The Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Content Audit

Before creating an inventory of URLs and metrics, it is important to decide what kind of content you are going to review.

You need to start your inventory by collecting all the URLs of pages you want to analyze.

After collecting your URLs, sort them by different criteria, & track it with your team members.

Catalog your content by the following categories:

• Buyer’s journey stage
• Content type
• Content format
• Number of words
• Date of publication or last modification
• Content hub
• Author

Examine your content metrics as a whole to gain a clear picture of the state of your site’s content.

Take into account the different stages of the buyer’s journey. Your ‘Awareness’ content may attract more traffic, but have a lower conversion rate. Your ‘Consideration’ content may have less traffic, but generate more leads, and so on.

Assess each piece of content according to your goals, and assign one of the following statuses: Keep/Update/Delete.

Before drawing up an action plan for each URL, refer to the goal(s) you set out in step 1. Each investment in your content plan should align with a goal.

Next, prioritize actions based on how achievable the goals are in line with the effort required.

Add a priority column to your spreadsheet after you’ve weighed up the resources required against the expected results.

Actionable tips to include in your content audit workflow for individual pages:

• Reuse: Combine different pieces of content to create another one or publish in a different format.
• Rewrite: Rewrite underperforming content with examples, tips, & practical details.
• Expand: Add more detail to your existing articles.
• Refresh: Add new/relevant information.
• Structure: A clear & logical structure with relevant H2 & H3 tags can help users & bots better interpret your content, & boost traffic. Well-structured articles are more likely to rank for Featured Snippets.

• Update CTAs: Replace outdated CTAs with relevant ones to reactivate your content marketing funnel & improve conversion rates.
• Add videos
• Add images
• Optimize metadata: Rewrite titles, meta descriptions, & h1. Use better keywords to make it more natural & attractive for users & search engines.
• Optimize internal linking: Add links pointing to posts with related topics. This can improve website organization, and decrease bounce rate. Optimize your internal linking according to the buyer’s journey: Awareness content should link to Consideration content which should link to Decision content.

• Use 301 redirects for web pages removed from your website to avoid "not found" pages & improve user experience.
• Inform Google about your content updates by using Google Search Console. The URL Inspection tool within Search Console allows you to submit recently updated web pages to Google's index.

It is important to keep your long-term marketing strategy in mind. Track your successes & failures & steer your content strategy in different directions to appeal to your target audiences in other ways, adjust assets for better organic reach, & improve conversion rates.

Note what works & expand upon it. Look at your least successful content, & check your competitors' similar successful content to see where & how you could improve.

Reviewing your content marketing strategy is needed at least once a year to ensure your tactics & activities still fit your goals.