Content audit
KON-tent AW-dit
A systematic review of all existing content to evaluate what to keep, update, consolidate, or remove.
A content audit is an inventory and evaluation of every piece of content you have published. You catalog each URL, check its traffic and engagement, assess its accuracy, and decide whether to keep it, update it, merge it with another piece, or delete it.
Most companies have more content than they think. A three-year-old blog with weekly posts has 150+ articles. Some drive traffic. Some are outdated. Some cannibalize each other by targeting the same keywords. A content audit reveals all of this.
The output is an action plan. Update the 20 posts that still get traffic but have stale information. Merge the 5 posts on similar topics into one definitive piece. Delete the 30 posts that get zero traffic and add no value. Redirect the deleted URLs. The result is a leaner, stronger content library.
Examples
A company finds 40% of blog posts get zero organic traffic.
The audit reveals 80 of 200 posts have had no organic visits in the past year. 30 are on outdated topics. 20 target keywords the company no longer cares about. 30 are thin pieces that a competitor's content already outranks.
A content team discovers keyword cannibalization.
Three different blog posts target 'what is developer experience.' Google rotates which one it ranks, and none rank well. The team merges all three into one definitive post and redirects the other two URLs.
A startup prepares for a rebrand.
Before the rebrand launches, the content team audits every page. They update company name references, screenshots, and product descriptions. Posts that reference deprecated features are archived.
In practice
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Frequently asked questions
How often should you do a content audit?
A full audit once a year. Quarterly spot checks on your highest-traffic pages. Whenever you launch a major product change or rebrand. The more content you produce, the more frequently you need to audit.
What metrics matter in a content audit?
Organic traffic, keyword rankings, backlinks, bounce rate, time on page, and conversion rate. But also qualitative factors: is the information still accurate? Does it reflect the current product? Does it align with your current positioning?
Related terms
The plan for creating, publishing, and governing content that achieves specific business goals for a defined audience.
A specific, multi-word search phrase with lower volume but higher intent than broad keywords.
Links between pages on the same website that help users navigate and help search engines understand site structure.
The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query, containing organic results, ads, and rich features.
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