The importance of content for a website has been stressed time and again. Producing content that meet the standard quality may be easy, but is it also easy to know the exact interests of the readers? May be, not! This is the reason why a content audit is performed on a website on a regular basis so a strong marketing strategy is implemented, thus resulting in a fine-tuned website. But before we get to how a content audit is beneficial, let’s take a brief look at what a content audit is.
Content audit performs a full content inventory that lists out every single piece of content present on the website. You could either perform a partial inventory by including only the top level or the most recently created content, or, perform a quantitative inventory that provides a comprehensive record including the number of pages, sections, page popularity, and so on. If your intention is a website redesign, you could opt for a quantitative inventory as it gives a more in-depth analysis. So, the question that arises here is, should I perform a content audit even though I am producing high-quality content? Well, the answer is, YES! Read on to find out why…
- To determine content problems and gaps
When performing a content audit, it gives you a list of issues related to performance, broken links, website’s accessibility, and so on. Addressing these issues is of essence as it helps is increasing the search value, makes it more appealing, and prompts visitors to return to the website. Additionally, audits also help in identifying any information that is lacking from the website. This brings to light article categories that aren’t working, out-of-date blogs, stale content, and so on. This helps in discovering new topics and valuable information that the reader seeks, thus aiding in appealing and expanding the target audience.
- To evaluate the quality of content
The entire idea of generating content is to enable your website to be ranked high on search engines. But Google can easily figure out if your content is repetitive, short, invaluable, or similar to the content found on other websites. Thus, it is always essential to evaluate your content when performing an audit as this will highlight if your content is marked high, medium, or of low quality on search engines. Beware of too low a ranking as this indicates that Google could penalize your website for inferior content.
- To identify reader interest
Content audits can also reveal what your readers like to read and what they don’t. This is usually analyzed by looking into metrics such as the time spent by users on each webpage, bounce rates, and how many pages were viewed per session. Once you receive these essential points, it becomes easier for you to understand which type of content is giving you the highest conversion. Based on this information, you can tailor content accordingly and increase audience engagement. You can hire professional content writers for your business to perform this task as they are well aware of SEO strategies and can draft content keeping in mind the essentials.
- To improve SEO
SEO or search engine optimization helps in improving the visibility of your website on search engines. When you perform a content audit, it scrutinizes all the content available on the website and checks various aspects like keyword rankings, webpage rankings, backlinks, organic click rates, keyword stuffing, and so on. However, Google makes about 500 changes on an average each year. Thus, as a business owner, it is deemed impossible for you to be aware of the SEO strategies at all times, which is why several employers hire content writers or SEO experts to perform this task. Many even opt for offshore content writing services as it fares out to be much cheaper.
- To maximize conversion rates
The core idea of conducting a content audit is to eventually maximum conversion rates. This process is however not an easy one and it could take you months of planning, analysis, and testing in order to get the desired result. Content audit thoroughly examines the top landing pages and gives you data that requires immediate action from your end. However, aspects related to content, headline, design, keywords, and so on require a concise market analysis to maximum the conversion rates. Here is why choosing offshore content writing services fares cheaper, even in the long run.
To sum up, if you want to ensure that the content on your website is up-to-date and relevant to your target audience, performing a content audit is of top priority. Just like a simple mowing and trimming of the lawn keeps it healthy and green, a simple content audit will keep your website relevant, user friendly, and to the point.dd paragraph text here.
