Auditing the content on your website can be a useful way to make sure you’re keeping focused on spreading a consistent message.
Let’s dive into what a content audit is and how you can do it for yourself. At the end you’ll find a video link to watch me talking you through my content audit template, and a link so you can download it today.
What is a content audit?
A content audit is when you take stock of what information you have on your website. Whether it’s product pages or service pages, or more commonly, blog articles.
Why take time to do a content audit on your website?
Doing a content audit on your website also allows you to identify any gaps in the information or products you’re showing your clients.
Taking some time to do a content audit also helps your SEO by allowing you to see what could be updated or optimised for higher conversions, and identify high performing posts that you can make the most of!
How to do a content audit!
Find out what you’ve got!
Okay, so this may seem boring, but it’s important to keep a running list of what content you have on your website. Start with deciding WHAT content you want to audit. Is it blogs, product pages or all your website content?
Get clear on your talking points
The next step is getting clear on your brand message and talking points. This means you start your audit being super-clear on what you do and who you do it for! Talking points are the conversations you want your brand to be known for. One goal for your content is to reinforce these messages. So, if you’re clear on your message and talking points, you’ll be clear about what content you need on your website!
Match your content to your talking points
In the Content Audit Template you’ll see that talking points are like blog or product categories. If you’ve got content that doesn’t relate to your talking points it may confuse your clients (and the Google search engine bots). Making sure your content matches your talking points means you’re being laser-focused on reinforcing your message to your customers.
Identify core information
Okay, so once you know what’s going on it’s time to identify your most important pieces of content. These are usually identified by being information that people need to know to engage with you. For example, if you’re a naturopath a blog about how naturopathy differs from other therapies would be a core piece of content.
Identify the gaps
Once you’ve identified core information it’s easier to spot the gaps in your content - blogs, service packages or products. Think about frequently asked questions, core information and what people need to know to take a (paid) action in your business.
Decide what to do with your content
Right! Now it’s time to do some weeding. For each piece of content decide what you’re going to do with it- Leave it as it is
- Rewrite it
- Expand or combine it with another piece of content
- Refresh and update it
- Delete it.
Put in place a plan to optimise content and fill in the gaps
Make time in your diary to prioritise which content to optimise first so your action plan actually gets actioned. As you check each piece of content, double check- Check SEO structured headings, meta tags
- Update call to actions
- Add a video or images
- Link to other blogs/products/services
Now you can submit the updated content to the URL inspection tool in Google Search console to update Google’s index of your site. This means Google will take notice of the updates more quickly and you’ll start reaping the benefits sooner.
Rinse & repeat quarterly
Keep on top of your content by auditing it every 3-4 months.
Download your copy of the Content Audit Template here.
It’s a totally friendly Google Sheet with a how-to-use video and other resources embedded in it.
Get started with your Content Audit Template today