When it comes to meeting your content marketing objectives, your initial instinct may be to generate and distribute fresh material.

The issue is that such material is frequently buried and is seldom examined and reused. For others, this is an unpleasant truth, as updating and reusing current material may be one of the most effective content marketing strategies.

Regular, well-conducted content audits can help you identify material that can be enhanced or repurposed into different formats.

In this article, we'll discuss what a content audit is, the benefits of conducting a content audit, and a full step-by-step guide to conducting a full content audit using a content planner.

What Is a Content Audit?

A content audit is a comprehensive review of all the content on your website. This includes blog posts, articles, images, videos, infographics, and anything else that can be considered content.

The purpose of a content audit is to help you understand what content you have, what content is performing well, and what content needs to be improved.

A content audit can also help you identify content gaps and determine where you need to create new content.

Why Conduct a Content Audit?

There are many reasons why you might want to conduct a content audit. Here are a few of the most common reasons:

1. An Audit Is Data-Driven

A content audit is based on data. This means that it can help you make decisions about your content based on hard facts, rather than guesses or assumptions.

2. Diagnosing Content Gaps

One of the main reasons to conduct a content audit is to identify content gaps. A content gap is an area where you don't have enough content to meet the needs of your audience.

For example, let's say you have a blog about fashion. You might realize that you don't have enough content about plus-size fashion. This content gap could be an opportunity to create new content that would appeal to your audience. Get a tool for keyword recommendations to find relevant keywords.

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3. Determining Problems in Your Website Content

Another reason to conduct a content audit is to determine if there are any problems with your existing content.

For example, let's say you have a blog post that isn't getting any traffic. This could be because the title is misleading, the content is outdated, or there are grammatical errors. By conducting a content audit, you can identify these issues and make the necessary changes to improve your content.

4. Identify Assets to Leverage

Once you've analyzed your existing content, you can identify which pieces are performing well and which you can leverage for future marketing campaigns.

For example, if you have a blog post that's getting a lot of traffic and engagement, you can turn it into an ebook or create a lead magnet out of it.

5. Improve Content Shelf-Life

One of the benefits of conducting a content audit is that it can help improve the shelf-life of your content. By taking inventory of what you have and determining what is outdated or no longer relevant, you can ensure that your content stays fresh and relevant. This can help you avoid having to create new content as often, which can save you time and money.

6. You’ll Find Opportunities To Repurpose Content

Another benefit of conducting a content audit is that it can help you find opportunities to repurpose content. By taking inventory of what you have, you may find that you have some content that can be repurposed or reused in other ways. This can help you save time and money by not having to create new content from scratch.

7. Your Best Pieces Will Perform Even Better

If you conduct a content audit and take the time to analyze your best-performing pieces, you may find that you can make them even better. This can help you get even more traffic and engagement, which can lead to more sales or conversions.

8. Reduce Hours Spent Creating New Content

If you spend a lot of time creating new content, a content audit can help you reduce the amount of time you spend on this task. By taking inventory of what you have and determining what is outdated or no longer relevant, you can save yourself time and energy that can be better spent on other tasks. Use an ai blog writer to create long-form content in an instant using a content calender.

9. Your Priorities Will Become More Clear

As you go through your content, you may find that some of it is no longer aligned with your business goals. This can help you to reprioritize your content strategy and ensure that you are creating content that is truly valuable to your audience.

10. Improve Organic Search Visibility

One of the main benefits of creating an inventory of your content is that you can improve your organic search visibility. Once you have an inventory of your content, you can take steps to make sure that your content is properly optimized for search engines.

This can include adding keywords to your titles and descriptions, optimizing your images, and ensuring that your content is easy to share. By taking these steps, you can improve your organic search visibility and ensure that your content is seen by your target audience.

How to Audit Your Content?

Now that you know the benefits of auditing your content, you may be wondering how to get started. Here are some tips to help you audit your content:

1. Define Your Goals and Metrics

Before you start your content audit, you need to define your goals and metrics. What are you hoping to achieve with your audit? What metrics will you use to measure success? By defining your goals and metrics upfront, you’ll be able to better assess your content later on.

2. Identify KPIs

Once you’ve defined your goals and metrics, you need to identify which KPIs (key performance indicators) will best help you measure them. For each goal, identify 1-3 KPIs that you will track. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, your KPIs might be website traffic, social media engagement, or newsletter subscribers.

3. Organize Your Content Audit Template

Now it’s time to start organizing your content audit template. Begin by listing out all of your content assets, including blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, infographics, etc. For each asset, include the following information:

• Title
• URL
• Publish date
• Word count
• Topic
• Target audience
• Goal
• Primary metric
• Secondary metric

4. Collect and Analyze Data

Once you have your content audit template organized, it’s time to start collecting and analyzing data. For each content asset, track the metrics you identified in step 3. This data will help you assess the performance of your content later on.

5. Assess Content

Now that you have all of your data collected, it’s time to start assessing your content. For each asset, ask yourself the following questions:

Is the asset still relevant and providing value to your target audience? Is the asset still relevant and providing value to your target audience? Does the asset align with your brand’s voice and overall marketing strategy and initiatives? Does the asset align with your brand’s voice and overall marketing strategy and initiatives? Does the asset contain outdated information? Does the asset contain outdated information? Is the asset still visually appealing? Is the asset still visually appealing? Can the asset be updated to continue to provide value? Can the asset be updated to continue to provide value? Is the asset no longer used, but could be repurposed in the future?

After you’ve answered these questions, you should be able to determine whether or not you should keep the asset or delete it.

6. Draw Up an Action Plan

After you have completed your audit, it is time to draw up an action plan. This plan will help you focus your efforts on the areas that need the most attention.

When creating your action plan, be sure to include:

• The goals you want to achieve with your content marketing strategy
• The areas of your content marketing strategy that need the most attention
• The steps you need to take to improve your content marketing strategy
• The resources you need to implement your action plan
• The timeline for implementing your action plan

7. Make Recommendations

Once you have drawn up your action plan, it is time to make recommendations to your team. These recommendations should be based on the findings of your audit.

Some recommendations you may want to consider include:

• Creating more targeted content
• Improving the quality of your content
• Creating more engaging content
• Increasing the frequency of your content
• Adjusting your content distribution strategy

8. Adjust Your Content Marketing Strategy

After you have made recommendations to your team, it is time to adjust your content marketing strategy. This may mean making changes to your content calendar, your content mix, or your distribution channels.

It is important to keep in mind that your content marketing strategy should be flexible. As your business grows and changes, so too should your content marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Content marketing is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. By sharing valuable and relevant content with your target audience, you can build trust, establish yourself as an expert in your industry, and drive more leads and sales.

If you’re not already using content marketing to grow your business, now is the time to start. Use the tips and steps in this article to create a content marketing strategy that will help you achieve your business goals.

If you’re looking for an efficient content planner software, you should choose NinjaContent! We provide an all-in-one content tool for your content planning and more. Check out the tool’s features and contact us to learn more!