Content audit SEO: how to do a content audit, step by step

Google itself recommends a version of this exercise. In its guidance on helpful content, Google suggests that if your traffic dropped, you consider an audit of the drops you may have experienced: what pages were most impacted, and for what types of searches. You don't need a drop to benefit, though. A regular content audit catches outdated pages before they cost you trust.

Start with a complete list of your URLs. Your sitemap is a good starting point, since Google's SEO Starter Guide describes a sitemap as a file that contains all the URLs on your site that you care about. Put every URL in a spreadsheet, with columns for the page type, the topic and the date it was last meaningfully updated.

Don't stop at the sitemap. Old landing pages and forgotten campaign pages are often missing from it. Google's starter guide suggests searching Google with the site: search operator followed by your domain to see which of your pages are in its index.

Google Search Console's Performance report shows the core numbers for each page: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. By default, the report shows the past three months of data, and you can change the date range. It also shows which queries bring people to each page.

Add those numbers to your spreadsheet, then sort by clicks and by impressions. Pages near the top are your foundation. Pages with no clicks across three months are your first candidates for review. If you track leads or sales in Google Analytics, add the key events each page contributes too. Google Analytics lets you mark events as key events to measure the actions that matter most to your business.

Numbers tell you which pages people see. Google's helpful content questions tell you whether those pages deserve it. A few to apply to every page:

• Does the content provide original information, reporting, research, or analysis?
• Does it provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does the main heading or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content, without exaggerating?
• Does the content have any easily verified factual errors?

Give each page one of four labels:

• Keep. It performs well and is accurate. Leave it alone.
• Update. It's useful but dated. Google's SEO Starter Guide recommends that you check in on previously published content and update it as needed.
• Merge. Two or more pages cover the same topic. Combine them into the strongest page, then point the old addresses to it. Google's canonicalization guide describes redirects as a strong signal that the target of the redirect should become canonical, and recommends redirects when you want to get rid of existing duplicate pages.
• Remove. It's no longer relevant to anyone. The same starter guide says you can delete content if it's not relevant anymore.

When you're torn between updating and removing, ask whether a customer would miss the page if it disappeared tomorrow.

Google's helpful content guidance names two tempting shortcuts as warning signs:

• Changing dates to look fresh. Google asks whether you are changing the date of pages to make them seem fresh when the content has not substantially changed.
• Mass adding or deleting to seem fresh. Google asks whether you are adding a lot of new content or removing a lot of older content mainly because you think it will help your rankings by making your site seem fresh, and answers its own question: it won't.

A content audit should be about the reader, not about signaling activity to Google.

Note the date of every change in your spreadsheet. Then give it time. Google says some changes take effect in a few hours and others could take several months, and suggests waiting a few weeks before judging whether a change helped. Compare each updated page's Search Console numbers with its numbers before the change. If an updated page slips, check whether something useful was cut during the update before you undo the work.

Once a year is a sensible rhythm for a small business site, with a lighter check each quarter on your most important pages. If you update old content as part of normal work, each yearly content audit gets shorter.

Keep the spreadsheet after each audit. Next year you'll start with this year's labels and see at a glance which updates worked, which merges held and which topics still need a better page.