How to Do a Content Audit for Your Blog
Managing a website includes many different aspects, and for bloggers, one essential task to perform regularly is a content audit. We’ll walk through the specifics so that you have the knowledge to do a content audit that informs your planning and creating!
What is a content audit?
A content audit is the process of systematically reviewing all of your content (in this case, blog posts) to determine how individual pieces are performing.
In order to make data-driven decisions for your blog, it is helpful to know which posts are achieving the most web traffic and which posts are not. A content audit can also provide you with information about the source of your traffic. This helps you determine where to focus your marketing and promotion efforts.
There are many areas where it is beneficial to consult a professional, but an audit is definitely something you can do yourself! While it can be an extensive process, we are going to walk through how to do a content audit in a manageable way. This process will provide you with key data and can keep your blogging business running efficiently.
What is the purpose of auditing your content?
If you are publishing your content and simply hoping for the best with each post, you are missing out on so much opportunity with your blog.
An audit can help you determine how well your content is performing according to your business goals. This will help you plan future content and update content (more to come on this aspect later).
An audit will also help you determine what types of content to create going forward. You’ll find that this saves you valuable time and energy in the long-run!
Key information that you need from an audit is where your traffic is primarily coming from and which links people click on your site.
Ideally, your top-performing content will continually generate organic traffic. (This means that the content is found through web searches associated with your topics). Additionally, readers should spend time browsing your site and, ideally, subscribe to your email list.
All of these factors can indicate whether your content is achieving its purposes and meeting the needs of your audience.
Who needs to run a content audit?
Auditing a site is NOT just a task for established bloggers!
New bloggers will need a few months of blog-posting in order to have some data to review. Otherwise, every blogger can periodically review their site!
If you want to grow a business centered around your blog, regular content audits should be a priority. The frequency of auditing will depend on how much content you publish and your capacity to grow your site.
For most bloggers, we recommend content audits at least once annually. Even if you don’t meet all your goals or make significant updates from the previous year, it is important to see what has changed and have data to make decisions about future content.
Tools you need
You don’t need to spend lots of money or use fancy software to run a good audit! With a few simple but effective tools, you can easily audit your own site in an organized, meaningful way.
You’ll need:
- A spreadsheet or list of all of your blog posts – Check out this helpful WordPress plugin to help you download a list of all your posts.
- Google Analytics and Google Console – These are both free services offered through Google and can be accessed through a Google account.
- Keysearch or another keyword research tool – Many keyword research tools are available in both free and paid versions, and some are more user-friendly than others. Read our Keysearch review here and find out why we recommend it to other bloggers!
How to do a content audit
Now you’re ready to get down to the details and conduct a content audit. Grab a cup of coffee or your favorite treat and dive in!
- First, create a spreadsheet to track all of your posts. You can copy the list from your plugin tool or customize a new document with columns, tabs, and more.
- Use your keyword research tool to determine which keywords your site ranks for (and which posts contribute to those rankings). For example, your entire site may rank for a specific term, but individual pages will be linked to that keyword.
- Use Google Analytics to determine how much traffic those posts are getting and from what sources. Use Google Console to see which blog pages are connected to web queries and how they appear in search results.
- Add this information to your spreadsheet. Create columns to track data alongside each post and include any other significant data. Use the audit data to organize your posts into performance categories such as top-performing (most organic traffic), highest keyword ranking, or a post that generates the most email subscribers.
Now, don’t stop here! Use the results of your audit in a variety of ways to keep growing your blog.
What do you do with the results?
With your audit results, you can plan future content, revamp current resources, or explore other options, depending on your goals.
Keep your content as is.
Not every good thing needs an update! If your post already ranks in the top 3 keyword search results on Google, that is great! Or, if it is one of your top traffic-generating posts, give it time to see how traffic continues to grow!
Update or repurpose your content.
If your post ranks in Google search results but not in the top 3 sites, consider updating it with current SEO strategies or reformatting the content to better serve your readers. If a post has the potential for more traffic, updating or repurposing is a worthwhile option because it improves your overall content and adds value to your readers.
Rather than always generating ideas for brand-new content, updating your existing content can also be a resourceful and efficient way to grow your blog. Consider interspersing “posts to update” to a rotation in your content calendar!
“No-index” a post.
“No-indexing” is an HTML tag option that can be added to specific blog posts. This tag keeps it from being scanned by search engines and possibly ranking for any number of keywords.
Use this feature for the posts that you want to keep on your site but do not have the potential to rank on Google or grow traffic related to your niche. Some examples could be personal types of posts or early posts unrelated to your blog topics.
Delete!
While you might hesitate to remove posts altogether, this may be the most efficient option. Consider this if specific posts are not ranking for any keywords and don’t have much potential to rank.
This could be an option if the content is simply low quality, not worth the time and effort you have available, or does not add much value to your readers or site as a whole.
We hope these steps give you the confidence you need to make informed decisions about your content planning. Learn even more about auditing your own website in podcast episode 50, or learn about professional SEO audits in our conversation with Casey Markee in episode 116.
Discover more about growing a blogging business by connecting with us here or find us on Instagram at @sparkmediaconcepts