How to Conduct a Content Audit in 2025 (With Tips from Content and SEO Specialists)

It’s not enough to create content. You need to make sure that what you make performs well. This is where content audits come into play.

As a content marketer, I rely on content audits to track content performance, understand what needs improvement, and use analytics to inform future campaigns.

In this post, I’ll talk about how you can conduct a content audit for your own business and review high-quality tools to help you streamline the process.

I also picked up helpful tips from SEO and content experts, which I’ve included throughout the article.

Continue reading or use one of the links below to go to the section you are looking for.

Table of contents

What is a content audit?

A content audit describes the process of collecting and analyzing assets on a website, such as: B. Landing pages or blog posts. Content audits take inventory of a website and identify what content needs to be created, updated, rewritten, or deleted.

Objectives of the content review

Conducting a content audit for your website can increase your traffic and improve your readers’ experience.

First, content audits help you identify the areas of your website that are not properly optimized for search engine rankings. For example, you can add meta descriptions to your blog posts as part of your current strategy. If this hasn’t always been the case, a content audit will help you figure out which posts need updating.

Content audits also help you find new SEO opportunities for your website. For example, did you know that adding keywords to your website headings gives search engines more clues about what your webpage is about?

When search engines have as much knowledge as possible about your website’s content, they can more accurately suggest your web pages to browsers.

Conducting an audit gives you the opportunity to update your website content to improve readers’ understanding of your website. For example, you may not know that the links on one of your product pages are broken, but a content audit reminds you to update those links.

Below I will discuss some additional benefits.

Benefits of content audits

Your content audit is designed to help you keep your content fresh, improve the rank of your web pages, and make the website you present to readers easy to navigate and error-free. Additionally, in my experience, content audits are:

• Provide data-driven insights into how your content is performing, helping you make informed decisions based on factual information, not just assumptions.
• Identify areas for repurposing or updating content where the number is lower than desired.
• Highlight top-performing content to use in marketing materials.
• Learn more about what your audience likes and dislikes.
• Content curation becomes easier when you understand what you offer.

To ensure your website content audit is valuable, give yourself enough time to complete it. I’ve put together a step-by-step guide to help you through the process.

How to perform a content audit

Each audit should be tailored to the needs of the organization, and I believe the following steps can help you create a customized process to achieve your content goals.

1. Think about your goals.

First I would think about what you want to achieve. Having your goals in mind will help you know how to categorize your audit later.

For example, if my goal is to increase brand awareness, I might review content with the goal of increasing brand keywords.

Other goals to consider might include figuring out which pages need SEO optimization or finding the best-performing website content to place on your homepage or in your email newsletters.

Ultimately, a content audit identifies engaging content for your audience. It can also contain information about SEO and conversion rates. This process will help you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your content and workflow.

Aligning with company goals ensures your content audit is useful for tracking and updating your strategy with improved tactics. With that complete, it’s time to put together your content.

2. Collect your content and create an inventory.

What content will you review? Content reviews can include:

• Blog posts.
• Landing pages.
• Product descriptions.
• Video media.
• Online publications.

Decide what content you want to review and collect the backlog of that content. When you summarize your content in an organized table, you create a content inventory. This makes it easier to track changes and goals for your content.

First, I would collect URLs and other site information for the web pages I selected to review. Page details I might want to collect to begin the audit include:

• Page title.
• Content type.
• Content format.
• Word count.
• Last modified date.
• Linked CTAs.

A Content review template can help you quickly put together a content inventory to begin your exam. There are also online tools to help you collect this data, such as: SEMrush, Screaming frogAnd HubSpot.

Pro tip: Some tools provide this information based on your sitemap. A sitemap is a file that contains all the information on your website. You can usually create your sitemap online for free. For more information, see this sitemaps guide.

3. Categorize your content.

After collecting the content, I would categorize it in a table. Tracking every metric for every piece of content can quickly become overwhelming. So base the categories you pursue for your audit on your goals.

Think of categories that provide useful insights from different content. For example, an SEO audit focuses on metrics like keywords, page speed, and backlinks. However, if I’m doing a content conversion audit, I might want to focus on traffic, click-through rate, and different types of conversions.

Some online tools also include metrics in the audit data. Tools like Google Analytics can help pull this data. Metrics can add value and context to your analysis.

Some online tools can categorize the information for you, but it’s often helpful to do this yourself. Adding relevant categories helps you stay organized so your content review meets your needs.

In my opinion, it can be tempting to add and remove categories as you go along, but doing so may end up with more data than you can analyze. It’s also easy to start analyzing data before you finish categorizing.

But these habits can also make the process more complex and time-consuming. They can also lead to hasty and incorrect analysis. If you notice interesting or surprising data, make a quick note, but continue categorizing before you begin analyzing.

In this step, your goal is to populate a table with the data categories you need to test your content against a specific goal.

Pro tip: Angele ChevalierSEO and content strategist CharlieHR provides a recommendation to prevent spreadsheet overload. (Quick note: This step combines both categorization and analysis of data.)

“I use visualization tools like Miro to make content audits much easier, especially when it comes to identifying content gaps,” says Chevalier.

Chevalier first organizes each piece of content into a table and ensures it is assigned to the right funnel stage, topic cluster, and website location. All key figures remain on the sheet.

From there, she pulls out each page with its criteria and assigns them visually. Once pages are grouped by topic, it’s much easier to see gaps and identify which parts of the funnel need to be filled.

“It may sound time-consuming, but it’s far more effective and creative than staring at spreadsheets all day. Plus, you can approach it in batches to keep it manageable and avoid the repetitive aspects,” says Chevalier.

4. Analyze your data.

Now is the time to look critically at your data. This is the step that gives you a good overview of the health of your content. When analyzing your data, you should consider the following:

• Missing Content – ​​What is your audience interested in that you haven’t covered?
• Poor-performing content – ​​What content isn’t driving the numbers you want?
• Outdated content – ​​If you have old content, can you update or revise it for optimization?
• Top Content – ​​Content that performed extremely well.
• Word Count – Is there a sweet spot for this? Word count?

Organize the results of this analysis in the table. One way to do this is to assign different colors based on what you are analyzing. Then highlight the rows with those colors so you have an idea of ​​what category it is. This will help you identify which content is taking up the majority of your content library.

It’s also a good idea to examine your results for patterns, trends, and relationships that may be difficult to spot when looking at standard reports. For example:

• Are there any outlier contributions that are performing beyond expectations?
• Are there new topics that are receiving more attention than a few months ago?
• Have organic backlinks increased for specific content?

This information can help you identify some of the happy accidents that impact your content performance. You can use this data to incorporate these ideas into your content strategy and tactics.

Pro tip: Georgia TanCo-Founder and Head of Search Switch Key Digital recommends another aspect to consider. ““Analyze user behavior to gain valuable insights into how users interact with your content and identify areas where your content falls short,” says Tan.

Tan said tools like heatmaps and user session recordings can reveal areas where users are dropping off, spending little time or showing signs of confusion.

You can then use this data to identify content that users regularly ignore or abandon, content that users have little engagement with, or that has the potential to hold their attention for longer.

“Use user behavior data to refine your content strategy by identifying opportunities to improve content structure, visual appeal, and relevance of the information presented,” says Tan.

5. Create action items.

In this step, you will complete and clean up your audit. Based on the analysis, you now know what to focus on and can move forward from there. Think about the posts you want to delete, update, rewrite, or restructure.

To organize these action items, I would add a final column to the table – one that’s at the front so you can keep track of them. This column tells you what action should be taken for a specific URL. For example, will you keep, update, delete, or rewrite this blog post?

If you plan to prioritize this review or set a schedule, now is the time to include it. Some organizations use editorial calendars, while others take a more casual approach.

To create a priority schedule that best suits your content review, think back to your original goals and rank the items you want to complete first.

Keep this list of action items in mind. As a result, your next content audit will show clear progress toward your goals based on the data you found during your audit.

Content review template

You don’t have to go through an SEO or content audit process without a compass – there are plenty of templates to guide you if you’re not sure where to start.

To show you how a template can speed up the process, check out HubSpot’s kit How to conduct an SEO audit. It’s a nine-step template that guides you through the process of an SEO audit – with dedicated sections on content and on-page SEO. The best part? It’s completely free.

Using sections from the kit above as reference, I put together a content review template that makes it easy to understand what details to look for and fill out. You can add or delete sections at any time depending on your or organizational needs.

First, open a spreadsheet program and follow the instructions.

Page type

In the first column I specify the page type for each page I’m checking. It works for many page types, like a homepage, a landing page, a blog post, or even a form page.

URL

Then I enter the URL.

Canonical tags

Next, I would note any canonical tags the site may have. Remember that you can find canonical tags in your page’s source code.

pagination

After that, I would note whether the page is part of a page sequence to ensure that the code for sequencing is formatted correctly.

Page title

Next I will provide some details about the copy of the page. For example the page title. For example, if I were to include a similar blog post in the audit, I would include “How to Conduct an SEO Content Audit” in this section.

This section later helps me to check if I have the primary keyword in the page title, which increases the SERP rank.

Page purpose

In this section I define the goal of each page.

Therefore, for this blog post, I would define the purpose of this post in a short and descriptive sentence. For example: “Educate readers on how to conduct a content review.”

Focus keywords

Then I would write down the focus keywords for that page. My keywords for this post would be something like “on-page SEO” and “content audits”.

Headlines

After that, I would note the headlines or title tags on your page. A good rule of thumb is to ensure at least one keyword appears in an H2 to improve rankings.

Meta descriptions

Here I would pay attention to whether the page has a meta description and what it is.

Pro tip: Here is a guide to writing meta descriptions.

Pictures

Once I have the headings and meta description outlined, I focus on the images. I will provide the filename of the images and note the alternative text.

Pro tip: Alt text tells Google what your image is about. So if your images don’t have one, this is a good reminder to add them.

Internal and outbound links

Next I will focus on links: internal, outbound/external. I would add the link URL and anchor text into the table. Note: The image above does not show anchor text, but you can add it in brackets next to the link.

Pro tip: Later in the optimization process, remove broken internal links and ensure your page contains at least three relevant links. Remember that internal links help you drive traffic to other pages on your website.

Page speed

Following link optimization, I would consider page speed. If the page takes longer than two seconds to load, it may not capture the reader’s attention.

Social sharing

Next, I would note whether the page is available for sharing on social media.

Contents

I would also review the content of the page, paying particular attention to the length of your text and where and how keywords are used. This is also a way to check for duplicate or similar content.

Mobile friendly

Finally, I would review the site on mobile devices to improve website accessibility.

Once you’ve entered these details into your template, you’ll get a clear picture of what you can do to optimize your page. As you add more pages to the template, you may notice recurring problems or gaps in your content strategy.

For example, the Images section may show that multiple posts are missing images and alt text. For text with alt text, the text may not be optimized for some focus keywords.

This content audit data can help you create a data-driven foundation for strategy updates and recommendations.

Content review checklist

You can use a content audit checklist to ensure that you have checked the correct steps when performing a content audit. I don’t want to realize in the middle of a test that I missed a crucial step and then have to back out. A checklist helps to prevent this.

Here’s a quick and easy content audit checklist to help you make sure you’re on the right track.

Pro tip: Lisa KubatzkiSenior SEO Content Manager for the DACH market at GetResponse, advises: “Don’t give up on content with low SEO value so quickly. This means content with little to no organic traffic or low rankings,” says Kubatzki.

Instead of simply deleting them, think about how you can reuse them.

“Is this content really good quality? Use it for a PR campaign or try to give it a social media push. Could it be improved? Update the information, try a new format or rewrite it, and look at the topic from a new perspective,” emphasizes Kubatzki.

Now I’ll go over some content audit tools that you can use to further automate your content audit process.

Content audit tools

1. Screaming frog
2. Ahrefs
3. SEMrush
4. Google Search Console
5. Google Analytics
6. WooRank
7. Google Sheets

While choosing a content auditing tool is not a requirement, it can help you with your process. Instead of manually collecting URLs, the tool can automatically summarize the content you’re looking for and show you metrics.

However, I believe that the biggest advantage of content audit tools is that they are fast and help you save a lot of time.

SEO tools

1. Screaming frog

Price: First 500 links free, unlimited for $259/year.

Screaming Frog is a website crawler. It collects URLs from your sitemap and creates an SEO audit list for you. If you have a smaller website, Screaming Frog can check up to 500 URLs for free.

The Screaming Frog desktop website is great because it provides a lot of analysis about your website and categorizes it for you.

Pro tip: Emina Demiri WatsonHead of Digital Marketing Vixen Digital talks about a visualization tool on the platform.

“Screaming Frog’s force-directed crawl charts coupled with Google Search Console API data are a brilliant visual way to support your content audits. By scaling nodes based on clicks, you can easily identify top-performing pages (based on clicks) and identify those that need attention,” says Demiri-Watson.

2. Ahrefs

Price: Pricing for this tool starts at $129/month and there are Lite, Standard, Advanced, and Enterprise plans.

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Ahrefs makes it easy to track your SEO website performance. It also offers powerful tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, and backlink tracking.

This useful audit tool allows you to export specific reports or track URLs, SEO performance or keyword groups.

3. SEMrush

Price: Free trial then pricing starts at $139.95/month.

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In just a few steps, SEMrush users can get a meaningful site audit. When you enter the domain you want, you will receive a customized report that shows you where you can improve your website.

SEMrush’s features also include keyword research, content gaps, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and social media analytics.

4. Google Search Console

Price: Free

This tool makes it easy to track and analyze your website and search data. You can manually confirm that every page on your site is indexed and track URLs to get useful data. The mobile usability features are also helpful in a content audit. You can also connect this tool with Google Analytics for further SEO insights.

Pro tip: Learn more about using Google Search Console in this useful post.

5. Google Analytics

Price: Free, with paid premium options.

Google Analytics doesn’t give you a traditional audit, but it does provide good information to help you formulate your audit. This way you know who is visiting your website and from where. You also get an overview of the behavior of your visitors.

Google will discontinue Universal Analytics in 2023. The new version called Google Analytics 4 (GA4) uses data to identify (and even help predict) user behavior and give you a clearer picture of your buyer journey.

Pro tip: Another free Google tool, PageSpeed ​​Insightsis a great way to track page speed on mobile and desktop devices.

6. WooRank

Price: Pricing for this tool starts at $19.99/month and there are Lite, Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans.

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WooRank offers several SEO and content auditing features that can help you analyze your website and develop future actions. This includes website crawling, keyword tracking, website scoring and competitor analysis.

Content organization tools

7. Google Sheets

Price: Free

If you’re unfamiliar with spreadsheets, this useful online tool will make organizing your content review easier. This tool can help you:

• Connect different data points from your content audit
• Let team members collaborate and comment on data
• Provides formulas and other tools for updating critical metrics

If you’re not sure how to get the most out of this tool, this guide to Google Sheets can get you started.

Pro tip: Looking for more useful tools? This list of content marketing tools can help you organize and improve your content.

Another great resource to try is HubSpot Content marketing planning kit This includes eight templates such as customer segmentation, content mapping, content marketing calendar and SEO planning, among others.

How to Conduct a Content Audit That Makes an Impact

Working on this article taught me the importance of goal setting and systematic planning when conducting a content audit. And I hope this post has equipped you with the knowledge you need to perform such a test.

I discussed how to conduct content audits, tools to speed up the process, and a template to guide you. You’ll be fully prepared to use these audits in your organization for better content strategies and results.

Try it out and have fun auditing!