What We Learned From Our 2014 Content Audit

What worked in your blog last year? What didn't? Most people can't answer that off the top of their heads. That's why it's important to do a content audit every year.

Follow the steps we followed to perform your own content audit, or just follow me as I show you what we did, and what we learned, from our 2014 content audit:

Step 1. Figure Out the Most Viewed Posts of the Year

In HubSpot, that means go to Reports-->Sources-->Page Performance and set the time period and the blog you're looking to track.

Step 2. Figure Out the Most Shared Posts of the Year

For this step, you'll have to go to BuzzSumo and type in your blog's URL. Here are our most shared posts:

What's interesting is how little overlap there is between "top viewed" posts and "top shared" posts.

Step 3. Review Your Top Content

You'll have a list of ten-ish posts. Here are ours:

• What Skills Do You Need as an Inbound Marketer?
• 3 Sure Signs Inbound Isn't Working at Your Company
• How to Syndicate Content (and Keep Google Happy)
• 4 Types of Companies That Need an Inbound Makeover
• 5 Questions With Piper Walker, The Weather Channel
• 5 Terrible Excuses That Are Keeping You From Growing Your Business

Step 4. Look for Ways to Enhance Your Top Content

Put the time in to make your top posts really shine. Think about it: these are your most popular posts for a reason. They're popular with your readers, and they're very likely to be popular with the search engines, where people will find you who have never seen your content before.

Here are ways to enhance your top content:

• Update links: Add links within posts you've written after the original post date
• Related posts: At the end of a post, add links to related articles, with screenshots, if necessary. Give the reader somewhere else to go.
• Update Calls-to-Action: Do you have the right CTA in each of your top posts? Are you sure? Update the CTA with something more relevant if something else has come up since you originally posted.
• Rewrite weak parts, or add more: Beef up your most popular posts. Add more depth if that makes sense, or rewrite bland posts to make them crisper.
• SEO: Should you change the focus keyword?

Step 5. Plan Content for the Year Ahead

Continue writing about popular themes. For us, that means more writing about the big picture of inbound marketing, the connection between lead generation and inbound marketing, and the nuts and bolts of how to do this job.

What does it mean for you? What did you learn from your content audit?