How do you audit your content for SEO?

2 Inventory your content

The next step is to create a comprehensive list of all the content on your website. You can use tools such as Screaming Frog, Google Analytics, or Content Inventory to crawl your site and extract relevant information such as URL, title, meta description, word count, format, and date. You can also add custom fields to your inventory such as content type, category, persona, and stage. You should organize your content inventory in a spreadsheet or a database that allows you to filter and sort your data.

3 Analyze your content

Now that you have your content inventory, you can start analyzing your content according to your objectives and KPIs. You can use tools such as Google Search Console, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to get more insights into your content performance, such as how well it ranks for target keywords and how much organic traffic it generates. Additionally, review the relevance and usefulness of the content for your audience and their search intent. You should also assess how authoritative and trustworthy your content is, as well as whether it follows SEO best practices and guidelines. Finally, manually review the readability, grammar, spelling, tone, style, and consistency of the content.

4 Evaluate your content

After analyzing your content, you can assign it a status or action. A simple rating system can be used, such as 'Keep', 'Update', 'Consolidate', 'Delete', or 'Create'. For example, if the content is outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete, you should revise or refresh it; if the content is redundant, duplicate, or thin, you should merge it with other content; if the content is irrelevant, low-quality, or harmful, you should remove it; and if the content is missing or insufficient, you should create new content. It's important to document your evaluation and recommendations in a content inventory spreadsheet or database.

5 Implement your changes

Once you have your content evaluation, you can start implementing your changes according to your priorities and resources. You should follow a systematic and consistent approach to update, consolidate, delete, or create your content. You should also make sure that you update your internal and external links, your sitemap, and your robots.txt file accordingly. You should also test your changes and monitor their impact on your site performance and user experience.

6 Repeat your audit

A content audit is not a one-time project, but a continuous process of improvement. You should repeat your audit regularly to keep your content fresh, relevant, and optimized. You should also track and measure your results and adjust your objectives and strategies accordingly. A content audit can help you achieve your SEO goals and provide value to your audience.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?