![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654bef2d647eb27f020bbb8_87a5d27ddbc3435b897eba63743912ebff153744.webp)
Content is still king when it comes to websites.
Do you know which of your blog posts are your top performers?
Or which landing pages aren’t quite pulling their weight?
To ensure you always have a clear picture of what’s going on with your site, keep your content up to date and improve organic search traffic – you should regularly perform content audits.
In this piece, we’ll explain exactly what that is and give you step-by-step instructions for navigating the content audit process, so you can maximize the impact of your website.
What you will learn
- What are content audits and why are they important
- 8 steps for implementing and executing your own content audit.
What is a content audit?
A content audit is the process of evaluating your website's content for opportunities to help improve its performance for readers.
It involves taking inventory of your site to analyze the performance of your assets. The goal of a content audit is to enhance strengths, eliminate weaknesses, and capitalize on opportunities with a better content strategy.
A comprehensive content audit calls for a systematic review of your assets, including:
- Blog posts
- Product descriptions
- Landing pages
- Service pages
- Pillar pages
Why are content audits important?
Regular content audits give you an overarching view of your content to better understand how your website is performing and help you maximize your best pieces. Using hard data gives you unbiased information about what’s working—and, just as importantly, what’s not.
Auditing your content can help you identify the parts of your website that are underperforming from a search engine perspective and help you find out why this is happening.
An audit will highlight missing elements (for example, meta titles), as well as highlight pages that could be expanded upon or improved.
With Google emphasizing relevant, accurate and engaging content when determining search rankings, an audit will help you identify and update those parts of your website that have inevitably become outdated or inaccurate.
They can help you restructure your site to improve user experiences and intra-site flow and identify areas where your current content is lacking.
This information can then be used to inform future content creation and help you make better digital marketing decisions.
How to conduct a content audit in 8 steps
Content audits have become easy with auditing tools that enable large-scale analysis. While content creation takes up most of our time and focus, it's important to spend a few hours every few weeks to ensure that your website's content is optimized for performance.
We’ve broken down how to conduct a content audit into 8 simple steps.
1. Set content goals
Every piece of content on your website should be created with a specific purpose in mind.
Without an objective, content is just web copy. By attaching it to specific, measurable goals, it becomes an asset.
For example, if you have a page that is ranking below position 10 for a particular keyword, a goal like breaking into the top five results in searches for [keyword] by [deadline] may be appropriate.
With a tangible benchmark and timeframe, this is more powerful than something vague like “I want to improve search ranking for [keyword].”
Another possible example of a goal may be to increase content shares.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d0c1d2c5073181b8e_5e1326b1-6458-427e-8b31-567919e7edb4.webp)
Content audits will equip you with information you can use to rewrite blogs and existing articles to encourage users to share them with their networks.
Once you have identified your goals, you should establish the metrics by which your progress will be measured. Some of the more common metrics you may use in SEO are:
- Clicks
- Clickthrough rate
- Conversions
- Search ranking positions
Here are a few of the more common goals of an audit:
Goal 1: Increase traffic
Attracting organic visitors is a common goal of search engine optimization, or SEO.
A content audit will help you identify ways to improve your search ranking and increase organic visibility, including:
- Identifying new or under-used keywords
- Optimizing keywords in existing content
- Tweaking pages to address search intent more accurately
- Updating outdated and/or inaccurate information.
You can measure traffic increases using clicks from organic results.
Goal 2: Reclaim rankings
Google has been very clear that its mission is to present users with helpful, reliable and people-first content.
This means webpages with outdated or inaccurate content will be ignored in favor of those that offer more current information.
For example, this article on recovering from Google's core updates needs to stay updated to remain relevant, as core updates occur frequently.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d73c66e5da77225de_f63cca91-036d-4782-bcd9-55c7faba225f.webp)
Additionally, changing trends and user interests can affect how a particular article or blog post is ranked.
While performing content audits, pay special attention to average page rankings.
Use the average position metric inside Google Search Console to track your rankings for primary keywords.
Goal 3: Identify content gaps
No matter how robust your website is, there will be some content areas you lack.
This is inevitable. But as a content marketer, it’s your job to find and plug these holes.
The tricky part is identifying exactly where they occur, but that’s where comprehensive content audits can help.
There are a few common types of content gaps:
- Outdated and inaccurate content
- Content that doesn’t account for emerging trends and user queries
- A lack of thoroughness on a topic
- Poor user experiences and websites that confuse search crawlers
- A lack of expertise and/or experience (E-E-A-T)
- Poor keyword coverage
Surfer can make it easy to plug in any keyword gaps in your content.
Here's an example of an article on keyword competition that doesn't rank well. As you can see, auditing the article reveals many missing keywords—highlighted in red.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44db38d182e4a2f37d5_4d049321-d1e2-46eb-98c5-4d3ae9c29c06.webp)
This can make it challenging for search engines to fully grasp your content's context, and under-rank it for your target keyword.
2. Extract your page URLs
Once you have identified what you hope to accomplish with your content audit, it’s time to take an inventory of what you currently have published.
This begins by collecting the web addresses or URLs of all the pages you’re analyzing.
Collecting the URLs of all your pages will help you see an overview of your content inventory.
If your website has only a handful of pages, you could perform this manually by copying and pasting each link into a content audit spreadsheet.
You'll often find it at https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml.
This is not practical for larger sites that include a few dozen or even a few hundred individual URLs.
In this case, use a tool like Screaming Frog, which will automatically scan your website to provide you with a list of all your content URLs.
Another option is to use this free sitemap extractor.
A sitemap is a file webmasters use to provide information about website pages and their relationships to search engine crawlers.
Here's an example of Harvard's sitemap.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44dc9e4c8a2fb6a7d57_59196c13-c6b5-4158-b575-85b8189c09bb.webp)
3. Categorize Content
Once you have your URLs extracted into a spreadsheet, it’s time to take a comprehensive inventory of your site’s content.
This is an extremely important part of a thorough and effective audit, as it provides information about each page at a glance.
It’s a good idea to include as much information as possible in a spreadsheet, with columns dedicated to criteria of your choosing, which may include:
- Page title: How clear is your page title and metadata for the page’s content and purpose?
- Content type: Is this a blog post? Product page? How-to guide?
- Content cluster: Which overarching topic does this page fall under?
- Author: Who created the content on this page?
- Business potential: On a scale of 1-3 how much commercial intent does your content meet, with 3 being very relevant like a versus page and 1 being informational content?
- Content goal(s): What is this page attempting to achieve (e.g. build awareness, convert, etc.)?
- Content format: Is this text only? Video only? A hybrid of two or more formats?
- Primary keyword(s): What word or words are you trying to rank for with this page? (Make sure you don’t have multiple pages targeting the same keyword, or you risk keyword cannibalization.)
- Average ranking position: What has been this page’s average Google ranking over a specific time frame?
- Date of last update: When was the page created or last updated?
Here's a snippet of a few columns from our content inventory for Surfer's blog.
![Categorize your content.](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44de7c83fbde9f81741_vOfYvVZ9e3YS3xgCJXvcq_ga0QKwiEj-dnS5nirkxALG5Yj7fKS0TSlTauieNL5kFU6942CMeAK1oBakJ6YIAzPL1-O4JTcnZDmBOTKhZcguCY5n6gjgIDyTPVykjhTxDd5j9UtJSBxZ0VGh-YNy7MA.webp)
Organizing your audit data like this will make it much easier to categorize content, stay organized and spot potential issues.
It will also ensure your content is consistent at each level and not inadvertently competing with other pages on your site.
4. Collect website data
Now that you have a general understanding of your site's current structure and goals, it’s time to gather quantitative data to pinpoint exactly where you’re failing and where you can improve.
For content auditing purposes, you’ll want to gather information on metrics like:
- Organic traffic
- Pageviews
- Session duration
- CTR
- Search rankings
- Number and quality of incoming links
It can seem intimidating if you haven’t done this before, but here's an easy way to export website data into Google Sheets.
- Click on the Extensions item in the menu
- Head to Add-ons > Get add-ons
![Google Sheets performance report](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44de7e9eeaf85090db9_827FHuOy2nly5LbRHv_HoZnGvsn-76aF8U6r6RIS2JSncjOBBG_YcAQbDEDsWnSCUwLpNveNpUnf6JrbWGvGJma-DYVOpVLlB00FHKGxscU_xfA7QdWKj2kfCjFQnTzupX26CRHwzXQcFk9oHPwjXi8.webp)
Pull data from GSC
As a webmaster, you should already have Google Search Console set up. If you don’t, create an account immediately.
A free reporting tool, GSC gives you invaluable insight into your website’s metrics and technical performance.
Use the Performance tab in GSC to view your search result metrics.
You can use the help of add-ons like Search Analytics for Sheets and Salesforce’s Coefficient to specify what type of information you want to extract into Google Sheets from GSC for further analysis.
Alternatively, Search Console also allows you to export data when viewing a report.
For a deeper dive, Google provides documentation on how to analyze GSC data for your website.
Pull data from GA4
Another platform to gather website data is directly from your Google Analytics (GA4) account.
Like with GSC, Google Analytics allows you to specify the date range you’re interested in and export it with a few clicks.
The Pages and screens display in the Engagement report provides insights into the performance of individual pages and screens within your website or application.
It shows metrics such as views, unique views, average engagement time, and can help you understand which parts of your site or app are most engaging, where users spend their time, and potential areas for improvement.
![Google Analytics data](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44dc048686a6500cf2e_9rLLEMCvTd_MlN6jaWTFQc6e-qy2VKEXOi54iewWGM6_8g5JFvDJLDdWrnnRuQPlYBHAwQcxa07XTimVx3k6l-rTg7jI4eJ_RqzqUQZo-HQUjRg7c2MQgNFUp0CMD7b8IVfSRxq1O7rk6SHgx7xooas.webp)
Google Sheet add-ons like GA4 Reports Builder can also automatically pull your GA4 data into a spreadsheet.
5. Identify important pages
Now that you have the data you need, it’s time to determine your most important pages.
This process helps you prioritize which ones need immediate attention and which can be pushed back.
Some of these should be obvious, such as the page for your biggest selling product, while others may be a bit of a surprise.
Below, I'll break down the manual method for doing this, but I want to show you how you can automate identifying your best page opportunities with Surfer.
- Head to Surfer Content Audit
- Connect your GSC account and add your website
Surfer will then analyze your Google Search Console data alongside the top ranking articles in the SERPs to reveal pages that are underoptimized but can perform better, with a little improvement.
You'll find 2 tabs. The Top pages tab will show your top 100 pages.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d0753c664b825c623_eeae5821-b198-43f4-86b4-b80f10b12b56.webp)
You can filter them by several performance metrics, such as the Content Score, ranking position, organic traffic, and click-through rate, to find pages that you can improve.
The Best opportunities tab identifies pages with potential room to grow in traffic and rankings – with little updating and optimization.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44eee0f4edce0fe3f0b_a4953ab9-7fdd-4c59-9bcb-82335159ff73.webp)
These pages are likely to respond quickly with the most traffic increase.
Comb through your report and identify which pages are important and which URLs are underperforming.
From here, you can import your content into Surfer's optimization panel, where you can optimize it with just a click of a button.
This workflow allows you to identify existing content with the highest potential for improvement in minutes, so you can spend your time improving your pages instead of finding them.
Let's look at how else you can identify important pages by asking the following questions:
What is the purpose of the page?
Every piece of your website should have a dedicated purpose, something deeper than just traffic generation.
This should be a core part of your content strategy.
For example, your site probably has pages aimed at converting leads into customers, others dedicated to increasing brand awareness, and still others seeking to satisfy search intent with in-depth guides that establish your authority within your field.
Identify what each page is attempting to accomplish and take notes on which ones are and are not achieving their goals.
When was the page last updated?
This is a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, old and outdated information is not going to rank highly in search results.
On the other hand, SEO efforts take time to bear fruit.
You could have the greatest content in the world, but if you haven’t given it enough time to mature and be found, it’s not going to have the numbers to back it up.
To prevent false positives, you’ll generally want to revisit existing content every 90-120 days to check the page’s progress.
If it’s still falling short, you could have other issues negatively impacting your ranking.
Can the page improve conversions?
In SEO, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to get every page to rank highly in Google search results, but this isn’t always the case.
Sometimes page ranking simply isn’t important.
For example, your “About us” page may do a good job of establishing your credentials, but it’s probably not directly leading to sales.
Evaluate each page for how well it meets topical relevance for its main keywords and your website in general.
Pay special attention to each page's business potential and the impact it can have on organic traffic and revenue.
Action: Improve your conversion rate
Once you’ve identified your underperforming business-critical webpages, you should take steps to optimize them.
There are a number of strategies for improving conversion rates, but some of the first things you should look into are:
- Optimizing calls to action (CTAs) – Make sure you’re clearly asking your visitors to take action.
- Enhance user experience (UX) – No one likes using complicated or confusing sites. Make sure yours is easy and intuitive to use.
- Improve your content—If your page doesn’t have information as good as or better than your competition’s, you’ll miss out on traffic and sales.
Can Google index the page?
The highest content quality won’t do you a bit of good if search engines aren’t finding your page.
Check to make sure your site is being properly crawled and indexed by using Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d7ea1efc09418e7f8_e41fd928-419a-4c49-9e60-1dbeab1e1c00.webp)
It will tell you if your page is available in Google's search results.
If not, use "request indexing" feature to ask Google to crawl your page.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44dee0f4edce0fe3e9e_06a734de-a964-4def-a20c-9d408bca8ac5.webp)
Action: Make sure your pages are being indexed
Make sure search spiders don't miss your crucial pages by taking the following actions:
- Look for a noindex tag in your page source that looks like this, <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> and take it off.
- Utilize the <meta name="robots" content="index, follow"> tag to explicitly tell search engines that the page should be indexed and links followed.
- Submit your XML sitemap in GSC to expedite the crawling process.
Does the page receive enough traffic?
Using GSC, you can check the amount of organic traffic your pages receive.
Under the Performance tab, go to Search results and then scroll down to the Pages tab.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44dd767c79f066a8fb6_e99510af-a842-4d74-8fb8-c1ed4efa648a.webp)
What constitutes good enough traffic is highly subjective, depending on your niche, the page’s intent, and what the user is looking for.
Action: Evaluate each page in context
A breadth of content covering various aspects of your niche can enhance your website's authority and demonstrate your expertise in the field.
But remember, not every page on your site needs to attract many visitors.
For instance, 100 monthly visits to an informational page may not seem significant, but if those visits are to a commercial page with high conversion potential, those same 100 visits could be extremely valuable, leading to sales and substantial revenue.
Does the page have traffic potential?
Some of your pages may be operating at or near the top of their potential as far as organic traffic goes, but you’ll also likely have some that aren’t pulling their weight or could use a little boost.
These are important pages to focus on.
For example, this page gets around 300 clicks every month yet ranks around the 20th position for its main keyword.
![Page with traffic potential](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d512d652266cf5e09_3AUTf6r2cv6ecvOs4I823X7YRAnodjFxAIWq878Uars0K_VvXNYfaf436ZT4ivTDw9HsTlDKHai-CWjw2wiiFZ1KIqg7BiqxP2RQNW0rFg4YryFuJfTUWdIfqUYjyoW6pO6HOdZ4iZDgz3VfcSWQGtc.webp)
Taking steps to optimize this page and its content will almost certainly help boost its search ranking and increase traffic.
Action: Identify web pages that are not hitting their goals
To find your underperformers, filter the Queries tab by positions greater than 10.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d1af3ca74e56fbe9b_c4232e72-afeb-483a-b09e-12d6b07f2cae.webp)
Doing so will show you queries that you're ranking below the first page for.
Has the page lost clicks and rankings?
SEO is an ongoing process, which means that you may find a page that, once ranked highly, has slid down the search results page and is generating fewer clicks than it once did.
This can typically result from a number of factors, including the SEO effort of your competitor’s pages, outdated information, or changes to Google’s search algorithm.
Your goal is to find and fix these declines in traffic and rankings.
To find your underperformers, head to the Performance tab in GSC, go to Search results and then filter by the Compare feature in the Date range.
This will compare your current performance versus the historical performance of your pages.
![Lost traffic](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44e5cee9a943afb49a2_lnCSs2PRFeqyWdwwPzY0NmgkGnL18EqFBQsOMaRDJK82bjL2KD30HLplMxY1MPRgDNhUnw2zwxKNqVCQRagjoFiNK0YUC81E7AjKcyu7HqsSqd05ravb06Uk-4lDBiSXCZea3GpWjORUWICYHQneAuo.webp)
Action: Update your content for keywords and information
Google’s algorithm values comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date answers, so adding new information and reflecting current search trends can help you shoot up results pages.
Surfer's Auto-Optimize feature can help you generate fresh content for existing articles in 3 steps.
- Add your URL and target keyword
- Click on Auto-Optimize
- Review the new content and edit for style and preference
For example, here is new highlighted information that Surfer added to an existing article on the best film actors.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44ff1b301ba3969e5cf_4cca49f0-a43a-4cea-8040-8aa6cbae05fb.webp)
Are multiple pages ranking for the same keywords?
There’s enough competition in SEO without competing with yourself.
Ensure you don’t have two or more pages trying to capture traffic for the same keywords.
Known as keyword cannibalization, this usually results in your traffic being divided among two similar pages.
Filtering by the Queries tab in GSC’s Search results report will show you which pages rank for it.
For example, filtering by the search term, SEO tools shows us a couple of pages.
![Keyword cannibalization](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d73c66e5da77225da_SdYh-GSk2WVe4w91KVHdcmeUhspYbZ7ssSvvu0kUINmY5G5ueHNO9-PpLYzl3NV-YF6PmMMtqdTmETxNr3CmNKzi1xtiIZJQRjwJF-zzcYwMzlVwGO5-B0s0MuLvonvzT1ipEXK2fy9Ow7daxwI_Y3Q.webp)
Action: Identify keyword cannibalization
To determine whether you have internal page conflicts, analyze your pages' positions and impressions for your target keyword.
If you find more than one page ranking for a term, you have 3 options.
- delete it entirely
- redirect it to the page you want to rank highest
- merge both pages to have comprehensive information
If you’re comfortable with HTML, adding the following line of code can automatically redirect traffic from one page to the next.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6668440cac9a0280a4837b03_redirect.webp)
Note: http-equiv=“refresh” tells the browser to redirect the page, while the 0 makes it instantaneous, so visitors shouldn’t even notice they’re being redirected.
For example, this could be useful to redirect our older article on “top SEO tools in 2020” to the evergreen page on “free SEO tools.”
Which sources does the page receive traffic from?
Pageviews and unique pageviews are important statistics for SEO and your content strategy, but they don’t always tell the whole story.
When examining the quality of your content assets, you also need to see where visits are coming from.
You can find this information in GA4 under the Reports tab by clicking Acquisition and then selecting Traffic acquisition.
![Content sources](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44ea51421b5a3619bde_G6RPuXQ0odn3DjdHLnZtoNn8whPZWBkdAR1bCh39-cYIraMwhk1PgqT0qPZ2991e0uu6hCB-9orOz-cHMmGwAc7iVLX0Gxj8-Tm7iWPNMUcKoYn4z5oxCqEUlBhctBunb1BxTvoTt6Wg_j9hrZmsI-w.png)
Action: Create sharable content
You can attract new traffic from other platforms by creating content that has virality baked in.
Infographics, eBooks and industry insights can be a great way to create content that will address user intent while encouraging folks to visit you from social media and other platforms.
6. Audit for on-page elements
On-page SEO is a combination of technical and content optimization efforts.
One of SEO’s primary components, it is focused on improving individual pages to help them perform better.
As this includes several things that factor into your search ranking, this is an important part of your content audit data.
You’ll want to evaluate a variety of metrics.
Start by asking the following questions:
Is your page URL optimized?
One of the first places, search engine crawlers look to determine what the content of your page is about, is your URL.
With this in mind, your web addresses must be SEO-friendly.
Action: Optimize your page URLs
You should include each page’s primary keyword in the web address to get the most from your URLs.
They should be short and distinct so as not to confuse visitors or search bots.
Some other best practices for URLs are:
- Use hyphens to separate words.
- Avoid using dates. While it may seem like a good idea to show the timeliness of content in an address, this will lengthen your URL and make your page less relevant as the year passes.
- Take out irrelevant search words like “of” or “the.”
- Avoid dynamically generated URLs if possible.
- Use standard naming conventions across your site.
- Front load your primary keywords, where possible
Does your H1 include your primary keyword?
Another major factor Google uses when determining the content of a webpage is the H1 header tag.
Usually the biggest heading on the page, this element, identified with <h1></h1> tags, should describe the main topic of the page.
As such, it should include your page’s target keyword.
The Exact keywords report inside Surfer Audit will check for your primary keyword in the page title.
In the example below, our article on content marketing research meets the requirements.
![H1 with keyword](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d04e247ca6d35e27a_HfoiCutE3g817_XN4Htmm8eQtRrb0HRwQVttY-9x5JuaqBDSr18utnVSmkQi6YV6Jw9xxBN1WleII2wW5hQn6nLCmhACvwWokMlOE_cE09WjI1JSPEjg0IrZzgK7lTcnWOCAIBXDSOsVH6-O5aYsC-o.png)
Action: Include primary keywords in every page’s H1
While doing your site content audit, check to ensure the main header includes the primary keyword you’re targeting for that page.
Is your website content better optimized than the competition?
Everyone you compete with is targeting the same web traffic you are.
That means they’re constantly tweaking their site to improve their search rankings and organic traffic, possibly at your expense.
Make sure your site is performing as well as possible by regularly conducting competitive analysis.
Do a deep dive into their content and your page to see where they’re beating you.
- Do they have better information?
- Maybe respected sites are transferring authority via backlinks.
- Is their content more in-depth?
- Or maybe it just answers the search intent more clearly.
Use this information to inform your content strategy.
It’s also possible your website content needs to be beefed up. Have you underutilized your keyword?
Or do you have multiple pages competing for the same clicks?
Try to identify exactly where your content marketing efforts fall flat when compared to the sites outranking you and take steps to solve the problem.
In the example below, you can see that our content is sufficiently optimized compared to others targeting the same keyword and audience.
![Surfer vs. the competition](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44ddc3b19912da9df40_KhPIyEIC6MUEZ2PEs0RPEJvu-El-9ESAf73gRZPiqx9EZecRBqdn-5-PHV9HuLbB0j7OSZUFgu77wJCUmVeQ_-AiV2K4R1GblJHWECTw2Nc9wHKOjYyxPu3g6FqRZfQmH8e4b8mqVaIz-GsPNtmpOkE.png)
Does your page have relevant keywords?
While many factors go into search ranking, ultimately, it comes down to finding and using the right focus keywords.
Your goal is to find and include relevant words or phrases that help answer a search query.
Surfer's Terms to Use report provides entities and keywords for your main topic in the Action column, which you can sort by descending relevance.
The suggestions include how many times you should use each keyword to ensure optimal keyword optimization.
Not too few, which can cause you to rank lower, but also not too many, which can result in a penalty for keyword stuffing.
![](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44eb764e697abd27dca_lRVSh3Ws1P9FZ0415mPjxziNA-Nxw8Ff9RkbKYQKDluvozM4qxQPLsrfeX9ZGVrBslEsj8_HNsWAzZMZMFwi8J3jlKqiqP4ZwMugRrquH1oeyrYB4mTiFK7HyoJVdkKZPiFZ49pc1dlRW2oQpybVmRs.png)
Does your page meet the optimal word count?
Ask any content marketers how long blog posts and other webpages should be and you’ll get answers ranging from 1000-5,000 words.
With that said, most experts seem to agree that 2,000–2,500 words are the sweet spot.
So how do you know how long your blog post should be?
The Word count report in Surfer will reveal the optimal length for your article.
For example, the page we're auditing falls short of the optimal length for its topic.
![Word count](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44dee57f14073763c3a_odkghIDmlgHQWgJvi5dRocpfo5h4w6RtrvBlXEw4-oUg_UsR6VYsNX5UMJtTgW_t3YHlCVYq92BoO4pZekdb_ZoAgl0CYkEjVITPz-M3f1iWFuKXQO5D_OwM3pPKEieNHbCc4s4iEkAZY2ju62O-_Iw.png)
Is the information on your page properly structured?
It’s not enough for a web page to have good content.
It also needs to be formatted effectively. This can help both humans and search bots understand it.
For example, the audited page below has room for improvement in H2s and elements like paragraphs and images.
The lack of header and paragraph elements may be holding the page from ranking higher.
![Page structure](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44e04df47a321b63f3e_hkqhihnShQG9ljnoofIAGg3-EwOgtJrSgTz64xjePjlONVFF6H37a8qU_6pcw_t5Kvojw8cMO2DOuNd8AGVjRhlnkRdHlx65hSVhq7qNq6oGMSQsFymxTxHRaJ0WLTB7JX3_2dTHAMajBlzEm2b8vQU.png)
Action: Improve your page’s layout
Always view your web pages with an eye for human visitors.
Structure your content with clear and descriptive header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to improve the readability of your text.
Headers help break up the text and guide both users and search engines through your content.
Update content regularly
Keep your content fresh and relevant by routinely adding new information that reflects the latest trends.
This can help maintain or improve search rankings and keep visitors engaged.
If your content is outdated and there is new relevant information related to your topic, updating it will make it more useful to readers.
Incorporate keywords naturally
Make sure you use your focus keyword and supporting keywords in the headers and body copy.
Just make sure you’re doing it naturally, not jamming them in wherever they might fit.
Address common queries
Anticipate and answer questions that users might have about the topic.
This approach improves the comprehensiveness of your content and increases its chances of appearing in featured snippets and answer boxes.
Use structured data
Implement structured data to help search engines better understand the content of your pages, which can improve the way your pages are represented in SERPs.
This includes using schema markup for articles, products, and more.
Include media assets
Incorporate images, videos, and infographics to make your content more engaging and to provide additional context to your written text.
Multimedia elements can also help retain visitor attention and encourage sharing your content.
Is your metadata optimized?
Metadata is information about your page that search engines use to understand.
This includes meta descriptions, title tags, image tags, and schema markup.
Your meta description aids search spiders and has an outsized impact on clickthrough rate in the SERPs.
Searchers are more likely to click on your page when the short summary of your page that appears in search results is inviting and no-fluff.
For example, in the report below, both the page title and the meta description are too short and could be expanded upon.
![Meta descriptions](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d92ece2ed9a164477_qU7lHm2-4OmnKM1bSCpaJu8TB0lXA7ubFA4ChhTH8__YaKDf0oLJVpPmceiktwPacaJmXvcZMfYrG6XE_77EKSYVHiDT-R4r4vgWdqglngFuzyLRUzyMDYyrp10z_ejsYCsdtup1unA3V9qsCU3wQog.png)
7. Audit internal and external links
Links, both internal and external, are an important part of SEO.
Internal links help distribute page authority and ranking power throughout the site, which is essential for SEO.
They also help search engines understand your site's structure and hierarchy, which can influence its rankings.
External links, or backlinks, are equally important as they serve as endorsements from other websites, signaling to search engines that your content is valuable and credible.
Are other internal pages linking to your content?
Ensure your pages are linked together logically, with appropriate contextual links wherever they make sense.
This will help users easily move from one page to another on your website while ensuring search bots aren’t lost in a confusing structure.
Action: Link to target pages internally
You will naturally have extensive internal linking if your website has more than a few pages.
It’s important that they logically flow together.
It's also important to identify and fix any broken links causing problems.
The Internal links report in Surfer suggests other source pages within your domain from which you should link to the target page.
![Internal links](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44da38d6cd6cbd2fe55_YKxIVDhAQTiu2__PDLmiPNgjby1FHIbLXFGehqDe9OoC9QMDEnApVeU-BOjLOa75PmhgcvWfgPbcv1eJwhK_8M2wbFy89p9-VK0a1ZbyGqartbDLzBp-P6WlRnprTFvsxV7LpjF2jSc8R_Skx4bvP1I.png)
Does the page have any external backlinks pointing to it?
To find out how many backlinks a page has, go to the Links tab in GSC.
Under External links, you’ll find Total external links, which shows the number of sites linking to a page.
In the example below, our blog post has 54 inbound links from 35 sites.
![Inbound links](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44d73c66e5da772260e_Wt_pFkV8nM290BZqCopU4DyKQYBgjoomNq3-TSfuFg9QYwV0C64pJcLJBsFQGtRSKy58usXnCQsbtm-EH90sYM0ae1hL_gq6ZP42b-fs3wxEqn8S00D8UxiBzMeiHA9Q9s1nP9-fT50BuWqaFJxzKBM.png)
By examining the quantity and quality of external sites linking to your content versus your competitors, you can gauge your page's strength and authority in search engines' eyes.
Action: Generate good backlinks
A robust backlink profile generally indicates that your content is considered valuable and trustworthy, thus enhancing your page's ability to rank higher in search results.
Conversely, if your competitors have more high-quality backlinks, it may suggest that their content is viewed as more authoritative, which could be a factor in their higher search rankings.
Using Surfer’s Missing common backlinks report, you can find source pages that are linking to your competitors.
![Common backlinks](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44e61483b766fc05697_So5nJ22DEXjH7XDEdH-9pEntUICfJVQWdEoMRZqhcisuk3gmAcUzwzxfwTSKMfSk3Nx4mDUTXqlfIACOADUmy0LnNhtPISl1gsltzlELbKLFWcEieaA_0XeWIaR4p1DN_LEts_V7EOqX0caOu-FMeVY.png)
You can then use this information to improve your content compared to the competition’s and use an email finder tool like Hunter to approach the source page admin about replacing their link with yours.
This tactic is better suited to large volumes, so don't expect great results if you're only reaching out to 10-20 emails.
8. Audit technical elements
Once you’ve completed your audit of your website’s content, it’s time to ensure everything is operating smoothly from a technical perspective.
Understanding technical SEO metrics is crucial because these metrics can have a significant impact on your website's search engine rankings and user experience.
For example, a slow TTFB or page load time can result in a poor user experience, leading to higher bounce rates and lower engagement, which negatively affects SEO rankings.
By auditing these technical aspects, you can identify opportunities to optimize your website's performance, such as implementing faster hosting solutions, optimizing images, or leveraging content delivery networks.
What is your page’s time to first byte (TTFB)?
Time to first byte measures the time it takes for a browser to receive the first byte of information after requesting a page.
Search engines like Google use this information as part of their search rankings algorithm.
A site with a lower TTFB will respond to a request and be usable faster than a site that is less responsive.
Action: Lower your TTFB
Optimizing for core web vitals, using a content delivery network, or moving to a faster web host could be the easiest ways to improve your TTFB.
Surfer's TTFB scan makes checking the TTFB for your page simple.
As you can see in the example below, our page is optimized to deliver the first data package significantly faster than the competition.
![TTFB](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44de0118c85bdffac51_Oecja77zQHfb8aoBR7BeagowegdKv1_9SxT1Qk-KdXDPIq-NkbRJr7r3NnvAwYNDr6ZMrjz8zyR1k5tMj3UMe0vCIVXhp7kCqrxqt6gXJ0gSy2PPB9LYwXiQplDEtgvC6zQ58VkfiuctOR-FfLlj7iQ.png)
How is your page’s load time?
Page load time is the time it takes for a page to appear in a browser, from initiation to completion.
This is important not just from an SEO perspective, as Google’s algorithm accounts for it, but also to ensure that users have a good experience and do not wait for pages to load.
Most people will not have the patience to wait for a slow-loading page and will leave your site instead.
As you can see in the example here, our audited page loads faster than those ranking below it.
![Load time](https://marketing-assets.surferseo.art/wf-cdn/62666115cfab453aacbd513c/6654b44e71a631e401a8ff5f_xBKCZCRK0jiWwg64k-qYgz2AZy9JbMh0Cd_Os1VvrsNjMA_eRorELqsvDm7T1wIfWiAZn-WmJX5ruhkYbxXxmUnkUYPYgHhluwiemC_Q9pAAqD-fwT1Y6Od56V_C_gZ9gM79ud0yFRV7lkm-kLQR9f0.png)
Action: Reduce your page speed load time
If your website isn’t responding quickly, there are several steps you can take to speed things up. These include:
- Cleaning up or minifying CSS, HTML and JavaScript.
- Enabling compression and optimizing images.
- Using browser caching.
- Employing a faster server.
- Using a content distribution network.
Website Content Audit Checklist
Performing a successful content audit of your website can seem like a huge undertaking, but it’s something that can broken down into simple steps as we've seen below.
Use this checklist before you audit your content.
- Set your goals – what do you want to accomplish with your content audit? Where is your website falling short?
- Make a list of your URLs – Take an inventory of your current content on the site.
- Categorize your content – Divide your web content into groups and evaluate each page individually for topic, keywords and modification date.
- Gather website data – Collect data to help you determine the success or failure of each page you want to rank for.
- Prioritize important pages – Choose pages based on their potential and purpose so you know which ones to tackle first.
- Examine on-page SEO elements – Make sure you’ve done as much as possible to make your page visitor and search engine crawler friendly. Fix any issues you find.
- Check your links – Make sure your internal linking follows a logical and consistent path. Discover who links to your competitor's content and reach out to them with better pages.
- Ensure your technical SEO is on-point – Everyone wants to use a website that’s quick-loading and intuitive. Check and fix any technical issues that could be hurting you.
Conclusion
Performing a content audit may sound intimidating, particularly if you haven’t done one before.
However, website auditing tools like Surfer can easily help you audit websites and individual pages.
Make sure you’re auditing your site regularly.
Your audit findings will help you outrank the competition and could lead to more visitors and conversions.