An “audit” sounds scary, but it’s something that has to be done often.
You need to audit your finances, your relationships, your health, your car’s condition – and especially your blog content.
A web copy audit means you will eliminate the guesswork from your blogging and fine-tune your content strategy.
When you run a content audit you make sure you avoid spending too much on copywriting, ads, and SEO promotion, because effective content saves money.
How often to audit content?
The general rule is to audit your website’s content at least twice a year.
Regular audit of past content is equally important as planning and research of future topics.
However, if anything mentioned below happens – you need to re-evaluate your content once again.
we’ve put it together after helping hundreds of blogs grow with our content services.
Here is the list of signs it’s time for a website content audit:
1) You keep blogging for over 3 months but the traffic does not grow
SEO is a long game and getting organic traffic takes at least several months of consistent content build up.
However, if you have published 15+ pieces of content over three months and you see no changes in traffic stats – something’s up.
Blogging without effect is the #1 sign you need a content audit.
2) Some of your articles are outdated and you know it
If your blog posts contain outdated info – update them ASAP.
The smartest way to keep your content up-to-date is to publish mostly evergreen content.
If the outdated articles can not be converted to evergreen content (e.g. they are news articles) – you need to at least add updates.
Also consider inserting internal links to other pieces you need to promote, using the outdated articles for extra link power.
3) You’ve implemented the initial content plan
If you’ve created or bought a content plan, you’ve already avoided the most common blogging mistake.
However, once you’ve implemented the initial content plan, your best move is to evaluate your efforts.
The main reason is not that the content plan was “wrong” – on the other hand, as you blog, more and more content opportunities arise in your Google Search Console analytics.
We’ve been offering content strategy audit and evaluation services exactly for that purpose.
After all, sticking to a rigid and obsolete plan is as bad as having no plan at all.
4) You are changing something about your product line, business model, or general marketing plan
Major changes to the way you want to operate and sell always require you overlook the way you create and promote your content.
Make sure you re-evaluate your customer persona and the way you address it in your content.
If there are old posts on your blog that work against your new purposes – redirect them to new blog posts using the 301 redirect.
5) You’re only publishing SEO content
We advocate to stay away from SEO content, because it’s a label for “low quality content” unfortunately.
If you’ve been blogging just to cover a list of keywords – you’re in for a bad time.
Businesses need to blog to cater to the interests of their customers. A good blog needs to offer value to people.
See the content marketing mistake #4 – “you only blog for SEO” for more details.
If an SEO employee/contractor is in charge of your blogging, it’s time to sit down with someone business-minded and audit your content plan. Do your customers fit into this plan? Are their pains addressed?
Anything else to know it’s time to run a content audit?
Sure, there are a lot of other triggers that some companies use to start blog content audit.
Some of the metrics that can signal your content is underperforming are
- bounce rate
- time on site
- ad clicks
- amount of leads
- pages per session
- amount of social shares
- amount of inbound links
and much more. Those are all advanced metrics, and if you’re tracking them, chances are you will work to fix the situation.
However, it’s extremely important you pay attention to the big picture first and foremost.
If you notice anything we mentioned applies to you and your website – sign up for a content strategy audit with us!
You are alsolutely right . Your ideas are really awesome. An audit is must for business blog.