How to Conduct a Content Audit: The Ultimate Guide

A content audit is a critical process for evaluating your website’s content to uncover opportunities for improvement. By auditing your content, you can align it with your business goals, boost engagement, and enhance your SEO efforts.

This guide will walk you through how to perform a complete content audit step-by-step.

Why Conduct a Content Audit?

There are several key reasons to make content audits a regular part of your content marketing strategy:

• Identify high- and low-performing content pieces. A content audit looks at metrics like pageviews, bounce rate, and time on site to see which content resonates with your readers and which falls flat. This allows you to double down on what works and improve or repurpose weaker content.
• Uncover content gaps. An audit can reveal topics and formats missing from your content library. Filling these gaps with new content gives readers more of what they want while rounding out your expertise.
• Find outdated or irrelevant content. Over time, some content becomes outdated, irrelevant, or no longer aligns with your brand messaging. An audit flags this content so you can update, consolidate, or remove it.
• Optimize for SEO. An audit lets you identify issues impacting SEO, like thin content, over-optimization, poor page speed, and more. Making optimizations boosts organic traffic.
• Set future content goals. The insights from an audit guide your priorities for creating content that better serves readers and your business. This keeps your strategy focused.

Step 1: Define Goals and Create an Audit Checklist

First, clarify your reasons for auditing your content. Do you want to improve engagement? Increase lead generation? Enhance SEO? Define 1-3 core goals to focus your efforts.

Then create an audit checklist to guide the process, including:

• Content inventory
• Performance metrics
• SEO data
• Competitor analysis
• Content gaps, etc.

Having a structured plan ensures important areas aren’t missed.

Step 2: Build a Content Inventory

A content inventory compiles all content pieces published on your site, including:

• Blog articles
• Ebooks, whitepapers
• Webinars
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Images/graphics
• Presentations
• Quizzes, surveys
• Newsletters
• Social posts

For each piece, gather key details in a spreadsheet, like title, URL, publish date, topic(s), format, author, etc. This inventory becomes your content library—a helpful business asset.

Step 3: Analyze Content Performance

Here’s where you’ll unlock the most powerful insights from your audit. Assess both quantitative and qualitative performance data for each content asset.

Quantitative metrics track hard numbers related to consumption and engagement:

• Page views
• Unique visitors
• Time on page
• Bounce rate
• Scroll depth
• Social shares
• Backlinks

Qualitative factors assess content quality:

• Accuracy of information
• Relevance to reader needs
• Visual appeal
• Written quality
• Comment/review volume and sentiment

Compare metrics across content pieces to identify your superstars and underperformers.

Step 4: Conduct On-Page SEO Analysis

It’s also vital to evaluate optimization for search visibility and ranking. Use SEO tools to uncover:

• Keyword targeting and density
• Use of headers, metadata, alt text
• Mobile friendliness
• Page speed
• Image optimization

This shows both strengths to leverage and areas needing improvement.

Step 5: Review Competitor Content

Research what content your competitors produce and how it’s performing. Look for:

• Content topics/formats they focus on
• High-traffic pages
• Types of assets they lack

Identify prime topics to cover and content gaps to fill where you can beat competitors.

Step 6: Find Content Gaps and Opportunities

Your audit will surface content needs in several areas:

Topics: What topics and buyer questions aren’t covered in-depth? Consider doing keyword research using a tool like Semrush to see high-volume topics to target.

Formats: Are you primarily creating one content format? Diversify into other mediums like video, podcasts, and infographics.

Sources: Does most content come from a small team? Guest posts from industry experts could attract new readers.

Promotion: Are you multiplying engagement by repurposing assets across platforms? A blog post could also work as a video or podcast.

Localization: Could you better attract other geographies by translating high-value content into multiple languages?

Look for chances to better serve your audience and stand out.

Step 7. Set Your Content Goals

With a thorough analysis completed, create forward-looking content goals and document them in a content strategy:

• What new topics and formats will you create more of?
• How will you better optimize certain content types?
• What methods will you use to refresh or remove irrelevant assets?
• What engagement or performance KPIs do you want to achieve?

Having a plan gives your team clarity and focus to level up content. Revisit and revise the strategy quarterly.

Key Takeaways

• Conduct content audits 1-2x per year to stay atop changing reader needs, SEO priorities, and business goals.
• Compile a content inventory and use data to find high- and low-flyers.
• Set specific content goals based on new opportunities spotted, then execute consistently.
• Continue monitoring performance to see if your new initiatives move the needle.

Staying vigilant through audits helps your content remain compelling, relevant, and differentiated into the future.