Content optimization does not only revolve around continually creating new content, SEO, and the likes. You also need to optimize the existing ones and make sure that they are yielding desirable results.
One way of doing this is through content auditing. This process varies from one creator to another. Generally speaking, a content audit is about studying the quality and performance of your content.
In this process, you’ll need to deduce your content’s performance from the time it was published to date. Today, I will show you nine reasons why you need to perform regular content audits:
- Monitor Existing Content
- Arrive at the Right Content Topics
- Make Space for New Articles
- Find Possible Modifications
- Come Up with New Content Ideas
- Determine Strengths and Weaknesses
- Optimize Existing Strategies
- Have a Clearer Sight of Goals
- Key to Improving General Site Quality
By the end of this tutorial, you will become more motivated to do this exercise as often as your business requires.
1. Monitor Existing Content
In most cases, when a page shows up as an error page or if links appear to be broken over time, you won’t be notified. This error usually happens because of mistakes in HTML codes or your sources were taken down.
The links will be left in that condition without you knowing the situation. This lack of knowledge, however, can be avoided if you perform content audits regularly.
With content audits, you will have the chance to conduct content checks routinely. These checks will make it more efficient for you to look out for error pages, broken links, or even minor mistakes in typography, grammar, design, unavailable media, and the likes.
2. Arrive at the Right Content Topics
You can also get from content auditing a conclusion regarding the best topics to talk about in your posts. Similarly, you can also achieve this by looking at the statistical reports.
To be specific, here are the factors that you should keep an eye on:
- Traffic/Number of Visitors
- Page Views
- Retention Rate
- Number of Engagements
- Visitors’ Average Time on Site
Take note of the pages that have performed well. These pages will show the topics that your audience is most interested in reading.
Keep in mind that to arrive at more accurate statistics, make sure you are looking at the same period. For example, if you view the monthly visitor count, consider other factors according to their monthly rates.
3. Make Space for New Articles
Still, on the analytics side of content auditing, if you happen to stumble on content with a really low number of visits, this means that it isn’t as valuable to the audience as the others you published.
Or perhaps it is not easily discoverable because there are articles that are better than yours.
You can promote the article or page to boost its status. But it will take time, effort, and at some point, money.
Another option is to delete it, but I would not recommend it. The better thing to do is use the skyscraper technique—revise the article and make it better than the top three articles on the same topics.
4. Find Possible Modifications
Moving on, another thing that you can take advantage of is the opportunity to modify and update existing content.
Particularly, you can change information, whether it was updated or revised details. This revision can avoid misinformation and loss of credibility on your part. Moreover, you can also add entirely new data to optimize your content’s quality further.
You can also add more high-value keywords if you think that specific content statistics can be better. You should, however, refrain from merely adding phrases to increase the number of keywords.
Search engines will tag these phrases as keyword stuffing and may mark your page as spam. This writing will need effort because you need to research to arrive at possible add-ons.
5. Come Up with New Content Ideas
This next benefit that we will talk about is also content-related.
As you list content that you have already made, there is a high possibility of coming up with new topics along the process. These new topics may arise from branching subjects, and unanswered questions from the past content, or a completely new idea that you may have missed in your niche.
New content also does not necessarily mean a new topic. This content can be a recycled one but written with a twist or a unique point of view. This way, you can provide a new content update with a fresh approach but with the same topic.
6. Determine Strengths and Weaknesses
I previously stated that in content auditing, you need to check each of the content’s analytics. That one step can already lead you to know your strengths and weaknesses regarding content creation.
To do this, here are the things that you should do:
- Separate high-performing content from those with undesirable results
- Determine similarities between the high-performing content. You can point out factors like the marketing strategy used, SEO methods, topic, length, and even the third-party applications that you may have used.
The factors that you will arrive at are the elements that possibly affected your content’s quality, making it stand out above others. Consequently, you will also know why your other content has poor performance if you look at the same criteria.
7. Optimize Existing Strategies
This next advantage of content auditing is related to the previous one.
This explanation shows how; when you find out the strategies that work for you and which don’t, it will be easier for you to know which to optimize and how. This knowledge is because you already know where to focus.
This focus will also help you eliminate those measures that are not that helpful, which can help your budget.
8. Have a Clearer Sight of Goals
After the auditing process, you will be able to arrive at the number of available content you currently have, their performance, and how they affect your site. Now, the good thing about this is that you will know the things you need to improve based on this.
For example, if you think you lack traffic on most of your web pages, you should add traffic to your goals. If you are low on engagements, then focus on them.
Setting your goals, along with a time period of when you want to reach them, can motivate you better and push you into exerting the best effort you can.
9. Key to Improving General Site Quality
The reason why you need to perform regular content audits is the website itself. The results you will gather after content auditing are significant factors in improving your site’s overall quality.
As you must know, your content plays a big part in your website’s success and growth. Considering this fact, it just makes sense that you are also optimizing your site by optimizing your content and it’s quality.
The said process will also help you monitor and maintain your site’s needs and requirements for a more flawless user experience.
Summary: why you need to perform regular content audits
To sum it up, content audits may be a lengthy process, but it will surely bring you to critical perspectives. This vital process of further improving your site’s status will ensure that you are on top of your game.
To further emphasize its importance, here is another reason why it is a must; if you use the data correctly, it can also help you make decisions for your platform in the future.
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