In this article, we'll learn why it's important to audit your content regularly, how to gather the details you'll need for your audit, and what metrics to track.
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?When was the last time you audited content audit
I do not remember?
Most content creators are so focused on creating new content that they forget to proofread their existing content.
Here are some reasons why you need to audit your content
Goals: Is your content achieving its goals? Are you getting any ROI from the content you have produced? You won't know unless you measure the performance of your content and track it with regular audits.
Chaos: Content can become outdated or even over time. However, don't beat yourself up. Outdated content isn't always your fault. What was relevant two years ago may not be relevant now. On the bright side, you may just need to add a little extra seasoning to adjust to the times.
Misinformation: As your content ages, facts and data that were previously accurate can become inaccurate. Conducting an audit of your content regularly will ensure the accuracy of your post and protect your brand reputation.
Know What Works: How will you know which type of content or which blog post is the most successful if you never go back to audit all of your pieces of content? Maybe pumping out three blog posts a week is really stressful, and it doesn't produce any results. You'll never know if you don't go back and review the content to see which parts are doing the best, and which are the worst.
Hopefully one of these bullets, if not all, will happen to you, and that you now understand why it is important to review content regularly.
Now, let's get into the details of the review.
Check content details
The first part of the content audit is dissecting the basics into the content pane and is a one-time entry into your audit.
Sees how content is created, how many people are required to create content, and basic publishing information.
Content-accurate -content audit
You will need to track the following for each piece of content in a separate Content Detail Audit spreadsheet:
URL
author
Team Production (Content Team, Social Team, SEO Team , etc.)
Total time (how long it took to produce the entire content)
Title
Date
Content type (whether it is a blog post, infographic, case study, etc.)
Content objective (what is the objective of producing content: backlinks, traffic , conversions, etc.)
The number of words
comments
Stock (break this down by social network and total)
The content data portion of your audit should come with its manual excel dandy document, just like this one I created for you guys and gals.
Do a previous check
Before we get to the data, you need to step back and audit the content you have produced in the past.
Knowing how the content you've already published is performing will help you gauge what kind of content you need to create in the future, and which type you won't.
This part of proofreading your content will be very in-depth and time consuming at first.
You will need to decide how long you want to start auditing your content and then collect all of your content URLs for that time period.
I recommend going back for at least one year and collecting data on how your content has performed in the previous year.
Collecting all past URLs for content doesn't have to be a manual process.
Fortunately, there are plenty of website analytics tools like Google Analytics or SEMrush 's content audit tool (disclosure: I work with SEMrush) that can quickly audit your content based on your sitemap data and provide you with a list of content pages.
Content auditing
Prepare for constant content audit
Once you have finished adding last year's content and adding it to your Excel document, you will need to repeat this checking activity for new content weekly.
It will be much easier to track and audit your content regularly when you only have to go back a week to enter the data.
Add the following to your Excel document and upload the latest numbers and statistics weekly.
Over time, if you see any drastic changes take note.
Sometimes, content, especially evergreen content, can take months before it really starts.
Metrics to track
Here are the metrics you want to track to audit your content data:
Organic traffic or normal search
Ideally, our content will receive a lot of organic traffic.
We won't have to allocate any extra money to advertising, people will naturally find, like and interact with our content.
If you don't get a lot of organic traffic to your content that can be a potential red flag.
There may be something wrong with:
Your content strategy.
How do you distribute content?
Content type.
The content itself.
By regularly assessing organic traffic metrics in your audit, you'll know when you can pat yourself on the back or when you need to start over.
Do users bounce directly from your content page without viewing any other pages on your website?
If so, this is a sign of bad content.
Ideally, your content is just a portal that leads the user from searching to your website, entertains or informs them, and then directs them to tour the rest of your site for their needs.
Unsure of a good bounce rate?
Fuel Rocket uses this graphic to describe the percentage diversity:
bounce rate
Backlinks
Bring in backlinks - but only good backlinks that give us a lot of reinforcement and credibility, please!
You need to track the backlinks your content produces on a regular basis for two big reasons
Your backlinks will change over time. On the first day you publish a new piece of content, you may get 2-3 backlinks. Leave a week and now 10-12 backlinks have appeared. A year on the way, and now you have 589 backlinks to one piece of content.
Not all backlinks are good. Sure, 589 backlinks might seem like a good thing, but not if 500 of those backlinks are potentially dangerous for your website and lead to spam. These 500 links need to be removed ASAP or your site and ranking will be successful. If you don't monitor all of your backlinks by auditing your content regularly, you'll miss the opportunity to remove dangerous backlinks before they start affecting your rankings.
time on page
If your content is a long blog post with 2,500 words and the average time on page is 18 seconds, then something is wrong.
This metric will tell you if your content isn't just relevant to your audience, or if it is, and you need to create more content focusing on topics just like it.
Unique Visitors
We want a lot of unique visitors who see our content and get more views for the content part.
The more views, the higher the ROI opportunities from content like conversions, engagement, engagement, and backlinks.
Pages per session
How many pages does a user look at after viewing your content?
What pages will they go to?
A blog post about the best winter coats can encourage the user to click on the links in the blog post and shop your website for different coats. Heck, they'll probably make a purchase (<-aim!).
New visitors compared to returning visitors
Are you attracting a new audience with this piece of content?
Returning users are great. Returning customers are better.
But we also need to target new users with our content.
Traffic sources
Know where your traffic is coming from by identifying your main traffic sources.
If the majority of your content traffic is coming from Facebook, post more of your content on your Facebook page.
If you haven't received any of your email newsletters, it may be time to restructure your emails.
Conversions.. Have the number of visits been achieved
If your goal for creating a new piece of content is to generate 100 conversions in the first quarter, let's say email is enabled in your email newsletter, you need to add a column and track the number of conversions coming from that piece of content.
In the first week, your conversions can be as little as 2, and you start to doubt the content completely.
Allow two months to pass, keep reviewing every week, and note that the content has now generated 140 total conversions, not only meeting but exceeding your goal.
Measuring and evaluating results
Depending on your original content goals, you need to decide if your content is right for you.
Each piece of content you audit will have several data metrics attached to it. These metrics will tell you if you're hitting the mark or missing it significantly
For content that works well, take note of checking out the content details. Analyze the type of content, the topic, who produced it, and when it was published
Repeating your successes can help you create similarly high-performing content
For the pieces of content that don't meet your goals, take additional notes for their metrics
Sometimes it's the channels that the content was posted on. Other times, it's a combination of things like author, posting timeframe, and/or content type
Mistakes you make when converting to your site
Don't be afraid to experiment with new content types as long as you are willing to measure their effectiveness through regular auditing.