Website content audit - quick guide

The audit should also provide information about the lack of content that is critical for a site in a specific business niche, which directly leads to a lack of requests from a specific audience.

What should a website content audit include?

In general, a comprehensive website content audit covers a large amount of information, which can take a significant amount of time.

This note is designated as a quick guide, so it will cover only the most important parts of such an audit.

1. Get a Website Content Checker

You don't have to spend days manually cataloging each subpage. There is a reliable site content audit control software that will do most of the dirty and tedious work for you, such as Screaming Frog.

The free version allows you to scan 500 subpages. If your site has more of them, you will be forced to purchase the premium version.

At first glance, the tool is easy to use. You enter your domain address and click "start".

When Screaming Frog finishes its work, you get valuable results that you can export to a spreadsheet and start sorting and checking data.

Combining the strengths of Screaming Frog and Google Analytics is worth it. The result of this combination can be very interesting information, which is enough to determine if the content on your site resonates with the right audience, etc.

2. Match your audience

Create a detailed recipient profile. Here list all the characteristics that your client has:

• age
• profession
• gender
• interests
• income
• marital status
• education, etc. d.

The more detailed the client profile is, the better you will be able to choose the content of the site that will convert.

Now put yourself in their shoes and think about what your audience really needs:

• Blog posts that solve their problem.
• News from the world of a certain business niche.
• Seminars.
• Guides on how to do things.
• Online solutions like calculator, price list based on personal preference, etc.

3. Check the titles and meta descriptions of each subpage

This is where the real site content audit begins. Thanks to Screaming Frog and Google Analytics, you now have a list of all subpages and detailed data about them, such as the number of visits in the last year.

Now think about all the subpage titles and meta descriptions.

Can a potential client quickly determine that your page contains the information they need?

The content of your site should contain a promise that will attract users.

Also analyze the narrative of the titles, meta descriptions, and the site content itself.

Aren't they too propagandistic in tone?

Is the promise too superficial and general?

Pay special attention to pages dedicated to your services or products. Make sure their description clearly states their benefits, functions, and applications. Don't forget about the relevant CTA (call to action) and its positioning on the site.

4 Check the functionality of the website and its links

Report from Screaming Frog includes the number of pages returning server response codes.

• Check all links that return 404 code and fix each one.
• If your site contains any statistics, check that they are up to date.
• Are phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses up to date?
• After staff turnover, is there any information about an employee who was fired or left a long time ago? Have their positions and descriptions been updated?

Such simple omissions can cost you dearly, especially if your site is very complex.

Blog posts worth mentioning here. Any content audit of your site should reveal whether a particular blog post is:

• too short
• outdated
• whether to add new information
• which post should be improved so that it always was the so-called evergreen
• is it worth adding a link to this entry, for example, from research
• whether the links in the entry are relevant and necessary, etc.

5. Write down the business goal of each subpage and its content

It's not enough to just write something on the blog, the content must be useful and provide some value to the audience.

Remember that when working with a copywriter, there should be an agreement that posts will be optimized for SEO so that they are convenient for both search engines and users.

For example, if your site sells tours abroad, blog posts about how many residents are in a particular city will not give your audience much informational value.

People looking for tours, first of all, want to know what to see in a particular city, what places to visit, how much museums cost, and so on. Any such message will be properly received by the reader, leading them to make a valuable decision for your business.

6. Find out who is actually reading your content

Again, Google Analytics is your biggest friend, namely the Recipients + Everyone section below.

• Do any of the characteristics of your real readers match the information you wrote out earlier in your client profile?
• What is the bounce rate?
• How long does the average reader spend on the site?

A lot of important information can be gleaned from this subsection. To avoid repetition, I refer you to our Google Analytics category, where you will find dozens of texts.

The most important part of this analysis will be what keywords are driving users to your site.

You won't find this information in Google Analytics.

Visit your Google Search Console profile.

If your site has been running for some time, then in the Search Traffic -> Search Analytics section you will find an extensive database of keywords that are entered into the search engine and directed specifically to your domain.

Again, Google Analytics is your biggest friend, namely the "Recipients + All" section below

The final part of the audit should show the possibilities of adding new content to the site and the absence of them.

Here are some of them:

• No Google map.
• There is no physical address information.
• Lack of complete contact information.
• For online stores - no terms and conditions, size charts, product descriptions, etc.

If we are talking about the possibilities of expanding the site through content, then first of all we should think about the blog and those posts that are most missing, for example, tutorials, guides, news, updates, etc.

Suppose an audit of the site's content showed that your site describes questions in complex language taken from an industry dictionary.

Then you should include an extensive glossary of terms and frequently asked questions in the menu.

What does a site content audit give?

Whether you choose a comprehensive website content audit or a general and superficial one, this will be the first step to understanding what your customers really need.

Creating a general audit does not require many years of experience, but it does require patience, perseverance, attention to detail and the ability to position yourself as an audience. All this is done in order to draw the right conclusions and apply the results of the audit in practice.