Here's How to Perform a Content Audit
Search engine algorithms have continually adapted since the start of the internet. What worked on your website a few years ago may not have the same intensity today. Conversely, some pieces of content may be popular and revisited by customers. Many website owners get busy creating new content while forgetting about the past. Good SEO isn’t only about keywords and titles. It’s about the customer experience. That includes what is already on your site. An annual content audit gives you insights into what’s working and what’s not, in your content marketing strategy.
What Is a Content Audit?
A content audit is simply a comprehensive review of the material on your site. It’s an in-depth look at how well the material is serving your audience and fulfilling your marketing goals. This lets you improve your content strategy to get the best results. An audit of your digital content enables you to put your efforts and money toward what is successful and do away with redundancies that fail to contribute to your overall business objectives.
Steps Involved in a Content Audit
A content audit can be as broad as you want, based on your resources and goals.
- Create a spreadsheet with data about each piece of content. An Excel spreadsheet works well, but there are some tools that can crawl your site to avoid having to manually enter each data point. Include:
- URL
- Author
- Title
- Date
- Type of content
- Word content
- Shares, likes, comments, etc.
- Data points that you want to monitor, conversion data, bounce rates, etc.
- Analyze each page. Give each page a letter grade, A, B, C, D and F, much like teachers do. The A and B pages are the ones that get a lot of engagement and convert readers into sales. The C and D pages may need improvement, but still have positive interactions. Give pages that don’t convert or have any engagement, an F – stands for “filter out”!
- Look for trends and patterns in the pages you scored. Use that information to make changes to your site.
- Pages that scored A & B should be evaluated to make sure information is up-to-date. Keep those pages and emulate them in your future content creation efforts.
- Pages that scored C & D may need to be updated to make the content more user-friendly.
- Pages that scored an F may need to be removed to make place for better content.
Use the Information to Drive Your Future Content
A content audit offers many benefits. It gives you insights into your customer’s behavior to help you create content that converts into sales. Cleaning up pages that don’t perform well can improve your site’s SEO ranking. You may see gaps in your content that informs your marketing strategy. For example, if your content is being read, but you’re not converting customers into sales, your readers may not be your target customers. If your content isn’t being read, then you may not even be reaching interested customers. When you understand what’s happening with your content, you can take the right steps to update your content plan.
Need help with content management? MintCopy’s team of SEO writers can help you boost your digital marketing strategy to reach consumers and search engines for higher rankings. Our content agency has a team that can help you move forward with a digital marketing plan to make your brand stand out.
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