Why Your Business Should Consider Doing Regular Content Audits

There is no doubt that regularly publishing quality and valuable content is beneficial for both the users and the business, but many organizations forget to go back, check, and update content assets that may be underperforming.

Doing an audit every once in a while is a good practice. If you have a big website with a huge amount of content, then this best practice should be done every year or even every six months.

The Benefits of a Content Audit

Remove Low-Quality Pages

With a content audit you get a better idea of how each of your content is performing. Consequently, you can start removing pages that fail to generate traffic. Consider this as a pruning process, so the quality of your overall website improves.

This is in line with Google’s statement that having many low-value-add URLs can negatively affect a site’s crawling and indexing. Pruning unnecessary content is one of the top things you should consider at to improve the “reputation” of your website in front of search engine crawlers.

You don’t always have to remove low-quality pages from the website. Alternatively, you can update the information or improve the content, enabling it to add more value to your website.

Understanding your Existing Content

If you have a website that is getting bigger every month, with multiple articles a day, it’s easy to lose sight of content that has been already published.

An audit will give you a clear picture of your content:

• It reminds you of topics already covered
• Identifying redundancies and duplicates
• Determine better internal linking opportunities between content
• Spot well-performing
• Focus on filling content gaps

Identify Outdated Content

Information, studies and numbers constantly change and it’s very quick before content can become outdated. This is especially true when you publish news or work in an industry that is rapidly evolving like technology. You should consider regular audits to find information that has become obsolete or outdated. If you’re undergoing a major directional shift as a business, you also need to keep product information updated on all your pages.

Sometimes it may be easier to remove outdated pages, but you also have the alternative to re-purpose your content. You can repurpose it for other media or platforms without starting from scratch with new content.

Maintain Consistency in Messaging

Consistent messaging is essential in maintaining your brand. People start trusting and building a connection with the brand they have an affinity for, and consistent messaging is a critical part in achieving this.

With a content audit, you can ensure that your message stays consistent across all communication channels and stay within your brand style and image.

In addition to that, an audit will tell you which content may be outside your brand style. Use that data to guide your content creation taking into account the consistency in style and voice.