Abhishek Chauhan
The content on your website marks the most important part in making the audience rely on your services. What you put up on the page reflects your credibility quotient largely. Content marketing is not a one-time process as you have to keep it updated and audit for keeping a hold. Updating and repurposing the content is the key way to achieve it.
Introducing content audit
Here is a quick definition for those who do not know what the term ‘content audit’ actually means. It is a systematic process of evaluating and analyzing the content present on your website. It detects the shortcomings of the existing content and also the areas that are working perfectly fine. It is a part of the dynamic content marketing plan that aims a better audience engagement.
Here is a step-by-step process for you if you are clueless about how to audit the website content.
Step 1: Figuring out
Before you start with the audit, you have to acquire a clear perception of your goals. The key answer is what you want to convey through the content and, most importantly, to whom. Figure out your business goals and audience target first, and then step ahead.
- SEO ranking: Improve the SEO rank by understanding the potential of the top-ranking pages. Study other websites to learn what works and what does not. You have to understand it first and then optimize internal linking.
- Conversion rate: Figure out the pages or sites that offer the most intriguing user experience. Understand which content generates the maximum leads to accomplishing the high conversion rate finally. Assess the journey of an online visitor or buyer to understand the most efficient content strategy.
- Engagement: If there is one penultimate point to figure out, it is the audience engagement factor! You have to find which content engages the audience the most. Observe the market very well to comprehend the topics that attract the users. Also, focus on your social media game as it plays a key role.
SEO, user behavior, engagement, and sales metrics combinedly develop the content marketing metrics. Review each section before auditing to avoid missing out on any ground.
Step 2: Creating a list
It is always a good habit to first enlist the content by segregating the types. The auditing happens on distinct contents like blog posts, landing web pages, news materials, and product descriptions. Do not eliminate other types like the tests, quizzes, infographics, and other interactive content present on the page.
- URL collection: First, collect the URL of the web pages that you will analyze. For smaller websites, you can do it by manually making a spreadsheet. But for those having a bigger site, use online tools like SEMrush, Screaming frog, etc. They help you get a sitemap that also eases the search engine to find the structure and important segments of the page.
- Categorization: Once you have finished assembling the URLs, it is time to segment the content. Divide them into distinct categories like product description, buyer’s journey, etc., and then start tracking. It is better to collect data like metadata, meta titles, and others to update all at once.
Step 3: Analyze everything you got
After collecting and tracking them, analyze what they lack and the need for improvement. Look for missing content that may repulse the viewer, underperforming and outdated content, and also the content that performed exceptionally well. Focus on the good and shortcomings.
- Better interpretation: Evaluate the distinct stages of the buyer’s journey and a user’s experience on the page. It will help you to interpret the reasons behind high bounce rate, low session time, etc. Work on page load time and CTA aspects after you get a clear idea.
- Assessing content asset: Eliminating any part of the content can result in your loss! Assess it based on the collected data metrics and figure out what is working and what is lacking. Refine the content to keep the part that needs no further enhancement. It eliminates waste of time and resources as you do not require disturbing anything that functions well for your page.
- Update and delete: Identify the areas for improvement, like the blogs that are not performing well. Try and make it more effective, and if required, delete them. Keeping outdated information on the page is not a good habit. Eliminate the junk and expired content that was a part of old campaigns to refine it well.
Step 4: Time to act
After you have completed the assessing part, it is time to execute. The executing strategy you develop must align with your business goals.
- Execution planning: Prioritizing plays a key part in action planning. Figure out the achievable goals to improve SEO outcome first. After you have covered it, focus on URLs to develop distinct action plans for reuse and rewrites.
- Content as a whole: Shape up the content and its structure with careful attention to detail. Refresh it with the necessary information and enlarge, if required. Recent studies have proved that content with more than three thousand words engages more traffic and amplifies shares. Also, update the CTA depending on audience behavior and enhance conversion rate.
- Media and metadata: After shifting from the textual content, focus on images, videos, and other parts. Add more media but do not over-stuff! It directly enhances the quality of UX. Also, optimize metadata, titles and eliminate the redirects to ensure the best UX. Strategically update every part so that your content and website structure lessens the bounce off rate.
Step 5: Marketing and strategy
Keeping a long-term marketing approach for content strategy is wise. It prevails for a longer time and provides you with a fruitful outcome for an extended period. Make the content more appealing by refining it and updating every aspect that you thought was lagging.
- Reviewing requirements: Review and analyze thoroughly to detect what works and keep it as it is. Only change what you require and get rid of the useless content parts. Adjust and audit the content based on your business goals to accomplish them better.
Summing up the points
A content audit is not a one-day or one-time task. Do it after an interval to keep your website at the top of the game. The key point to take from all these steps is first to figure out, review, and lastly, execute. Follow the step-wise process and do it right!
