An almost incomprehensible amount of data is created daily, and each year, the amount of published data increases staggeringly. In 2022, 7 million blog posts were published every day – that figure has increased to 7.5 million in 2023, reports FirstSiteGuide. WordPress users alone publish around 70 million posts every single month; no easy feat considering that most sites do not even post every single day, with some only publishing new content once a week or a few times a month.
Companies with an active blog section get 97% more links to their websites compared to those without a blog. It’s no surprise that most of the businesses in the luxury sphere opt to include a well-structured blog section on their websites. But with the internet flooded with new and existing content, it becomes evident that some form of content analysis or review needs to occur: enter the content audit.
In this article, Relevance explores what a digital content audit is, how often you need one and the potential benefits.
What is a content audit?
A website content audit is the process of analysing and assessing the content on your website, usually done by a third-party specialist to avoid bias. In short, a content audit takes stock of the existing content on your site, giving you a comprehensive and holistic view of the quality, quantity and performance of that content.
A marketing content audit may examine behavioural trends, organic search visibility, and social engagement. An audit could also shed light on content relevance, accuracy, and readability.
What is the purpose of a content audit?
The final objective of a content audit is to reveal weaknesses in your content, and to re-adapt your content plan based on your findings and your website’s marketing goals. This evaluation of website content helps us better understand what’s working and what’s not, inevitably identifying the factors that are hindering the performance of your content and your site in general. When done correctly, a marketing content audit will also uncover valuable opportunities and potentially highlight previously unknown areas of strength within the foundation of your existing content. An in-depth website content audit will review bounce rates, page views, and time spent on your site. Although these are important metrics to remember, both search engines and users will return to your website time after time because of the content and quality you have to offer them.
What are the benefits of a content audit?
Website content is very much alive and requires regular and ongoing maintenance. Even if your brand is performing well on search engines, there are multiple benefits you can glean from an audit.
- Content to keep
Evergreen content represents the ideal content for writers – it’s what we aspire to. Content that stands the test of time and consistently performs well with search engines and users alike is hard to come by, but a comprehensive digital content audit will identify these pieces of content if they exist on your site. Identifying evergreen content on your site will be beneficial because it could serve as a template for future content ideas. The content you choose to keep will likely be landing pages, high-traffic core content pages and articles, and relevant service pages. While a significant focus of SEO content audits is establishing problem areas in your content marketing strategy, it will also help you choose which content to keep.
- Content to cut
Sometimes, less is more, and content is no exception. Content pruning is the process of removing unwanted content from a website. Many established online businesses have been generating content for years, if not decades, meaning they have an entire archive of blog content and not all of it can perform well or be relevant. As a business evolves and grows, the tone of voice and brand messaging changes, too. By doing a content audit, you can separate the good from the bad, giving you a clear picture of what needs to be pruned from your site’s content. Content that is easily pruned will include articles related to past events, outdated product listings, and old job advertisements. A marketing content audit will also identify duplicate content, pages that are returning 404 error codes, and content generating very little or no traffic – all of which can happily be snipped away.
- Content to calibrate
With increased emphasis on general sustainability, the term ‘content recycling’ should be self-explanatory. It is not always necessary to create brand-new content from scratch when writers can reuse some or all existing content elements to expand that content’s reach. A content audit can identify subject matter that is still relevant but would perform better with new facts or statistics. Recycling content is more than just rewording a blog post—it is about adding value to it by incorporating new information, adding new links and updating the tone of voice to match your present brand. Content optimisation is a valuable process here and can bring new traffic to your website and increase the overall SEO.
- Content cavities
The content audit process not only analyses the information on a website but also brings to light the areas in which the site lacks information – the content gaps. Content cavities are hollow spaces or gaps that exist where they shouldn’t. Your audience might seek valuable information, and you have the potential and authority to share it with them. By identifying content gaps on the website, you may have a better idea of what your audience likes and dislikes. If certain content performs very well with your audience, it is a good indicator that similar topics in a similar format will perform well in the future, too. A blog content audit could let you know that some topics on your website are covered more thoroughly than others, allowing you to spend time on the content clusters that need it most and inevitably presenting a more balanced archive of information.
When to do a content audit?
A content audit may feel like a substantial undertaking, especially for websites with extensive content inventories. That said, a content audit could unveil opportunities that could help regain your competitive edge, improve user engagement, and generate more leads and sales.
As a general rule and guideline, it is recommended to do a content audit every 3-6 months as it allows you to respond and adapt to shifts in users’ behaviour or needs.
There are also instances where a content audit should be non-negotiable. This includes instances when:
- Your website is experiencing a drop in rankings, and you need to improve your website’s SEO
- You are going through a site migration process (migrating dead-weight content is useless)
- Your analytics show a drop in Page views, Time on Page and Bounce/Exit Rate
- You are undertaking a new content strategy
- You have expanded your business to include more services and offerings
How can Relevance help with content audits?
Having a content audit performed on a website or luxury brand is one of the most essential things that can be done to develop a robust website and marketing strategy. By getting in touch with a luxury digital marketing agency like Relevance to conduct a thorough and comprehensive content audit of your site, you are essentially taking the time to fine-tune your website and address the issues that will improve its performance. Our specialists use the best content audit tools to find out how to improve the content on your website and ultimately ensure the online success of your business.