What Exactly is a Content Audit? 

A content audit is exactly that – an audit of your website’s content. It is a qualitative analysis of all of the content on your site that helps you to determine whether your content is relevant, accurate, and consistent. It doesn’t matter how much content you have on your website if it isn’t valuable to your readers. Quite simply, Google doesn’t favor content that is overstuffed with keywords, repetitive phrases, or that doesn’t offer any true value. If you want your website to do well in Google rankings, you need your content to perform and a content audit will help you get a feel for how well your website is currently doing and it will give you a direction to move in for improvements.

What Are the Benefits of a Content Audit

Whether you do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you, a content audit can provide you with a lot of valuable information about your site. Here are some of the main benefits of a content audit: 

  • Identifying problems with current content. A content audit will help to reveal areas of your website that are not working properly. It might be broken links, issues with performance, or even the overall accessibility – no matter what the issues, fixing them can only help your site.
  • Determining new ways to use current content. You don’t always have to create new content – sometimes you can repurpose existing content to drive new traffic. You can also update current content on your site to add value.
  • Finding holes to fill in your content. Not only does a content audit evaluate the content on your website, but it may help to identify gaps that you could fill with new content.
  • Evaluating the quality of your current content. The goal of your website is not just to provide a lot of content – it is to provide high-quality content. A content audit will clue you in to whether your current content is valuable to readers and, if not, will help you determine how to improve it.
  • Identifying ways to improve structure. It doesn’t matter how great your content is if the structure of your site is so poor that your users can’t find what they need. A content audit includes analytics data that speaks to the relevance and pertinence your content as well as the means of finding it.
  • Evaluating the performance of current SEO. Google is constantly changing their algorithm which means that you may have to make frequent changes to the SEO of your site so that it performs well. A content audit will help you to evaluate your current SEO and point out things that could be improved.
  • Improving current organic search visibility. A content audit will help you determine what your current search engine rankings are so you can increase your visibility by using keywords more effectively. Just be careful not to overuse keywords or it could have the opposite of the desired effect.
  • Enhancing the usability of your site. A complete content audit will provide details about things like page views, bounce rates, average time spent on the site, and more. All of these things can help you to evaluate how your current content is performing and give you insight on how to make improvements.
  • Maximizing your conversion rates. The end goal of your website content is to make a sale – that is called conversion. A content audit will help you to find out which parts of your website are really working so you can focus on those things. The audit will evaluate everything from the content itself to your site design and calls to action.

These are just a few of the many benefits associated with a content audit. Keep in mind that all a content audit can do is provide you with information – it is up to you to put that information to work in making changes to your site so that you gain more traffic and increase your conversion rate.

How to Perform a Content Audit 


If you really want to gain an understanding of how your site is performing and how it can be improved, you should perform the content audit yourself. It may take some time, but it is worth it for the amount of insight you will gain. Here are the steps for performing a content audit:

  • Create a content inventory. The best way to do this is to record all of your content in a spreadsheet organized by URL or page title with plenty of columns to fill in with specific data.
  • Label your columns with the data points you want to evaluate. This may include things like page title, target keyword, meta description, inbound links, image ALT tags, page visits, bounce rate, average time on page, and more.
  • Use Google Analytics or another online tool to gather data. There are a number of online resources you can use, but Google Analytics allows you to export data directly to CSV so you can import it into your spreadsheet.
  • Examine your data and give each page a rating on an A through F scale. For pages that perform extremely well, give them an A rating – for those that aren’t performing effectively at all, give them an F rating. You’ll have to use your own judgment for ratings in between.
  • Take a closer look at your data to determine the next steps. Once you’ve assigned ratings to each of your pages, you’ll need to decide what actions to take next. Go through your list again and assign an action to each page – Keep, Update, Remove, or Consolidate are some good actions to focus on.

Once you have completed your content audit, all that is left is to put your plan into action. If you really want to keep things organized, make a list of 5 to 10 specific actions you want to take. An example might be to rewrite all of the content pages that received a C rating or lower. Another example might be to make more of an effort to promote your A-rated pages on social media to capitalize on-site traffic and to maximize conversion. After you’ve compiled your list of actions, set deadlines for yourself to stay on track with your goals. If you want to take things a step further, you might even consider doing a content audit on one of your competitor’s sites to see how the two stack up against each other. This may help you to identify more ways to improve your own site.

When conducted properly, a content audit can tell you which aspects of your site are performing the best and which ones need the most work. You’ll also gain insight into the topics your audience connects with the most and which posts should be retired. All of this information will help you to improve your current content, develop new content, and improve your conversion rate.