What are Content Audits and Why are They Important?

Few things are more important to your digital marketing efforts than having informative, engaging, quality content on your website. Great website content allows you to reach specific target audiences with relevant information that they’re interested in and searching for, but that’s not all. It also shows visitors that you care about their interactions with the brand and want to assist them as best you can. Content is also crucially important to search engine optimization (SEO) because search engines like Google need information to crawl and index your pages so they can show up on the search results page (SERP). Great content works to drive traffic to your website, keep people on it, and convince them to purchase your products and/or services.

Putting a lot of effort into creating content has a major effect on your digital marketing ROI, but the process doesn’t end there. Content also needs to be effectively managed, repurposed, and updated regularly. No matter the size of your company or how extensive your website is, this can be a very daunting task. It becomes even harder if you don’t have a specific focus, aim, or purpose for your website’s content.

So, how do you ensure that all current and future content on your website is excellent? Perform a content audit.

What is a Content Audit?

Content audits are an organized documentation of all the content on your site and give you the opportunity to analyze and optimize it all. They will help you refine and streamline your entire process, from the way you create and implement content to how you manage and plan for future content. 

After collecting all your content, take a step back to evaluate. What areas are a bit thin? What areas need refocusing? Is there any duplicate content? From there, you define your next steps. This could be updating and optimizing existing content with new keywords, writing new content for pages that need more, repurposing content so it’s more in line with your plans, or even deleting some content that may have been repeated elsewhere.

When doing this, keep in mind that your goal should be to figure out new ways for your content to connect and resonate with your target audience. Make sure all content is purposeful and answers common questions and concerns potential customers are searching for help with. In other words, put the focus of content on their needs rather than your business.

What Makes Content Audits so Important?

Aside from the content itself, content audits are the most important part of your content strategy. With a good understanding of what your target audience is searching for and the analysis from the audit, you can provide the right content for them at the right time.

Content audits will also help with SEO, bringing things like broken links to your attention and giving you a better understanding of the optimization opportunities content offers, like the implementation of keywords. Proper use of keywords will help your pages perform better and rank higher on search results pages, providing you with a higher quantity of quality leads into your sales funnel.

What to Include in a Content Audit

Every piece of content on your website should be included in your audit. It’s important to do so to ensure you have the best idea of what you’re working with, what you need, and what should be better. By taking a comprehensive look at your content, you get to see the full picture and determine what needs the most attention the soonest.

Depending on how large your website is, performing a complete content audit can be a very time-consuming process. It can take up even more time if you’re unfamiliar with the process. Whether you’re looking to save time or would rather trust a digital marketing expert, SocialSEO can help. Our SEO expert can help you create, upgrade, and repurpose website content to attract more customers and achieve success at both local and national levels. Contact us today to learn more!