Content marketing is a crucial strategy for most brands. It’s not only one of the cheaper but also one of the most effective techniques long-term for improving customer engagement, getting found on search engines, and establishing credibility in your field.
One downside of content marketing is that changes take a while to show any meaningful effect. You can pour lots of effort into your content weekly. How do you know if your content is working for you, and if it isn’t, what can you do to improve it?
Creative agencies perfect the art of content auditing as one of the first steps they perform when working with a new business. A content audit is essential in deciding which direction your content creation should take in the future.
Here are our tips for Content Auditing.
What is Content Auditing?
A content audit is a deep analysis of your website content and how it performs. It involves analysing each page, from your homepage all the way to each blog post and product page. This aims to establish where the page ranks on search engines and how each piece of content fits into your strategy.
You can go into a content audit with different objectives. For example, you might already know that you don’t rank highly enough for relevant keywords. The audit’s goal might then be to assess which pieces of content are falling short and how you might introduce more keywords. Other tests in a content audit might include heat maps, on-page conversions, and SERP performance.
What Should You Consider During a Content Audit?
Here are the key criteria you should consider as you look at your content:
- SEO best practices. Is your content meeting SEO guidelines to rank highly? Check for relevant keywords, metadata and meta descriptions, a suitable content length, and your piece’s heading structure. Avoid keyword stuffing and flag down posts guilty of this.
- Is your content up to date? Outdated content negatively impacts your SEO ranking as search engines are getting better at prioritising the most relevant and current information. If you find outdated content, either plan to bring it up to date or move it to the bin.
- Internal and external links. If there are links in your content, do they still function? Do they point toward the most relevant articles and content on your website? Your content strategy should place essential sites like your home page and product page at the centre of a web of links.
- Duplicate content. Root out duplicate content. Search Engines will punish you for having several similar and irrelevant pages on your sitemap. Streamline accordingly.
- Content relevance. Does every piece of content add value to your target audience? Is each piece relevant and answers a question? Does it establish authority in your field? Root out and delete content that strays from what your brand is all about.
- Find the gaps. Identify opportunities for new content and gaps in topics you should discuss.
What Comes Next?
A content audit is usually the first step in establishing a new and improved content strategy. It usually establishes a checklist of tasks that need to be completed. But in some cases, it may also reveal that content is not achieving its objective for your brand.
Working with a creative agency can help take some of the weight off your shoulder where content creation is concerned. ZAK is a creative agency in London that helps innovative brands take their content one step further. Get in touch today for help with your next content audit and for our expert insight into how to improve your content marketing strategy.
