Are you having trouble keeping track of all the content that you have created? It's not difficult.
If you are anything like me, your focus is on creating new ideas and articles. You might lose sight of what you have already created.
The truth is that the content you have already created is as valuable as any you create. It could bring in thousands more revenue by optimizing it a bit.
This is why it's important to conduct a content audit on existing pages. This article will cover:
- What is a content audit?
- Audits are essential.
- You have access to content audit tools
- Step by step instructions on how to conduct a content audit
Are you ready to take inventory of all your assets? Let's get started.
What's a Content Audit?
A content audit involves creating a list of all your website's content assets, and then analyzing them using a set criteria.
It allows you to keep track of all the content that you have created, see which assets are in need of improvement, and identify which topics to address next.
You can make a content audit as short or detailed as you like. An audit can be done on your entire website, your blog, or a specific category. All of them can provide valuable insight and value. However, I highly recommend a thorough audit. It will pay off in the future if you invest time on your audit now.
What is the purpose of a content audit for my website?
It is important to set aside time for a content audit in order to identify gaps and start creating better content.
Why do you need to conduct a content audit? A content audit can improve the performance of your website for a variety of reasons.
There are many benefits to a content audit. These benefits include:
- Analyzing your content's performance will help you make data-backed decisions on which pages to improve.
- You should highlight pages that aren’t optimized for SEO. For example, some pages might not have the right metadata or have poor heading structures.
- You can identify SEO opportunities and content gaps you can fill by creating new content.
- To improve the user experience, you can increase the quality of your content.
- Recognize content that you can reuse.
- A complete inventory of your content will make it easier to manage your content strategy in the future.
- Enhance accessibility and inclusion of your content.
It doesn't matter if you believe a content audit is worthwhile. However, there are some points in your website's life when a content auditor becomes crucial. If:
- Your website is quite old, and you have never done an audit.
- You don't have a clear strategy, or you inherit a content marketing strategy from someone else.
- Your website is being redesigned.
- You believe you have created content on every topic possible in your niche.
Determine the purpose of your Content Audit
Your goals will determine how you approach content audits. You can make a content audit that accomplishes all the benefits I mentioned above, but it will be more effective if there are only a few goals you want to concentrate on.
If you are looking to improve your SEO by conducting a content audit, you will need to identify content gaps and pages that lack metadata. This means that you should pay particular attention to each page's technical SEO.
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Since you're reading this blog about digital marketing, I will write the remainder of this guide as though you were conducting an SEO-driven content audit. This guide can still be used if you want to make your content more accessible or improve the user experience, but some technical details may not apply.
Content Audit Tool
Software tools are essential in the content audit process. Instead of manually going through each page on your website and noting them individually, the following tools can automate much or all of this process.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a must-have if you are conducting a content audit in order to improve your SEO. It's easy to conduct a site audit. Simply enter your URL and click "Search" to view the site audit. This is a quick and free way to check how your website is performing.
It will also give you a visual of the most pressing SEO issues on your site.
img alt="Ubersuggest's homepage with various SEO metrics" class="wp-image-165866" height="496" loading="lazy". class="wp-image-165866" height="496" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit3.jpg" srcset="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit3.jpg 700w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit3-350×248.jpg 350w" width="700"/>
Google Analytics
You want to see how your pages perform? Google Analytics will provide traffic data for each page.
img alt="Homepage Google Analytics" class="wp-image-165867" height="289" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2-700×289.jpg" srcset="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2-700×289.jpg 700w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2-350×145.jpg 350w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2-768×317.jpg 768w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2-1536×635.jpg 1536w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit2.jpg 1999w" width="700"/>
Please note: Google will be discontinuing Universal Analytics by July 1, 2023 in favor of Google Analytics 4. Before you complete your content audit, make sure you switch to GA4 if you haven’t already. You can reuse your content audits in the future by switching to GA4 faster if you do it quickly.
Broken Link Checkers
Broken links will be identified and fixed as you review your content. Integrity, Ahrefs and Dead Link Checker are all tools that can assist you in this endeavor.
Content Inventory
Although you can manually pull every content link from your website, this could be too time-consuming and could lead to some mistakes. You might instead try DynoMapper or Screaming Frog, which are content inventory tools.
img alt="A content inventory software named Dynomapper" class="wp-image-165870" height="252" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4-700×252.jpg" srcset="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4-700×252.jpg 700w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4-350×126.jpg 350w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4-768×276.jpg 768w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4-1536×552.jpg 1536w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit4.jpg 1999w" width="700"/>
Website Content Audit Steps
A content audit can seem complicated. It's actually quite simple if you break it down into manageable steps.
#1: Make a list of your content assets
A website content audit begins with an inventory of all assets. It is much easier to see all assets in one place, which makes it easier to analyze content performance and highlight areas for improvement.
The SEO Spider Tool by Screaming Frog is the best tool to extract content assets from your website. If your site contains less than 500 pages, it's completely free. You can also use the content extractors mentioned above.
Whatever tool you choose, export your data to a spreadsheet. Make sure that relevant data points are included (word count and meta description, target keyword, number). of images, etc.) Included. Google Analytics traffic data may be added to each page to allow you to analyze content performance and technical SEO metrics.
img alt="Creating content assets using Microsoft Excel" class="wp-image-165871" height="151" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" srcset="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit7.jpg 700w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/Content_audit7.jpg 350×76.jpg 350w.jpg class="wp-image-165871" height="151" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" src="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit7.jpg" srcset="https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit7.jpg 700w, https://neilpatel.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Content_audit7-350×76.jpg 350w" width="700"/>
Content Audit Templates
As I mentioned above, you'll need a content audit spreadsheet to keep all your data in one place. You can either start from scratch or download the following templates. Or, you can use them as a starting point to customize your spreadsheet.
- Template for CoSchedule Content Audit
- HubSpot SEO Template
- Template for Distilled Content Audit
Remember the goals that we talked about earlier. You can pull many stats and data points alongside each article. Some data will be more important than others.
This audit will help you improve your content marketing engagement. You'll need to verify information on clickthroughs, social engagement, comments and other metrics.
You might want to include any warnings or recommendations that Ubersuggest has provided if your goal is related to SEO.
#2: Make a list of content issues to identify
Now that you have all of your content assets, it is time to analyze them. You can go through each piece of content individually to determine how it performs, whether there is missing metadata or if it could be improved.
These are some things you should be looking for:
- Duplicate content Search engines prefer fresh content. You should remove duplicate content from different pages and posts.
- Outdated content: Search engines don't like outdated content. It is important to update it whenever possible.
- Content Gaps – What's wrong with your content? Is there a topic you aren't covering yet? Are there target markets that you haven’t yet spoken to? It is possible to see everything simultaneously, which can help you fill in the gaps.
- Target Keyword Does the content asset target a specific keyword and include it within the copy?
- Metadata – Have you created metadata descriptions for all pages. This spreadsheet will help you identify which pages need to be written, and which pages are redundant and should be updated.
- Image data: Do all images have a descriptive title? This will ensure your images are SEO-optimized and accessibility-friendly.
- Word Count – Are your pages and posts sufficiently long to be SEO-friendly? Are they too long? To determine if pages should be edited or updated, check the word count.
You can keep track of all assets by adding a note to each asset detailing why it should be improved. It is possible to color-code your spreadsheet according to the type of optimization needed, but this can quickly get complicated if you have multiple assets.
#3: Content Problems
It's impossible to do all things at once so it's important to prioritize content issues. You can work through each asset numerically starting at the top of your spreadsheet. Another option is to regroup each optimization problem and address them all in one go. You could, for example, update the meta data of each page and then fix image issues.
Ubersuggest can also be used to prioritize content issues. Ubersuggest will perform an SEO audit and provide recommendations based upon the issue's difficulty level and SEO impact.
You will see a lot of success if you focus on tasks that have high SEO impact but are easy to accomplish. If you aren't confident, you can prioritize the easier tasks to get things moving.
A content audit works best when it is done by multiple people. Don't be afraid of asking for help and to split the work. Perhaps you can handle the on-page issues and a colleague will address the content gaps that your audit highlighted.
FAQs
What's a Content Audit?
A content audit is a process that creates a list of pages on your website and analyzes their performance.
Why do I need to conduct a content audit on my website?
A content audit can help you find problems and gaps in your website's content. Good content can help you rank higher in Google, which will lead to more traffic, conversions and revenue.
What are some tools I can use for content audits?
Ubersuggest, SEMrush and Ahrefs are all great tools to conduct a content audit.
Where do I start with a Content Audit?
Start your content by making a list all your content assets. This can be done by using tools such as Screaming Frog to pull a report and then analyze the results in a spreadsheet.
Conclusion
An audit of content can seem overwhelming at first. Don't let this stop you.
A website content audit is one the most important steps to improving your content marketing strategy. It is much easier to find what assets need improvement and which ones are missing. It makes it much easier to identify and fix problems.
Once you have completed a content audit, it will be easy to manage your assets in the future. It will be easy to take your content marketing efforts up a notch.
What content issues have you identified in your audit?
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By: Neil Patel
Title: How to Run a Content Audit (2022 Update)
Sourced From: neilpatel.com/blog/content-audit/
Published Date: Tue, 06 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000