3 Steps to Running a Quick Content Audit

You put a lot of time and energy into creating content that generates leads for your business, so it makes sense to expect results. While it’s tempting to throw a bunch of content out into the world to see what happens, there’s a more strategic way to optimize your website to generate traffic, leads, and sales results.

A content audit is a process of creating an inventory of the content that sits on your website and evaluating the metrics to determine which content is working best and whether any content should be updated or completely eliminated.

How to Run a Content Audit

Step 1: Take Inventory

Take inventory of the content you have, including items like blog posts and publications. To organize the content, pull it into a spreadsheet and include the URL, page or blog post title, meta description, type of content, the topic covered, stage of the buyer’s journey the piece targets, and the date published.

Step 2:  Gather and Analyze Metrics for Each Piece of Content

This information is available in Google Analytics, or if you are a HubSpot user, you can find it in your Analytics Tools. Some of the metrics to consider are:

• Page views
• Organic search traffic
• Bounce rate
• Inbound links
• Conversions

Once you have gathered this information, take a closer look to see which pieces of content are performing the best. From there, you will make some decisions:

• If a page is performing well based on the metrics you choose to prioritize, you don’t need to make any changes to the page.
• If the content’s metrics are not delivering to your standards, ask yourself these six additional questions:
  
  
  1. Is the content dated? Do your statistics need updating? Is there new research on the topic? Does your organization have updated thoughts on this subject? Are the phrases and terms you’re using to talk about your company, your product, or your industry consistent throughout your website, or have you updated your phrasing?
     
     
  2. Does the meta-description accurately describe what the piece is about? Does it show the person searching for information that they will find the answer to their question when they click on your link?
     
     
  3. Are you using headlines and sub-heads to break the content up and enhance digestibility of your content so the reader can quickly determine whether your content is worth spending time with?
     
     
  4. Are you using internal links to keep people on your site longer by directing them to related content that helps them continue to explore the topic that sent them to your site in the first place?
     
     
  5. Is your content optimized for mobile? Your analytics can tell you the percentage of your site’s traffic that comes from mobile. According to Hubspot, 52% worldwide web traffic is from mobile devices, so it’s important to make sure users can easily consume your content via mobile.
     
     
  6. Does the content speak to your target persona? If your content isn’t what your target persona would expect to find on your site, or it doesn’t speak to their pain points or the types of questions they have, it’s less likely to deliver results—and more likely to have a high bounce rate.

Step 3: Take the Next Steps

Based on the information above, you take the next steps in the content audit. You might decide that some content is performing so poorly, or is so outdated, that it’s best to eliminate it from the site. If the remaining content can be updated and optimized based on your findings in the previous steps, maybe you need:

• A stronger or more descriptive CTA
• An infographic to visually explain the topic in a new way
• A more compelling headline
• More bottom of the funnel content like trials, consultations, or demonstrations to guide the potential customer toward a purchase decision
• More top of the funnel content that is educational and informational to address the awareness stage of the process
• Additional content on a topic that consistently delivers results

The content on your site should help your prospects learn more about your business and answer all the questions they have throughout every stage of their buying journey, but your content needs to be easy to discover and navigate. Performing a content audit every six months will ensure your site is getting the traffic it deserves, which translates to more leads, and more sales for your business.