Content audits are the perfect opportunity for marketers to identify gaps in their digital marketing strategy, and close them. It’s a process that takes time but will ultimately produce desired results. Using this checklist as your guide will help you navigate the audit with ease!
The “content audit excel template” is a checklist that is designed to help with the content audit process. The list includes all of the information needed for the process, including what to collect and how long it should take.
When was the last time you took a comprehensive inventory and analysis of your content?
Most content producers are so focused on developing new material that they neglect to audit what they’ve previously generated.
If it’s been more than a year, your content strategy may be based on outdated knowledge.
Here are a few reasons why you should regularly evaluate your content:
- Is your content fulfilling its objectives? What is the return on investment for the material you’ve created? You won’t know until you monitor and assess the success of your content via frequent audits.
- Staleness: Over time, your material may become stale or even obsolete. But don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not always your fault if your material has become stale. What was important two years ago may only need minor revisions today.
- Facts and statistics that were previously true might become erroneous as your material aged. Regularly auditing your content will maintain its accuracy, helping to safeguard your brand’s reputation as well as your search rankings.
- Know What’s Working: If you never go back to audit all of your content pieces, how will you ever know what sort of content or which blog article is your most successful? Maybe writing three blog entries a week is simply too exhausting, and it’s not yielding any results. If you don’t go back and run a content audit to discover which items work best and which perform poorly, you’ll never know.
Hopefully, one, if not all, of those bullets struck a chord with you, and you now see why it’s critical to evaluate your material on a frequent basis.
Let’s look at the audit breakdown now.
Audit of Content Specifications
The first component of a content audit is a one-time entry on your audit that dissects the essentials for each piece of content.
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Examine the content’s creation process, the number of persons involved, and the fundamental publication information.
December 2021, Google Sheets screenshot
In a separate content details audit spreadsheet, keep note of the following for each piece of content:
- URL.
- Author.
- Which group was responsible for its creation? (content team, social team, SEO team, etc.).
- Time allotted (how long did it take to produce the content in its entirety).
- Title.
- Date.
- Type of Content (is it a blog post, infographic, case study, etc.).
- Content Objective (what was the point of producing the content: backlinks, traffic, conversions, etc.).
- Make a word count.
- Comments.
- Stocks (break this down by social network and total).
Audit of Content Data
Now comes the exciting part. The content data section of your audit should have its own simple excel doc, similar to the one I made for you.
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Perform a historical audit
Before we go into the data, you should go back and examine the stuff you’ve already created.
Knowing how well your previous material performed can help you choose what sort of content you should develop in the future — and what kind you shouldn’t.
This section of your content audit will take some time to complete, at least at first.
You’ll need to pick when you want to start your content audit and then collect all of the URLs for that time period.
I suggest going back at least a year and collecting statistics on how your material did the previous year.
However, gathering all of your previous content URLs does not have to be a time-consuming task.
Fortunately, website analytics tools such as Google Analytics and SEMrush’s Content Audit tool can swiftly inventory your content using your sitemap data. These may offer you with a list of URLs to audit for content.
SEMrush screenshot, December 2021
Make Sure You’re Ready For Ongoing Audits
You may repeat this audit activity for fresh information on a weekly basis after you’ve caught up and contributed all of last year’s content to your Excel doc.
When you just have to travel back one week to submit data, it will be much simpler to maintain track of your material and audit it on a regular basis.
Upload the most current figures and metrics on a weekly basis using the data from the next section in your Excel doc.
Keep track of any significant changes over time.
It might take months for material, particularly evergreen content, to gain traction.
Tracking Metrics
For your content data audit, keep the following metrics in mind:
Comments
A well-moderated comments area may enrich your blog posts and articles with useful user-generated information. If one of your content objectives is to create a community on your website, you’ll want to know what sorts of material and themes spark discussion.
Use the UGC link property to make sure you’re following Google’s link markup guidelines.
If you don’t allow comments on your blog, look for them on your content-related social media postings.
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Shares on social media
Some marketers dismiss social sharing as a gimmick. Monitoring the social popularity of your material, on the other hand, may help you figure out which themes are most likely to pique the interest of certain social audiences.
Businesses who know that Facebook is where they get the majority of their conversions, for example, should generate material that appeals to Facebook users.
Analyzing which articles on Facebook had the most social shares in the past is a solid approach to predict which themes will be popular in the future.
Traffic from natural sources
Your article should, in theory, attract a lot of organic traffic.
If you’re not receiving any organic traffic, it might be a warning sign.
Maybe there’s something wrong with:
- Your content marketing approach.
- What you’re doing with the stuff and how you’re distributing it.
- The kind of content.
- The stuff on its own.
You’ll know when you can clap yourself on the back or when you need to start again by constantly monitoring organic traffic numbers in your audit.
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Rate of Bounce
Are visitors to your website coming on your pages and then leaving without interacting with the content? A bounce occurs when Google Analytics is unable to identify scrolling, clicks, or other interactions with your content before a user departs.
A high bounce rate, on the other hand, might indicate poor content.
Your content should ideally act as a portal, leading users from a search to your website, entertaining or informing them, and then directing them to other material based on their requirements.
A high time on page combined with a low bounce rate indicates “sticky” content, which keeps people interested enough to read more of your material.
Are you unsure what constitutes a decent bounce rate?
Many people believe that a range of 26 percent to 40 percent is ideal, yet it might reach as high as 55 percent on average.
Backlinks
Please, bring on the backlinks – but only the excellent ones that will give us a lot of traction and reputation!
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For two major reasons, you should keep track of the backlinks your content generates on a regular basis:
- Over time, your backlinks will alter. You could get 2–3 backlinks on the first day you post a new piece of content. Allow a week to pass, and maybe 10-12 backlinks will surface. You may have 589 backlinks to one piece of content a year from now as it is pushed, found, and shared.
- Backlinks aren’t all created equal. Sure, 589 backlinks may seem to be a wonderful thing, but if 500 of them are possibly harmful to your website, lead to spam, or result in a terrible website, you should consider eliminating those unnatural backlinks.
On-Page Time
Something is awry if your content is a 2,500-word long-form blog article with an average time on page of 18 seconds.
This indicator will tell you whether your content isn’t quite perfect for your target audience, or if it is and you need to develop additional material on similar themes.
Visitors with a Difference
We desire a large number of unique people accessing our material, as well as an increase in the number of views each piece of content receives.
The more views you get, the greater possibilities you have of getting a return on your investment from content like conversions, engagement, shares, and backlinks.
Per Session Pages
After seeing your material, how many pages does the consumer look at?
What pages will they visit?
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A blog article on the greatest winter jackets to own might entice a user to click on links inside the post and shop for other coats on your website. Perhaps they’ll even buy something (– aim!).
Returning Users vs. New Users
Is this piece of content generating a new audience for you?
Returning customers are fantastic. Customers that return are even better.
However, we must strive to attract new users with our content. In an ideal world, you’d see a healthy mix of both.
Sources of Traffic
Define your key traffic sources to figure out where your traffic is coming from.
If Facebook is where the bulk of your visitors comes from, you should publish more of your material there.
If your email newsletters aren’t generating much traffic, it’s time to rearrange them.
Conversions
If your aim for a new piece of content is to create 100 conversions in the first quarter (for example, email opt-ins for your email newsletter), you’ll need to add a column and measure how many conversions that piece of content generates.
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If you only get two conversions in the first week, you can start to distrust the content.
Allow two months to pass before continuing to audit once a week. You may have seen that the material has now generated 140 total conversions, exceeding your target.
Continuous auditing adds context to the numbers you’re seeing, allowing you to make more informed, data-driven choices.
Additional Data To Keep Track Of
Here are some suggestions for things to measure if you wish to add extra information to your material.
Title and Meta Description for SEO
Create columns in your spreadsheet for each piece of content’s SEO fields.
Having all of your SEO titles and meta descriptions in one place will make it easier to optimize your content in the future.
Parameters of the UTM system
Log any unique UTM parameters you used to monitor your content to keep track of special promotional campaigns for each piece of content.
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These may be useful for generating UTM parameters for new content or searching Google Analytics for data on previous material.
Sales / Leads
You can monitor which landing pages make the most money if you have conversion events set up in Google Analytics. To check which pages on your website are leading to conversions, go to the Pages and Screens report under Engagement.
This will provide you with information on the sorts of material and themes that have a favorable influence on your return on investment.
Metrics for Email
When you shared your material with your email list, how well did it perform?
If increasing email engagement is a priority for you, keep track of your opens, clicks, and forwards to identify which material works best.
Content that has been reused
Have you ever transformed a compilation of blog entries into an ebook, or vice versa? Keeping track of the material you’ve reused is important.
To discover how repurposing affects your content strategy, combine stats from the core content and extra pieces of related material.
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Top Keyword Positioning
Was a certain piece of content able to maintain its position at the top of the SERPs for its target keyword phrase?
Note which forms of content have long-term search victories and which types have short-term search wins by keeping track of the best keyword rankings and how long they lasted.
Reach of Influencers
Did you collaborate with any influencers to promote your content? Take note of the influencers that drove the most traffic or shared the material on social media.
You may wish to collaborate with them again for comparable material in the future.
Analyze the outcomes
You must assess if your content is working for you based on your original content objectives.
There will be various data metrics associated with each piece of material you examine. These measures will inform you whether you’re on target or if you’re well off.
Take notice of what the specifics in the audit are saying you about the content that performs well. Examine the sort of material, the subject, who created it, and when it was released.
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Replicating your accomplishments may help you generate content that performs as well.
Take additional attention of the stats for the content items that don’t meet your objectives.
It’s sometimes the distribution routes for the material. Sometimes it’s a combination of factors, such as the author, publishing date, and/or content kind.
You may be able to apply some of the lessons learnt from your top performers to your underdogs in order to improve their rating.
Don’t be scared to experiment with new content kinds as long as you’re prepared to regularly assess their efficacy.
Photo Credits
Paulo Bobita/SagaReach Marketing/Featured Image
Watch This Video-
The “content audit tool” is an online tool that allows users to find out what content they have on their website and how it can be improved. It’s a great way for businesses to see where they need to improve in order to increase conversions.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you do a content audit?
A: A content audit is a process that looks over the entire website for any potential problems and fixes them. This can be done by using automated tools or manually, but its typically manual because there are just too many issues to cover through automation
Which tool is the best fit for doing a content audit?
A: For a perfect, accurate content audit of your website and blog, I would recommend using the SEO Tools. It is possible to use Google Analytics for this as well but it will take time to get everything set up correctly
What should be included in a website content audit?
A: A website content audit is a detailed examination of the contents on any given website. It can be used in order to detect interesting patterns or data that would indicate potential security vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection attacks and other types of malicious code injections are possible within your sites databases.
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