Content auditing is the first step to creating a solid content marketing plan. Content auditing focuses on measuring the current content on a website and determining how effectively it is doing its job. Content audits aren’t difficult, but there’s likely going to be a lot of details to keep straight, so organization is critical. This seven-step program provides the guidelines you need to get started:
Step One: Preparation
1. Create a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel (or any similar program). You’ll be using this spreadsheet to record the URL and all relevant information about each page of your site, including titles, descriptions, keywords, type of content, when the page was updated, etc.
2. Use Google Analytics to retrieve the list of URLs for your website. Copy these into the spreadsheet. Exclude any pages where the material is irrelevant, such as a “Contact us” page.
3. Develop a system that may help to get this done easier. This won’t be an issue for smaller, five to 10-page sites, but efficiency is increasingly important as the size of the site grows.
Note: The following steps should be done for each page of your website.
Step Two: Check the Titles
Titles are a major component of any page. They should be no longer than 65 letters, and in most cases, be no longer than four words of text (not numbers). Titles should also be unique and include keywords, which will support your future content marketing efforts by making it easier for search engines to catalog and find each page of your site.
Step Three: Check the Descriptions
Descriptions can be up to 160 characters and are only acceptable if they’re written to appeal to humans, not search engines. Descriptions are one of the major factors in a user’s decision to click through to your page, and poor descriptions will only convince a prospective visitor that a site doesn’t have what they’re looking for. The description should match the content of the page it’s on, not the overall website or the business as a whole.
Step Four: Check the Content
This is one of the most time-consuming parts of the audit. Each page needs to have its content thoroughly read and reviewed. Content should be at least 300 words, not stuffed with keywords, and generally written in a way that’s appealing to the average person. Content marketing focuses on quality, so if the content itself is not appealing, informative or doesn’t solve your target audience’s problem, it should be replaced.
Step Five: Check Alt Tags
Alt tags can provide another way for search engines to find the sites that potential visitors are looking for. Every image should be properly defined with a unique name, any associated keywords, and a relevant caption.
Step Six: Check the Date the Page was Updated
The average page should be revised a minimum of every two years, even if the changes are minor. This will convince search engines that the content is both active and worth paying attention to.
Step Seven: Check the Internal Links
Internal links (those within the body of the content) should point towards other deep content within the site. Blog posts are ideal, but individual product or service pages are also good choices.
Once you’ve run through all of these steps, the audit of your website is complete. The information that you uncover during your content audit can then be used to develop your content marketing plan, optimize your site for SEO and increase conversion rates.