How I do Content Audits for All My Sites (6 quick steps)
There’s a formula for growing and optimizing a website. After all, success leaves clues.
If your blog isn’t growing, there’s usually one or more specific reasons for that. And this is good news! It means we have control and can fix the issues — once we identify the cause(s).
One of my favorite ways to do that is through a content audit. So this is my guide on how I review my own blogs and other sites too.
And remember, while a word like “audit” feels boring and official, it’s also a creative act. So put on your artist’s hat.
Now let’s wrap up this chit chat and get to it then! This is how I do a blog content audit.
What is a Content Audit?
A content audit is when you analyze different content assets against brand goals and/or niche benchmarks.
For example, a common content audit I do is a blog content gap analysis, which involves taking stock of all my published articles and looking for gaps where I could further cover a topic for a more comprehensive topical cluster.
Alternatively, I can do a gap analysis of my competitors and look for topics they’ve missed or not covered fully. By publishing on these topics, I can stand out, gain traffic and boost my authority.
Why do a Content Audit?
Improve your branding
Keep your content fresh
Address key problem areas
Rank for more target keywords
Improve your rankings and SEO performance
Cover your niche and key topics more thoroughly
Boost your content quality by updating old articles
How I do Content Audits (6 steps)
1. Get to Know the Website, Brand + Niche
Before diving into a full content audit, I like to get reacquainted with my website topics, branding and mission. Sometimes, I even forget what topics I’ve covered and what my original goals were.
This is a crucial first step (especially if I’m doing a content audit for a client, obviously).
Every website and brand will have a different goal and audience, requiring a slightly different analysis and strategy. So I strive for clarity on these things first:
Do you have a blog?
What is the core niche?
Who are your competitors?
What’s your content strategy?
What are your website/blog goals?
Who is your ideal target audience?
What are your target brand keywords?
What is the most important brand information?
2. Do a Content Inventory
Doing a content inventory is when you take stock of all your current content assets, including images, blog posts, pages, interactive elements (like quizzes) and creative assets (like images or video).
It’s also good to consider how the site is currently structured and built, including its categories and tags, interlinking map, URLs and brand keywords.
The goal is to get a totally comprehensive picture of the current state of a website.
Because to truly get anywhere meaningful, you need to know exactly where you’re starting from.
This creates clarity and direction for what needs to be done.
So, what’s your starting point?
3. Do a Content Gap Analysis
A content gap analysis will give you insights about what content you haven’t covered and/or what topics your competitors haven’t yet. The goal is to, well, close that gap.
This boosts your traffic and authority. And it’s an important part of doing a content audit. Here’s how to do a basic content gap analysis:
Make a list of your keyword rankings. I use Google Search Console, Ahrefs’ Webmasters tool or GA4.
Audit your competitors. Make a list of keywords that your competitor(s) rank for.
Look for gaps and opportunities. What keywords does your competitor rank for that you don’t? Look for opportunities to fill in gaps or improve existing content and rankings.
Stay relevant. Make sure you understand your audience and what makes the most sense for your brand — only go after relevant keywords.
Streamline things with tech. Use a content gap tool like Ahrefs, Semrush, RankingGap or AI to identify gaps and work smarter and faster.
4. Assess
This is the deep analysis phase. During this stage, I’m gathering all of the data and looking at patterns, key takeaways, core issues, easy wins and next steps.
All of the steps above should give you a lot of helpful information to pull from. So now, I try to organize everything into actionable insights.
Again, it’s helpful to use AI during this process to identify patterns and deeper nuances hiding in the data.
For example, try typing this prompt into ChatGPT (or your preferred AI tool):
“I’m doing a content audit and gap analysis for my website. I’m hoping to identify opportunities to improve my content depth and niche authority. My niche is [INSERT NICHE] and my audience is [INSERT AUDIENCE PERSONA]. Here is a list of keywords and topics discovered in my content gap analysis. [PASTE/UPLOAD YOUR LIST] Using this data, what insights, patterns and additional topics can you give me?”
5. Do a Human Review
I think a common mistake is to focus too much on data and AI-driven analysis alone. Because sometimes, there’s an intuitive, human-led aspect to gauging the quality of a website and its content.
And this can be hard to explain or fully capture through data or best practices.
This is where the art of content creation comes in.
So to limit rogue assumptions (about what’s working or what’s not), I like to step away, forget what I’ve learned and then come back with fresh eyes.
Reviewing my website and audit as if I’m looking at things for the first-time — or as if I’m a first-time visitor to the site.
I’m looking for anything that pops out as difficult, exciting and/or confusing. This is more of a gut-feeling — an intuitive sort of review.
Then, I compare this final review (my key takeaways) with my content goals and my audit findings.
6. Create a Content Audit Report
If I’m doing this for a client, I’ll create a content audit report, which organizes all of the information and condenses it into an easy-to-read, actionable document.
If it’s for one of my sites, I’ll usually take note of any major changes in a Google Sheet or a Notion document.
Here are the core things I like to include:
Current SEO and performance data such as traffic and rankings
Key findings including problem areas and opportunities
Next steps and next best actions to take
Projections if recommended actions are taken
Updates made and the date they were made
Notes about what I found and other information that may be helpful
Later ✌️
Content audits are a smart way to identify problem areas, make improvements and improve your ranking and authority.
Luckily, they’re pretty straightforward to do — especially with tools like Ahrefs, Semrush and AI, which can automate key parts of the process.
Just remember to always stay relevant with your audit and opportunity discovery. It’s better to have a low volume search term that’s hyper relevant for your audience and brand rather than a high-volume phrase that’s random and feels jarring for your readers.
So with that, happy auditing!
