How to Perform an SEO Content Audit

An SEO content audit lists every page on your website. Then it pulls the numbers for each one. Something gets decided about every row.

That is the method. It is a sound one. Which pages to pull. What to measure. How often to run it. None of that gets repeated here.

This page is about one property of the finished list. It explains why so many audits get run then never executed.

Every Other Audit in SEO Looks for Something That Changed

Think about what a technical audit turns up.

A redirect pointing at a page that no longer exists. Then a certificate nobody renewed. Load times that crept up after somebody added a script.

Every one has a before. Your website sat in one state. Then something happened.

So a technical audit compares your site against the way it used to work. That shape runs through this trade. Rankings that slipped. Traffic that fell away in one month.

Something moved. You go looking for what.

A Content Audit Finds Almost Nothing That Changed

Now read what a content audit turns up.

A thin page. One aimed at a phrase nobody searches. Two pages answering the same question. An article giving nobody a reason to link to it.

Put a date on each fault. Nearly every one was true the morning that page went live.

The thin page was thin on day one. Frequently nobody searched that phrase in 2021 either. Those two pages have overlapped since the second one got published. Nothing broke.

So a content audit is not really finding faults in a website. Rather it is finding faults in a set of decisions.

Nothing in the Format Separates the Two

Here is where it gets expensive.

Both kinds arrive in one document. Same spreadsheet, same columns, same wording in the recommendation field. A row reading update, price out of date sits above one reading remove, page never had an audience.

One of those describes something that happened to your website. Meanwhile the other describes something somebody chose.

Nothing about the export tells them apart. Some templates carry a reason column. Read what goes into it. Thin content. Outdated information. A duplicate. Every one names the fault rather than the day it started.

So they get read as one list, then argued about as one list.

Which Is Why the Action List Stalls

Watch what happens to each row.

Somebody reads the technical finding, then fixes the redirect. Nobody debates it. Nothing about that fault points at a decision. The fix has a right answer.

Then somebody reads the row saying a page should be removed. That row has an author. Often the author still works there. Sometimes it is the person reading the audit.

A broken redirect gives nobody anything to argue with. Meanwhile plenty of people argue with a page that should not exist.

That is no failure of nerve. It is what happens when a maintenance document makes claims about judgment.

Somebody Will Say Content Decays as Well

It does. Plenty of content faults are genuine changes. They belong in the audit.

A price that went out of date. Then a screenshot of an interface nobody has seen for years. One page that ranked for two years, then stopped.

Fair enough. Only notice what you did to reach that objection. You sorted the list. Some rows record something that happened after publication. Others record something true from the start.

Two kinds of finding. One column. Two different people at the end of them.

Somebody Will Say an Audit Is Not About Blame

Quite right. Hardly anybody runs one to find out who erred.

Only the audit does not have to be about blame for the difficulty to turn up. It turns up in who has to say yes. Fixing a redirect needs a developer with an afternoon. Removing a page needs whoever decided it should exist.

One of those is a task. Rather the other is a conversation.

Sort the Rows by When the Fault Started

The fix costs nothing and needs no software.

Take the action list. Put one question to every row. Did something change after this page went up, or was it always like this?

Rows in the first pile are maintenance. Send them out this week. They carry right answers, and nobody needs persuading.

Rows in the second pile are a different job. Group them, then take them to one conversation rather than across a quarter. Hardly anybody enjoys defending eleven decisions on eleven separate Tuesdays.

The Second Pile Describes How Your Pages Get Commissioned

Here is the part a technical audit never hands you.

Read the second pile on its own. Not as a list of pages. Instead as a record of what your business writes when nobody is watching.

Thin pages often mean somebody was filling a slot on a schedule. Pages aimed at phrases nobody types tend to mean the subject got chosen inside the building. Two on one question mean nobody checked what existed.

Every one is a fact about your process rather than about a page. Fix the pages and you have tidied a website. Read the pattern instead and you stop producing the second pile.

That reading is free. Nothing else in your SEO reporting hands it to you.

Where the Content Audit Argument Stops

None of this says skip the audit. Run it. The standard method works, and the pages it turns up are worth attention.

Nor does it say the second pile is anybody’s fault. A page written in 2019 by somebody doing their best is no scandal.

One case sits outside all of it. Sometimes nothing on your page got worse and the answers around it got better instead, a separate question answered elsewhere here.

Nothing on this page is a claim about how Google weighs any of it, either. Nobody outside the company can settle that.

Read Your Own Action List

Open the last content audit somebody ran on your website. Go to the recommendations.

Then put the one question to each line. Did something change, or was it always like this?

Should nearly every row turn out to be a change, you hold a maintenance list. It will get done, since nothing in it needs an argument first.

Should nearly every row be a decision instead, you now know why last year’s audit still sits in a folder. Nothing was wrong with it. The list simply needed a different room.

No statistic about other people’s websites settles which of those you are holding. Yours is one file away.

SEO Work for Calgary Businesses

SEO Company To-The-TOP! has been doing this work in Calgary since 2007. A content audit somebody ran and nobody executed turns up at To-The-TOP! often enough.

The first useful hour often goes on that sorting. What is maintenance, then what is a conversation with whoever commissions the writing. The work after that is ordinary search engine optimization. Mostly keyword research.

No guarantees. Positions tend to move over three to six months. The To-The-TOP! portfolio shows the keywords this work has reached, and a Google Ads campaign can carry the early months. Building an SEO competitive analysis PDF is often the exact sorting exercise that starts this work. Traffic potential decides which pages in an audit are worth the writer’s time at all. The basics of video marketing in SEO often surface once the audit moves past the writing itself. The basics of skyscraper technique in SEO come up whenever old content needs a genuine rewrite. The detail on RSS feed setup rarely changes the audit’s outcome, but it still gets checked.

Common Questions About an SEO Content Audit

How often should an SEO content audit be run?

A yearly run suits most small websites. Anything publishing weekly can justify twice. More often rarely turns up anything new.

Should thin pages be deleted or rewritten?

That depends on whether anybody wanted the subject. A thin page on a question your customers ask is worth rewriting. One on a subject nobody searches was a decision rather than a fault.

Does removing pages help SEO?

Sometimes. What a page currently earns matters more than how it reads. Plenty of quiet pages still bring somebody in. That has a fuller answer elsewhere here.

Can a content audit be done with free tools?

Yes. Your analytics and Search Console hold most of what an audit needs. Paid tools save time on the pulling rather than the deciding.

Who should run the content audit?

Whoever runs it matters less than who receives it. Maintenance rows go to anybody able to edit the site. The second pile needs somebody able to approve removing paid-for work.