How to Do a Content Audit: 4 Metrics to Consider

Published October 26, 2022
Updated May 9, 2023

While there's no doubt that many industries — like roofing, real estate, and property management — can be very lucrative, it is also highly competitive. So if you want to succeed, your website must stand out from the competition to help visitors convert into leads. 

Your website's content is an excellent way to differentiate yourself from other real estate competitors! Google also considers content a significant ranking factor. So, if your content is serving you well, it's not serving up more traffic or new leads.

Offering helpful resources like buyer's guides, seller's guides, or blogs that answer common questions from buyers and sellers in your market can make your website the go-to resource for potential clients. However, it's crucial to ensure that the content on your website is always relevant and up-to-date.

To achieve this, your content marketing strategy should include a routine content audit — but what metrics should you consider when analyzing content? As an experienced inbound marketing agency, we have some tips! Keep reading to learn five metrics to consider during a content audit.

Why and How to Conduct a Content Audit for Your Website

What is a good content audit definition? It's a review of all content on your website, including web pages, content offers, blogs, pillar pages, landing pages, and more.

A thorough content audit process helps ensure your content is updated, SEO-friendly, and generates the most traffic, leads, and conversions possible. Good content is a crucial part of a successful inbound marketing strategy!

To conduct an audit:

• Collect a complete list (i.e., the URLS) of all your published content, including blogs, guides, videos, infographics, and pillar pages

• Examine the content, SEO, and metrics of each piece

• Locate and refresh out-of-date content to keep it fresh and relevant for your readers (this is known as a "lengthen and strengthen" strategy)

• Improve your website's search engine rankings by enhancing the content that search engines value the most

• Increase the impact of content already doing well by repurposing it in other contexts

• Align your content with your marketing objectives to boost your return on investment

• Figure out who among your content creators or resources is producing the best work

• Find fresh topic ideas by spotting gaps in your existing content

• Ensure that your content is helpful and answers common questions that lead visitors to your website

Regular content audits may help you find places in your existing content that need some tweaks and develop fresh ideas for new content to continue delivering fresh content to search engines. 

Top Metrics to Include in Your Content Audit

So, what are these "metrics" to analyze when reviewing website content? When learning how to do a website content audit, consider these four metrics.

Based on our years of experience as an inbound marketing agency, we can tell you that your material must be simple to read. If your site, blogs, emails, landing pages, and content offers are easy to read, visitors are more likely to stick around to glean more helpful information. 

In contrast, consumers will not waste time reading blogs or pages that are difficult to understand. Not only will this cause your bounce rate to increase, but it could also negatively impact your search engine results.

Metrics for readability might point you in the direction of text that could do better if streamlined. Learn more about the readability of each URL in the content audit to comprehend better individual pieces of information and the site as a whole.

Metric 2: Assisted Conversions

You most likely consider direct conversions during a routine audit, but have you ever thought about "aided" conversions? It is crucial to monitor which pages result in assisted conversions. While not every page on your site will directly lead to a sale, several may play a vital role in encouraging potential leads to head to other pages that convert them into customers.

Metric 3: Page Load Time 

Your page load speed time indicates whether site visitors could find their desired information before abandoning the page. Additionally, it reveals how interesting your writing is to the reader. For example, a blog post with many pageviews but a low average time spent on the page is likely just clickbait (or, again, too complicated to engage a reader).

PageSpeed Insights analyzes load times by simply inputting the URL. If you're trying to reduce the load time, remove or compress large files, like images and videos. You can also consult with a web professional to find additional fixes to page loading issues. 

Metric 4: Backlink Quality

As an experienced inbound marketing agency, we understand the importance of backlinks for a successful content strategy. Over time, your backlink profile will evolve. 

You may get two or three inbound links the day you post fresh material. Wait a week, and you may see that ten to twelve new backlinks have surfaced. After a year of promotion, discovery, and sharing, a single piece of content may have garnered 589 backlinks.

However, not all inbound connections are beneficial. Of course, having many backlinks sounds great — but if most are "spammy," sponsored, or otherwise artificial, you should probably remove them to improve SEO and website traffic.

Learn How to Do a Content Audit with Our Experts

While digital marketing trends keep evolving, content has always been and will most likely always be a key component for the success of your website and content marketing strategy. So, if you want to conduct an effective content audit, we, as an experienced inbound marketing agency, can help!

We work with roofing companies, real estate agencies, property managers, and other small businesses to optimize content and websites to generate more organic traffic and leads for their businesses. We're here to help! Speak to a Geek to learn more about reviewing and optimizing website content.

Start your audit with our free resource, the "Content Audit Worksheet for Any Business!"