How to Do a Content Audit: Step-by-Step Checklist

This article walks you through the full process of a content audit. You’ll learn how to evaluate your current content, find gaps, remove what’s holding you back, and build a site that’s easier to rank and easier to maintain long term.

What Is a Content Audit, and What Are Its Main Goals?

A content audit is a way to evaluate how your website content works as a system. It shows which pages help users and search engines and which ones slow things down, confuse crawlers, or waste resources.

To show what the content audit process targets and why it matters, here’s a breakdown of typical problems, goals, and the results that follow:

How to Do a Website Content Audit: Step-by-Step Process

Content audits can feel vague until you see how they actually work. This guide shows you exactly how to conduct a content audit from start to finish with tools, steps, and examples.

Set Goals and Assign Page Priorities

An audit only works when it starts with a plan. This section shows how to set clear goals and structure the audit around them.

Set SEO Goals

Content assessment can easily turn into spreadsheets with hundreds of URLs and no direction. That’s why the first step is not gathering links, but understanding what you want to achieve.

Content goals should reflect what your business needs right now. Common examples include:

• Increase traffic to informational pages that are not ranking
• Improve conversions on landing or product pages
• Remove outdated or underperforming content
• Reposition pages to match new search intent
• Identify gaps where new content is needed
• Grow visibility for commercial keywords
• Support link-building efforts with stronger content

Pick one or two primary goals before moving forward. These will guide what data you collect, which pages you prioritize, and how you measure success later in the process.

Align Goals With Metrics

Each audit goal must connect to specific metrics. Without this link, it becomes impossible to measure progress or justify changes. Below is how the most common SEO content goals translate into indicators you can measure:

• Increase traffic to informational pages that are not ranking → impressions, clicks, average position, organic sessions
• Improve conversions on landing or product pages → conversion rate, assisted conversions, goal completions, revenue
• Remove outdated or underperforming content → low engagement rate, short average engagement time, declining traffic, no clicks from search
• Reposition pages to match new search intent → ranking for irrelevant queries, drop in CTR, mismatch chosen keywords and page content
• Identify content gaps → missing keywords in top pages, low coverage in topic clusters, internal searches with no results
• Grow visibility for commercial keywords → ranking movement for bottom-funnel terms, share of voice in SERPs, position changes for transactional queries
• Support link-building efforts with stronger content → backlink count, referring domains, anchor text relevance, link velocity

There’s no SEO content audit template, so the number of metrics depends on the goal. Some pages need just one clear indicator, others require several to reflect their full impact. Later in the guide, we’ll show where to track each metric and how to pull the data using specific tools and reports.

Collect a Complete List of URLs and Relevant Details for Analysis

Let’s move on to one of the most important prep steps. You need to collect every indexable URL on your site so you can see the full scope of your content.

This can be done with several content audit tools, and each has its advantages. You don’t need to use all of them. But depending on your goals, combining two or more sources often gives the most complete picture.

Google Search Console is a great place to start. It doesn’t give you a full list of all URLs on your site. What it does show is which pages are already indexed and receiving impressions and clicks.

Go to the Performance report and switch to the Pages tab. Set the period to the last 3 months and compare it with the previous 3. Then filter by country or device to focus only on your target market.

You won’t get orphan pages or those not showing in search, but this export gives a good view of what’s currently active in organic search.

Screaming Frog is your best option for crawling the entire site, even those URLs Google Search Console won’t show. Run a crawl of your domain and export all indexable pages. You’ll see canonical status, indexability, response codes, and internal link counts (all useful for prioritization). You can also enable near-duplicate content detection to catch pages that overlap.

Ahrefs offers two ways to collect URLs:

• Site Audit shows all crawled URLs from a technical standpoint (similar to Screaming Frog, but cloud-based).
• Site Explorer lets you export pages that receive backlinks or rank in search. This helps prioritize content based on authority or performance.

Use the Top Pages or Best by Links reports to extract URLs that matter most for SEO performance. Just keep in mind that Ahrefs won’t show orphaned or non-indexed pages unless they’ve been discovered via backlinks.

Once you collect your URLs, bring them into a single spreadsheet. That is your working document for the audit. From here, you can start organizing.

Start by labeling your pages by type. Use broad categories like:

• Main
• Category
• Product
• Blog
• Other

Then assign priorities. For example:

• Priority 1: Homepage and landing pages
• Priority 2: High-value product pages
• Priority 3: Blog content that drives leads or backlinks
• Priority 4: Low-traffic blog posts and informational pages

You don’t need expensive software for this. A simple spreadsheet is enough. Add one column for page type and one for priority level. Use dropdowns for consistency and easier filtering. Here’s what that looks like in practice with first dropdown for page type and second dropdown for priority level:

Once this is done, you’ll be able to filter your spreadsheet by what matters most. That way you won’t waste time rewriting content that has no business impact.

Include Key Metadata for Each Page

Once you have a full list of URLs, enrich it with metadata that will help you evaluate each page faster. This information shows how complete, up-to-date, and SEO-friendly your content is. At minimum, collect:

• Page title and H1
• Meta description
• Date published and last modified
• Word count
• Number of internal and external links
• Status code (200, 301, 404, etc.)

Analyze Content Performance

With the structure in place, the next step in a comprehensive content audit is to look at the actual results. You need to see what each page delivers in terms of traffic, engagement, and conversions. This is how you decide where to focus.

Organic Traffic

The first step is checking how much search traffic each page attracts. To assess this, you will need a mix of data sources. Each one highlights a different angle and helps you make smarter decisions.

Start with Google Search Console. Filter performance data by the last three months and compare it to the previous three. Focus on impressions, clicks, and click-through rate. Pages with high impressions but few clicks often signal a disconnect between how they rank and how they appear in search. You might be targeting the right terms, but the titles or descriptions do not make people click. Mark these for later review.

Then move to Google Analytics. Go to landing pages and segment by organic traffic. This shows how users behave once they land on the page. Pages with traffic but very short sessions or high bounce rates may not match intent or need better structure. Combine this with scroll depth and internal navigation to see where people lose interest.

Finally, look at Ahrefs. Pick a few high-priority keywords and analyze which competitor pages rank and how much traffic they attract. This gives you a benchmark.

If your page brings in 100 monthly visits and the top pages get 2,000, you know the gap and can evaluate whether it is worth closing. On the other hand, if no one in your niche gets more than 150 visits for that query, the potential might be limited.

Together, these tools help you answer three key questions:

1. Is this page getting traffic?
2. What happens after the click?
3. How much more is possible with better optimization?

The answers will guide whether the page should be updated, repositioned, or removed entirely.

Keyword Rankings

Next, review keyword positions across your target terms. Use SE Ranking, GSC, or any rank tracking tool to review keyword positions.

Use SE Ranking or any rank tracking platform to:

• Track current SERP positions for your primary keywords
• Monitor historical changes and spot ranking drops
• Identify keywords stuck on page 2. These are often easy to improve with internal links or content updates.

Ranking shifts over time also help identify pages that dropped without you noticing. These are often high-priority for re-optimization.

Use Google Search Console to see which keywords bring impressions and clicks to each page. For that:

• Go to the Performance report
• Switch to the Pages tab
• Choose a URL and open the Queries tab

You’ll see the exact search terms this page ranks for. Sort by impressions. Look for:

• High impressions, low clicks → possibly weak title or meta
• Irrelevant query alignment → the page may be surfacing for terms that don’t match its true intent, indicating a need to re-target keyword focus.

When you perform a content audit, pay attention to mismatches between search queries and the actual content of the page. For example, if a commercial page is ranking poorly for broad informational keywords, the page may need to be retargeted to better match search intent.

Engagement Metrics

Traffic and rankings are not enough. You need to see how users behave on the page. Open Google Analytics and review organic sessions grouped by landing page. For each, look at:

• Average time on page
• Bounce rate
• Pages per session
• Scroll depth (if set up)
• Conversion rate (if tracked)

A page with low engagement may not align with the user’s intent or load too slowly. A low engagement rate can indicate that the content doesn’t meet user expectations or fails to prompt further interaction. If users spend time but never convert, you may need to add CTAs or clarify the next step.

Compare engagement across similar content types. Ask yourself:

• Do product pages perform worse than category pages?
• Does your top blog content keep people engaged or push them away?
• Are visitors spending more time on informational pages than commercial ones?

This helps you identify which content formats fail to hold attention and which ones deliver. Focus your optimization efforts where engagement drops.

Backlinks

Strong backlinks signal authority and are one of the top 3 ranking factors in Google’s algorithm. So, they can help you decide whether a page is worth preserving.

Open Ahrefs and review how many referring domains each URL has. Sort your content by backlinks and pay attention to pages that rank well mostly because of authority, not quality. These can be fragile if intent changes or competitors step in.

You can also identify link-worthy pages that bring little traffic. These are often ripe for optimization. If a page has ten good backlinks but poor performance, it deserves attention before you invest in new content.

Or the opposite: if a page ranks well but the content is weak, it’s likely propped up by backlinks. That’s a risk. Competitors with stronger link profiles can outrank it, or you could lose positions if the page loses some of its links. We’ll cover how to evaluate content quality later in the guide.

For example, here’s what the top-ranking pages for the query “16th birthday present ideas girl” look like in Ahrefs:

The first result gets over 2,000 monthly visits and ranks at the top with 20 referring domains and 109 backlinks. The next two results have zero backlinks. They could potentially outrank the top page with a stronger link profile.

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Assess On-Page SEO

Next in your SEO content audit checklist: reviewing each page’s on-page elements. This step matters because poorly optimized titles, headings, or URLs can limit your search engine visibility and reduce clicks. Fixing these basics often brings quick wins without touching the content itself.

Titles and Meta Descriptions

Titles and meta descriptions are what people see first in the search results. If they don’t understand what your page is about, they’ll likely skip it and click on something that feels more relevant.

Use Screaming Frog or any crawler to flag common issues:

• Empty or missing titles
• Duplicate titles
• Titles that are too long or too short
• Meta descriptions that repeat or are missing

You can also spot cases where the title tag just duplicates your H1. It’s not always bad, but in many cases you’re wasting space that could improve clicks.

Headings Structure

Your headings organize content for both users and Google. Sloppy structure makes pages harder to read and harder to rank. Stick to one H1, then use H2 and H3 tags logically to break down content.

For example, this is the heading structure of a top-ranking blog post:

There’s a clean H1, and each gift idea is placed under its own H2. That helps both readability and keyword targeting. This remains relevant across niches, whether it’s product pages with minimal copy or more demanding formats like SaaS content writing.

Check each page’s keyword placement. Core terms should appear naturally in the title tag, meta description, first paragraph, H1, H2s, image alt text, and the conclusion. Balanced keyword distribution is essential for both indexing and satisfying intent without over-optimization.

Image Alt Text and Media

Alt text gives Google context about your visuals. If you’re using charts, infographics, or product shots, make sure each one has a clear, relevant alt description. Also review whether your high-quality content includes enough media to keep readers engaged.

URL Structure

Finally, check your URLs. They should be short, readable, and include your target keywords where relevant. Avoid cluttered structures that confuse users or dilute relevance.

Good examples:

• example.com/seo-content-audit
• example.com/gift-ideas-teen-girls

Poor examples:

• example.com/2023/05/17/article?id=4756&src=blog
• example.com/category/product/page/875_content.html

Clean URLs are easier for users to trust and for search engines to understand. If a user sees a confusing or generic link, they’re less likely to click.

Semantic Markup

Incorporate structured data using Schema.org where appropriate—especially for product pages, articles, FAQs, and reviews. This helps Google better understand page context and can enable rich results in SERPs.

Evaluate Content Quality

You can have all the backlinks and perfect technical setup, but if the content itself isn’t useful, you will struggle to rank long term. In this step of the content audit process, focus on the actual value your pages offer.

Relevance and Search Intent

Make sure each page answers the type of questions users actually have. Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or similar SEO tools to review the intent of the keywords you’re targeting. Both platforms label intent clearly: for example, Ahrefs uses blue for informational, orange for commercial, and green for transactional queries.

Once you’ve checked the intent, look at your content. Does it match what users expect when searching those terms? If you’re ranking for a commercial keyword but the page reads like a general blog post, it won’t convert or stay competitive.

Typical intent categories include:

• Informational: early research. Fit: how-to guides, educational content.
• Commercial: comparing solutions. Fit: category or service pages.
• Transactional: ready to act. Fit: product pages, CTAs.

Depth and Uniqueness

Look for pages that are too shallow or say the same thing everyone else is saying (run a competitor analysis by reviewing top results for relevant keywords in Ahrefs).

Ask yourself:

• Does this page offer any original information or insight?
• Is there enough detail to fully answer the query?
• Is there keyword stuffing on the page that makes the content hard to read or feel unnatural?
• Is the content outdated or missing key developments?

For example, a thorough content audit might reveal that a blog post about Core Web Vitals still focuses on FID as a key metric. But Google has already replaced FID with INP. Without updating this, the content looks outdated and loses trust.

If a page is thin, generic, or simply out of date, it likely needs to be rewritten, expanded, or merged with another piece.

With the rise of LLM-generated content, it’s crucial to assess whether your pages exhibit signs of AI-written text. Look for unnatural phrasing, repetitive structures, or lack of depth. These may require human-led rewrites to align with Google’s emphasis on real experience and value.

E-E-A-T Signals

Google uses signals of Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust to evaluate content quality. To assess this in your audit:

• Make sure the author has relevant background or credentials, especially for law firm content writing or other YMYL niches
• Add references to credible, verifiable sources
• Keep stats and facts current
• Include original insights, real examples, or firsthand data.

Where relevant, include verifiable author bios linking to credentials (e.g., LinkedIn, institutional bios). Add structured data using author and person schema to support trust signals programmatically.

Assess Technical SEO

Your content might be highly relevant, optimized with the right keywords, and aligned with user intent. But if it still doesn’t rank or attract traffic, the issue is likely technical. Let’s go through the key areas to check.

Crawlability and Indexability

If a page isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in Google. Start with Google Search Console → Pages report. Look for issues like:

• Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag
• Crawled, currently not indexed

Click on each issue to see which pages are affected. In many cases, fixing indexation is as simple as removing a noindex tag or improving internal links.

Site Speed

Google uses Core Web Vitals to measure performance. Use PageSpeed Insights to test your pages. Pay special attention to:

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): should be under 2.5s
• TBT (Total Blocking Time): reduce heavy JavaScript

You’ll see recommendations like compressing images, lazy loading, or fixing render-blocking scripts. Most of these issues will require technical changes, so it’s best to pass this report to your developer/team providing content audit services for implementation.

Mobile Friendliness

Google now uses mobile-first indexing, so your mobile version is what determines how your page ranks. If your content looks good on desktop but fails on mobile, it might not rank at all.

• Use PageSpeed Insights and test your URL in mobile device mode. Look for issues like small text, unclickable buttons, or elements that overflow the screen.
• Go to the Mobile Usability report in Google Search Console. It will show if any pages have common problems like clickable elements being too close or content wider than the screen.

If your mobile layout breaks or causes frustration, your rankings will suffer even if the content itself is strong.

Internal Linking

Internal links help distribute authority across your site and guide both users and search engines toward your most important pages. Without them, some pages stay invisible to Google or miss out on link equity from stronger pages.

To audit internal linking, use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs’ Site Audit tool. Here’s how:

• In Screaming Frog, crawl your site and go to the ‘Inlinks’ and ‘Orphan Pages’ reports.
  These show which pages have zero internal links pointing to them and which ones are not linked at all from within your site.
• To find broken links, switch to the Response Codes tab, filter by status code, and check the ‘Source’ column to see where they’re coming from.
• In Ahrefs, go to Site Audit > Internal Pages, then sort by # of internal links to spot underlinked pages.

Once you’ve found the gaps, add contextual links from high-traffic or relevant pages to the ones that are struggling. This helps Google discover them, pass value, and improves navigation for users too.

Categorize and Prioritize Content

Once you’ve collected all the data and analyzed every page, your content audit spreadsheet should look something like this:

Now it’s time to decide what to do with each page. To help you act on your findings, use a simple decision table like the one below. It maps common scenarios to recommended actions, so you’re not guessing:

You don’t have to take action on everything at once. Start with high-impact updates: pages that are underperforming but have strong backlinks or ranking history. These often deliver the fastest results after re-optimization.

Then move on to low-value content. Pages with no traffic, no links, and no strategic value only dilute your site’s overall quality. Cleaning them up improves crawl efficiency and sends better signals to search engines.

Create an Action Plan

A content audit process only becomes valuable when it turns into clear, consistent action. Once you’ve analyzed the data and decided what to do with each page, the next step is execution.

Assign Tasks and Deadlines

Assign specific tasks to the right people. Decide who will rewrite outdated texts, if you want to hire a team providing SEO content writing services, who will merge similar pages, and who will handle redirects. Set deadlines, even if flexible. Without them, progress usually stalls.

Track Progress

To manage the process, use whatever tool works best for your team. A shared spreadsheet is enough for small sites. For larger audits, project management tools like ClickUp, Notion, or Asana help keep everything visible and organized. Each URL should have a status, a priority, and an assigned owner.

For teams operating under Agile or quarterly planning models, connect your audit tasks to SEO OKRs or sprint deliverables. This ensures prioritization aligns with business outcomes and gets completed within the expected roadmap.

When tasks span across content, SEO, and dev teams, it’s worth building out a structured SEO roadmap. This helps you group actions into phases and align efforts across departments. Here’s the framework we use for building an SEO roadmap that keeps execution focused and consistent.

How Often Should You Conduct Content Audits?

A content audit is not a one-time event. Search intent shifts, competitors update their pages, and Google changes its algorithm. To stay competitive, your content marketing strategy needs regular check-ins.

Once you’ve implemented all planned updates, track SEO performance continuously. Use tools like GSC, Ahrefs, and Analytics to monitor the same KPIs you used in the audit. Give changes time to take effect, then revisit the data after three to six months.

To keep things structured, build a simple сontent assessment calendar. For example, brands like HubSpot and Shopify run biannual audits of legacy content and quarterly refresh cycles for high-traffic assets tied to product or seasonal updates. It can be part of your broader content map. Here’s a suggested cadence:

Content Audit that Boosts Your Content Marketing

Many underestimate what it takes to perform an SEO content audit. If your website has been publishing copy without a clear content strategy for years, chances are you are sitting on hundreds of outdated, low-performing, or misaligned pages. The more of these you have, the harder it becomes to prioritize, organize, and take action.

At SeoProfy, our SEO audit services always include a full-scale content audit alongside technical and off-page analysis. We go page by page, metric by metric, and give you a clear understanding of where your SEO stands today and what needs to happen next. Within two to four weeks, you receive a complete breakdown of issues, opportunities, and our proposed strategy.

Book a free consultation, and we’ll walk you through the content audit process.

Author

Andrew Shum

Andrew Shum is the Head of SEO at SeoProfy, with over 8 years of experience driving organic growth for startups, e-commerce brands, and Fortune 500 companies. He has led SEO strategies for 150+ websites across 20+ industries, delivering consistent results through data-driven optimization, technical audits, and scalable content frameworks. Andrew wrote this article to share proven tactics that align with Google’s latest updates and performance trends.