helping you identify thematic content opportunities.
AI-driven content writing: Integrate your updated strategy with creative tools like our free AI SEO writer to generate content that aligns with your refreshed objectives. This can be particularly useful for quickly producing content to fill identified gaps.
Performance tracking: Track your ROI with tools like the SEO ROI calculator, which helps quantify the impact of your strategic changes. This can be invaluable in demonstrating the value of content marketing efforts to stakeholders.

By taking a systematic approach to your content audit, you not only untangle technical SEO issues but also uncover valuable insights that can dramatically enhance your overall content strategy. Remember, a content audit is not a one-time event but an ongoing process that should be integrated into your regular marketing activities to ensure continued relevance and performance.

TL;DR

A content audit is a targeted evaluation of your website’s content that identifies strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for SEO and user engagement improvements. Follow these steps—define objectives, create a content inventory, categorize content, analyze performance, and develop an action plan—and leverage tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and our proprietary ContentGecko platform to transform your content strategy and drive sustainable organic growth. Regular audits ensure your content remains aligned with search trends, user needs, and business goals, making them an essential practice for marketing leaders aiming to maximize their digital presence.