A Thorough Guide on How to Do a Website Content Audit

 

Picture this: You step into a room filled with every piece of content your website has ever published. 

You sift through pages of content, looking for those pages that truly resonate with your audience. You’ve got clutter and lots of it. 

That’s where a website content audit comes in. 

Despite its benefits, 37% of marketers have never conducted a website content audit — probably because it can feel like an episode of “Hoarders.”

via GIPHY

But a well-executed audit can transform your online presence from good to outstanding.

In this article, I’ll uncover why revisiting and analyzing every page on your site is essential for SEO growth.

• Understanding Website Content Audits
• What Is a Content Audit?
• Why Conduct a Content Audit
• Tools and Resources for Website Content Audits
• Analytics and SEO Tools
• E-E-A-T
• Helpful Content Guidelines
• Spam Rules
• 3 Initial Steps in a Website Content Audit

1. 1. Know Your Goals
   2. Gather and Organize Your Content
   3. Analyze Your Data

• Next Step: Develop a Plan of Action
• Prioritize Your Next Moves
• Repurpose and Optimize Existing Content
• Keeping Your Website Content Fresh and Relevant Moving Forward
• Audit on a Schedule
• Planning for Future Content Creation
• SEO Siloing
• Content Planning
• Final Thoughts
• Quick Solutions
• FAQ: How Do I Perform a Comprehensive Content Audit for SEO?

Understanding Website Content Audits

What Is a Content Audit?

A content audit scrutinizes every piece of content on your website to gauge its performance and relevance. 

This includes blog posts that have been gathering dust, landing pages from yesteryears and everything in between. 

The goal? Get a crystal-clear picture of what works, what doesn’t and how close or far off you are from nailing those SEO and marketing goals.

Why Conduct a Content Audit

It seems like a huge undertaking, and you might be thinking: Why bother? Here are three reasons:

1. Staying relevant. What worked two years ago may not cut it today. Information changes, which means publishers need to evergreen their content so that it’s up to date. 

Trends change, so content strategies need to keep up with the times, too — and search engine algorithms. 

Case in point: Google’s March 2024 updates targeting unhelpful and AI-generated content. Many websites were de-indexed and many more were badly hurt. 

Every website publisher had to take a hard look at their content strategy.

2. Streamlining content. We’ve all been there: drowning under tons of content without knowing what still holds value. 

A thorough audit helps declutter this mess by identifying winners worth doubling down on and losers ready for retirement (or revamp).

3. Driving organic traffic. There’s been more than one study published over the years that shows only a small percentage of pages on a site drive the majority of traffic. 

An Ahrefs study revealed that 96.55% of all pages in their index got zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% got between one and 10 monthly visits.

Conducting audits can lead to major clean-ups, resulting in boosted user satisfaction and more organic traffic.

The bottom line? Embrace the chaos because at the end of the journey awaits more helpful content and better SEO outcomes.

Tools and Resources for Website Content Audits

It’s not possible to do an efficient and well-informed website content audit without the help of good analytics tools and guidelines for how to create quality content. 

Analytics and SEO Tools

Google Analytics

Google Analytics offers a deep dive into your website visitors journeys no matter where they came from. It’s an essential tool in any website content audit because it offers detailed insights into the metrics you are tracking. 

Google Search Console

While Google Analytics gives data on a broad range of channels, Search Console is more focused on the performance of your website in Google Search and is critical in gaining SEO insights.

Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog is a great tool in any content audit. As a site crawler, it pulls all the URLs on a site and offers a ton of valuable SEO information on each URL, which you can slice and dice to uncover opportunities for better content.

SEOToolSet

I created the first tool inside the SEOToolSet back in the 90s, and we have been evolving the software ever since. 

Today, the SEOToolSet brings together a suite of SEO tools you can use in a content audit, including the ability to:

• Track your search engine rankings from search engine markets worldwide.  
• Compare your webpages to the top-ranked competitors and SEO best practices.
• Proactively uncover issues that could impede search engine indexing.
• Check critical page elements and easily search across your website to save time making site edits.
• Sort data tables by any column, paginated from 10 to 100 rows per page, and print or export in bulk to CSV format for use in spreadsheets.

 

Any good content audit will bring together a variety of tools to analyze the data and develop a plan of action. The magic happens when they work together.

E-E-A-T

Experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust (E-E-A-T) are the pillars of quality, according to Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines. Understand these factors, so that you can create content and websites that uphold quality and build trust with visitors.

Helpful Content Guidelines

Google offers more guidance on how to create helpful, people-first content. Running through their list of questions offers food for thought when evaluating the content you create.

Spam Rules

Bad content continues to be the bane of Google’s existence. 

In March 2024, Google updated its spam policies to focus on AI-generated content that offers little to no value. 

To learn more about the updated spam policies and for help using AI the right way, see my beginner’s guide to creating AI content. 

3 Initial Steps in a Website Content Audit

1. Know Your Goals

Zig Ziglar once said if you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time. Setting a clear goal is the first step in any successful content audit. 

Here are some general goals you might be striving for:

• Increased website traffic: More traffic from search and social.
• Better engagement: Keeping people on the page and on your site for more time. 
• Stronger brand: Ditching outdated info that makes you cringe and better uphold your brand as a thought leader. 
• Increased conversions: Moving visitors to the next step in the customer journey.

In truth, you will likely want to achieve all these goals, and you will achieve them when you do a content audit right. 

Keep in mind though that conversions may be more of a focus for some of the sales-type landing pages, whereas SEO may be more important for a subset of your webpages like your blog or service pages.

Depending on your goal, you will deploy different methods for improving the content. 

If it’s conversions, you’d sink resources into conversion optimization. If SEO, you’d spend more effort on search optimization. 

2. Gather and Organize Your Content

Gather every piece of content — from blog posts in years past talking about trends to other musings that you wouldn’t dare publish today. 

Here are a few next steps:

• Pull together a list of all URLs on the site using Screaming Frog or similar tools.
• Categorize the types of content by type first — think blogs versus landing pages versus FAQs — and then by topic (e.g., SEO tips versus social media hacks).
• Dive deeper by tagging which stage of the buyer journey each piece caters to — Awareness? Consideration? Decision? This may help you prioritize efforts further. 
• Mark what needs updating or axing altogether (after you 301 redirect it, of course) based on performance metrics from SEO tools.

3. Analyze Your Data

Once you are clear on your goals for a page, you can pick metrics that directly relate to the goal.

Then you’re going to explore what the metrics might be telling you about the content:  

• Traffic sources: Where is the majority of traffic coming from and why?
• Organic traffic: How much organic traffic is the page getting? Why or why not? How is its visibility in the search results?
• Bounce rate: Why did they leave?
• Engagement: What is it about this page that makes people stay longer? What is it about this blog article that makes people want to comment?
• Conversions: What made them take the next step? Or why aren’t they?
• Links: Who is linking to this page? Why is it so popular, or not popular at all (lack of promotion)?

Related: How do I analyze content performance metrics to identify improvement opportunities?

Next Step: Develop a Plan of Action

You’ve gone through the initial steps and surfaced a ton of data and hypotheses about the performance of your webpages. Now what? Prioritize. 

Prioritize Your Next Moves

When we do SEO audits here at Bruce Clay, we always prioritize our recommendations from things that will move the needle the most, first. 

Remember that not all content will hold the same weight. Starting with the top performers will always be a good first step. 

Not everything needs fixing at once (and trying to do so is a recipe for burnout). Start with what will give you quick wins, or has been bothering users most according to feedback or metrics like bounce rates and page views.

If meta descriptions are missing across several high-performing pages, that’s low-hanging fruit ripe for picking. 

Or maybe you’ve noticed some duplicate content issues. Time to consolidate or rewrite so every piece is original.

Some tips:

1. First off, categorize your audit discoveries by potential impact and effort required. High-impact, low-effort fixes? Those are your sweet spots, so tackle them first.
2. Next up, think long-term but act short-term. Which actions can you take now for immediate results while also setting the stage for future wins?
3. Last but not least, set clear deadlines and assign responsibility. Accountability is key here. A task without a deadline is just wishful thinking.

Repurpose and Optimize Existing Content

A big part of updating your old content will be to repurpose and optimize old webpages. 

A blog article from two years ago with solid advice just needs a little facelift to shine again. And why create something new when you can polish up the old?

Once you’ve updated the content itself, you’ll want to think about optimizing the content and the webpage as a whole. 

One of the primary things we want to see from a content audit is improved organic search traffic. Here are some things you’ll want to consider as you audit your content:

• On-page SEO: There are endless ways to improve a webpage. To figure out what to do, you have to balance SEO best practices (non-negotiable things) with what’s likely required for the page based on the keywords you are targeting and competitive analysis to help refine your focus. Check out our SEO checklist for more.
• Duplicate content: Got repeat offenders? Addressing duplicate content is one of those things you can and should prioritize.
• User experience: Your site’s performance can impact user experience and rankings. Dig deeper into the fixes that can impact this including site speed, mobile friendliness and Google’s Core Web Vitals. 
• Content architecture: Is the site’s content organized for SEO success and user experience? Dive into SEO siloing to get this right.

• Broken links: Fix those broken links, including implementing 301s and custom 404 pages.
• Meta data: If you think meta data is small potatoes these days, think again. They still serve a function and you can learn more about them by checking out these articles: What Are Meta Tags? and Do Meta Descriptions Matter Anymore? 

Your existing content has potential; don’t let it go to waste. By carefully adjusting and enhancing your content, you’re bound to witness significant boosts in both visitors and interactions. 

Related: How do I prioritize my content audit findings to maximize ROI without feeling overwhelmed?

Keeping Your Website Content Fresh and Relevant Moving Forward

A website content audit will be an ongoing project. And it’s never really “done.”

People often ask how much effort they should put into keeping their older content fresh. The answer is it depends on things like the type of topic and keyword (is it a topic that deserves freshness or is it inherently evergreen?). 

In general, though, I recommend spending 50% of the time updating old content and 50% of the time creating new, quality content. 

(See my article on optimizing old content vs. creating new content for more.)

Audit on a Schedule

To ensure you’re never letting things slip through the cracks and start piling up again, here are some things to consider:

• Audit regularly: Regularly visit each page of your site. Consider whether the content remains relevant and accurate.
• Create an action plan: Decide whether each piece should be kept as is, optimized with updates or SEO tactics, removed completely, repurposed into another format (video maybe?) or combined with other posts to create something great.
• Schedule updates: Got pages tied to dates or events? Set reminders to refresh them so they’re never out of step with reality.
• Rinse and repeat: This isn’t a one-and-done deal. Your website evolves; so should your content. Do this audit regularly, and watch your site stay relevant. 

 

Related: How do I maintain a consistent content audit schedule to stay ahead of trends?

Planning for Future Content Creation

When you’re not strategic in the content you can create, it can quickly become irrelevant. Staying ahead involves designing a forward-looking plan to help ensure relevance for longer. 

SEO Siloing

SEO siloing offers a framework for the content you can create now and in the future. That way, you’re not just throwing darts in the dark.

By focusing on the most relevant keywords for your business, and methodically crafting webpages that align with the customer journey, you will have a roadmap to spark ideas for current and future content. 

Content Planning

Here are some ideas for keeping things organized as you create new content:

• Choose your content types: Map out what types of content you will feature on your site. This may largely be driven by your competition and a whole-SERP strategy.
• Create a content calendar: Organization is key but leave room for spontaneity.
• Analyze and adjust: The only constant in life (and SEO) is change. A regular review of what’s working — or not — lets us tweak things for better performance.

Above all else, keep track of progress and adapt as needed. This journey doesn’t stop at “fixes.” It’s about evolving continually to achieve and maintain E-E-A-T. 

Final Thoughts

In this era where attention spans are shorter than ever, every detail counts towards creating experiences online users love, which ultimately boosts both traffic and conversions. 

 

Need a full professional SEO audit? 

Meet with Us to Learn More!

 

Quick Solutions

• How do I analyze content performance metrics to identify improvement opportunities?
• How do I prioritize my content audit findings to maximize ROI without feeling overwhelmed?
• How do I maintain a consistent content audit schedule to stay ahead of trends?

FAQ: How Do I Perform a Comprehensive Content Audit for SEO?

To do a comprehensive content audit for SEO, you need to evaluate all the content on your website to determine its effectiveness, relevance and alignment with SEO goals. 

This begins with creating a complete inventory of your website’s pages, and then gathering data on metrics such as rankings, traffic and engagement. Identify the content that is valuable, needs improvement or should be removed. 

As you are doing this, evaluate the relevance of each page related to its target keywords and the intent behind the search. 

This includes checking whether the content meets the expectations of both search engines and users, and identifying any technical SEO issues. 

Additionally, assess the content against Google’s E-E-A-T framework (does it have the experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust it needs?).

After the evaluation, take action. 

You’ll want to rewrite, combine or even remove weak or outdated content, and high-performing content can be refined and expanded as needed. 

Put technical SEO strategies into place so that the content aligns with your SEO objectives and also enhances user experience.

After the audit, you will have effectively established a framework that you can use for ongoing content maintenance and improvement. 

From this point, make regular audits part of the workflow. 

This helps you maintain the site as a valuable, authoritative resource that people want to rely on and search engines want to rank.  

Action Plan

1. Create a complete inventory of all pages on your website using tools like Screaming Frog and Bruce Clay’s SEOToolSet. 
2. Categorize your webpages by type, such as blog posts, product pages or landing pages.
3. Gather performance metrics on all pages, including visibility, rankings, traffic and engagement rates. 
4. Identify the target audience and intent for each page, and use this as a foundation for keyword research to ensure you are targeting the right queries on your pages. 
5. Assess the content against Google’s E-E-A-T principles to establish credibility.
6. Compare your content to competitors to identify areas for improvement.
7. Rewrite or update weak or outdated content, and remove content that no longer serves a purpose or adds value. Implement 301 redirects for removed or merged pages to preserve link equity.
8. Expand on high-performing pages as needed. 
9. Add new content to address gaps in topics or user needs.
10. Optimize on-page elements, including headings, meta tags, formatting and more.
11. Review all technical SEO elements like page performance (speed and ease of use), alt text, schema markup, URL parameters, etc.
12. Don’t forget small but important tactics like evaluating each page’s metadata for accuracy and keyword optimization or checking internal links for functionality and relevance.
13. Optimize any non-text content like images and videos for SEO.
14. Monitor the results of the implemented changes, and adjust strategies based on performance data.
15. Schedule regular content audits to maintain quality and relevance.

About Us

Bruce Clay Inc. has been a pioneer in the field of search engine optimization since the 1990s. Our team of experts is dedicated to helping businesses achieve visibility in the search results through ethical SEO practices. Learn more about our services and history here.

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, SEO-friendly web architecture, and SEO tools and education. Connect with him on LinkedIn or through the BruceClay.com website.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.