Benefits of effective content auditing for SEO

For most companies, producing great web content, on a regular basis, is an important part of the SEO strategy, and brand marketing. But while creating a wealth of information and content is a good way to build your industry authority, it’s essential to audit this content over time. So what is a content audit, and what are the benefits of effective content auditing for SEO?

What is content auditing?

Content auditing involves analyzing the performance of your website content, as well as the topic and style of the content itself. This should involve measuring:

• The amount of organic traffic each piece of content is generating- from the search engine results page, potential customers may be choosing the link to your article, blog or content, and landing on your website. This is one of the key aims of any content marketing strategy, as more organic traffic can lead to more paying customers, without your company spending money on ads.
• The bounce rate- sometimes a high organic traffic flow can mask a problem with your content. If you are generating a lot of traffic, and these potential customers are then leaving your website, or “bouncing”, then you might also have a high bounce rate. This could be something you will need to address on site, to tempt customers to stay, or it could be that your piece of content just isn’t good enough. Poorly written information, too much text with a poor format, and outdated information can be enough to make your website users choose a different website completely.

Other important metrics include:

• backlinks
• time spent on page
• unique visitors
• conversions

What are the benefits of effective content auditing for SEO?

There are many advantages to professionally, and thoroughly, auditing your existing content. These include:

• Understanding content performance- every piece of content you produce will have a specific aim or target in mind. But, you will have no way of knowing if this has been achieved, unless you analyse and audit your content as an ongoing process.
• Identifying outdated content- old content, or outdated content can be detrimental to your content marketing strategy. In this industry, trends are always changing and evolving, so what you write about 2 years ago, may no longer be relevant or correct. Auditing your content can help to identify this, and allow you to update, adapt, or remove this content.
• Find successful patterns- by auditing your content you can establish what your website users actually want, and the type or topic of content that performs the most successfully. You can then tailor content to meet the needs of your audience. In addition, you can establish successful practical steps, including the most effective amount of new content produced in a week, or the most successful distribution platforms.

Here at Pumpkin Web Design we are Preston’s leading web design and web marketing professionals. We provide a wide range of high quality, effective website solutions and content marketing services across Preston and the North West, from Southport to Wigan, as well as Manchester. For more information or advice about professional SEO why not get in touch today?