An SEO content audit on your website is a daunting task; however, it’s one that shouldn’t be neglected. A good content marketing strategy is one that includes the task of auditing your content.
The problem is most business owners don’t have the capacity to take it on and it’s out of their realm of expertise. A comprehensive SEO content audit does come with quite a steep learning curve that warrants a keen eye for strategy. It takes time and full brain power to conquer it but that’s why marketing agencies, like Risely, exist.
Additionally, many business owners are:
- New to the idea of an SEO content audit.
- Unsure as to what to look for in a content audit.
- Overwhelmed to start and don’t even know where to begin.
- Short on time.
If any of these apply to you, then the simplest place to start is here.
How to Perform a Quick SEO Content Audit
You could manually do this by yourself. Maybe after hours or on your off days, but who wants to do that? You need your breaks too.
You could have one of your staff do it for hours on end who may or may not know exactly what they should be looking for in an SEO content audit, which could then make them fall behind on their tasks.
There’s also the third option on the table…
You can perform a quick SEO content audit with our FREE online SEO content audit tool.
To audit a specific page on your site, you simply enter the URL and within seconds results of your audit show up. You’ll find an easy-to-read outline that focuses on four main areas of your on-page SEO including:
- Word count
- Internal Links
- Headings
- Images and alt text
While this certainly isn’t a thorough inspection of your content and its performance, it’s a great place to start that could make an impact on your Google SERP ranking. It will also help you understand more about these variables in your SEO efforts. Our SEO content audit tool not only gives you statistical information but it offers helpful easy-to-understand tips for improvements.
When Should You Do an SEO Content Audit
Auditing your site’s content isn’t a one and done process. To achieve maximum efficiency with your SEO content marketing strategy, an SEO content audit should be an ongoing job. Ideally, you want to aim for every quarter, especially if you’re constantly adding new content every day. But, if this isn’t feasible, conduct an SEO content audit at least once a year.
Remember though, you’ll be auditing a full year’s worth of new content. This will be even more time consuming and probably give you unmanageable work to do than if you did it more frequently, working in digestible chunks.
Why Should You Do an SEO Content Audit
Any type of SEO audit – small, large, partial, comprehensive, etc. – will help fine tune your content, which can ultimately boost the health and rank of your website and pages.
That’s the overall short answer to “why you should do an SEO content audit?” Specific benefits of a comprehensive SEO content audit include the following:
Sharpen Your Content Strategy
A full SEO content audit can reveal weak and strong areas of your online presence. The data you collect from your content can help sharpen your content strategy whether you need to shift it or just tweak it. Take special note of the keywords and keyphrases that are gaining your traffic and popular content on your site that gets a lot of traffic and engagement.
New Content Ideas
From your audit, you will learn which posts are getting the most traffic and engagement. Study these posts. Take note of the topics, what format are they in, what type of engagement they’re getting, etc. From this research, it can help you garner new content ideas that spin off from the already well performing content, like a roundup post, which can then also give you linking opportunities.
You could also recycle the content by revealing it in a new format (i.e. infograph, listicle, video post, etc.). You know that topic already has a proven track record of doing well. So, why wouldn’t you exhaust the different ways of putting the information out there to attract more traffic and conversions! This is a clear example of “working smarter, not harder.”
Updating Your Website without Creating New Content
This is another way of “working smarter, not harder” and it will certainly win Google over. Examine all your posts that are underperforming, not performing, outdated, or short on content. You may even want to look at articles that have an imbalance of images:post length ratio (longer posts should have more images).
Next, find opportunities where you can enhance your existing content. That can include updating information, adding more content, merging it with another post, adding more photos (with alt text!), etc.
Clean Your Site Up
If you can’t find a way to enhance underperforming posts or they’re simply irrelevant, delete them. They could be causing more harm than good to your website, especially since Google favors sites that live up to E.A.T.
Just remember to apply “301 redirects” or “410 status codes” if you do.
Improve Your Site with Professional SEO Content Audits
At Risely, we conduct professional content audits for our clients throughout the year. Our SEO content audits include the whole package from on-page SEO, content quality, and key performance metrics. It’s our way of knowing what’s working, what’s not, where can we improve upon, and what it means for the current content marketing strategy in place.
You gotta start somewhere so why not start with our FREE SEO content audit tool. When you’re ready to put your content marketing efforts into full gear to improve your ranking and overall online presence, we’ll be here to help. Book a FREE consultation today to get it underway.
