A content inventory is a detailed list of all the content on your website. It's a great tool for marketers, SEOs, and content strategists for managing, optimizing, and planning more effectively.
By organizing your content library, you make audits faster, improve user experience, and make smarter SEO decisions.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a content inventory step-by-step, choose the right content inventory tools, and turn your data into actionable insights.
What you will learn
- What a content inventory is and why it's essential
- The difference between a content inventory and a content audit
- How to create a website content inventory
- Top content inventory tools to help you build and maintain a content inventory
What is a content inventory?
A content inventory is a detailed list of all the content pieces on a website. It documents each item’s URL, content type, SEO data, and often performance metrics like traffic or engagement. The goal of a content inventory is to create a comprehensive map of everything that currently exists on the site.
Usually, a content inventory comes in the form of a spreadsheet in Excel or integrated into a content management tool. Some marketers prefer to use Google Spreadsheets or Excel as it allows more flexibility; however, you need to build your database from scratch. On the other hand, content management tools provide various automation, but they have more limited capabilities.
An important thing to remember is that content inventory doesn’t only apply to blogs. You can collect data on various content formats such as landing pages or gated content. You can also create content inventory for other media assets such as videos or social media posts.
It’s crucial to note that a content inventory is different from a content audit. A content audit is the evaluation of content that usually follows the inventory process.
After gathering all the content data through an inventory, the audit assesses things like quality, SEO effectiveness, brand consistency, performance, and alignment with business goals. Based on the audit findings, you decide on what to update, delete, consolidate, or optimize. In short, a content audit is the analysis and action plan based on the content inventory.
Why a content inventory is important for SEO
A content inventory is important for SEO because it helps you identify underperforming pages, spot content gaps, avoid duplication, and prioritize updates. This allows you to improve rankings, maintain topical authority, and make strategic decisions based on data.
First, if you maintain your content inventory it can help you identify duplicate content and outdated pages. Duplicate or overlapping pages can confuse search engines and dilute your rankings, while outdated content may hurt your site's credibility and relevance.
On the other hand, you can clearly see what topics are covered, and which ones are missing. This way you can spot opportunities to create new, valuable content that fills important gaps in the user journey.
Having a well-organized inventory also allows you to group your web pages topically. This helps easily find internal lining opportunities and organize your content into topic clusters, which can strengthen the overall site structure.
Another major benefit is avoiding keyword cannibalization. When multiple pages unintentionally compete for the same keyword, they can weaken each other's ranking potential. If you map one primary keyword to one page, you ensure each page has a clear, focused purpose and maximize the chance of ranking higher in search results.
A comprehensive content inventory is also crucial if you need to redesign or migrate your website. It ensures that you don't lose any valuable pages in the process and that SEO elements like redirects, metadata, and internal links are properly managed.
Lastly, a content inventory creates alignment across SEO, content, and product teams.
With a shared view of existing assets, teams can collaborate more effectively, whether it's planning new features, optimizing conversion paths, or expanding into new topic areas.
How to create a content inventory
Building a content inventory might sound like a big task, but in reality, it’s all about gathering the right information in a structured, usable way. Here's how to do it step-by-step.
1. Define your inventory goals
To create a well-organized content inventory you need to focus on the data that is aligned with your goal. You want to avoid a situation where you track loads of irrelevant information and can’t find what you’re looking for.
A content inventory can serve many different purposes and each goal requires a slightly different focus.
Your goal should dictate what data matters most. For example:
- If your goal is SEO, focus on metrics like rankings, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and content score.
- If your goal is prepping for redesign, zero in on URL mapping, canonical tags, and internal link structures.
- If your goal is to plan new content, concentrate on topic clustering, gaps, and outdated coverage.
Taking the time to set clear goals at the start will make your content inventory more focused, actionable, and ultimately more valuable to improving your content strategy and search engine rankings.
2. Extract all live URLs
Next, start by making a list of all the live pages on your website. You can do this manually, however, it only works if your site has only a handful of web pages, otherwise, it can take ages.
You can use tools that will help you generate a sitemap, such as XML-sitemaps.
Or, you can use a dedicated tool like Screaming Frog if you need more detailed information such as metadata or canonical tags.
3. Categorize and tag content
Creating tags and categories is crucial to easily navigate through your content inventory, collect important data, and prioritize tasks in your content strategy.
Start by creating a spreadsheet and adding all your extracted URLs. If you need a more robust and collaborative tool you can use Notion or Airtable, which will allow you to easily filter, group, and sort your data as your inventory grows.
For each piece of content make sure to create fields with the most crucial information such as content format, author, and date published or updated.
Then create tags such as content type, topic cluster, funnel stage, or primary goal. You can also set business potential or priority, for example by assigning numbers from 1 to 3, with three being high-potential or high-priority. This can help you prioritize optimization and support task management.
Here's a simple spreadsheet example you can replicate.
Creating proper tags and categories in your content inventory will allow you to quickly spot the room for improvements in existing content. You will avoid overlapping blog posts, uncover gaps in coverage, and easily find internal linking opportunities.
4. Pull SEO and performance metrics
To create a content inventory that will support your content optimization efforts include the most relevant performance metrics. The easiest way to collect this information is by pulling data directly from Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4.
If you're managing a lot of pages, consider using a Google Sheets add-on, Search Analytics for Sheets, that lets you automate pulling GSC data straight into your spreadsheet.
In particular, focus on the following metrics:
From Google Search Console:
- Impressions,
- Clicks,
- Click-through rates.
From Google Analytics 4:
- Pageviews,
- Average session duration,
- Conversion rates (if available).
To create a content inventory for SEO purposes, you can connect your Google Search Console in Surfer's Content Audit.
Once you link your GSC account to Surfer, the platform automatically pulls your top 100 pages along with key SEO performance data such as impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position. Surfer also calculates the Content Score of each page so you know how well-optimized your content is for search.
Surfer has done a full scan of your site's content, so you can manually add more pages. Depending on your plan, you can add up to 1000 pages.
Including performance metrics in your content inventory gives you a much deeper view of both search visibility and user engagement of your existing content helping you make more informed decisions about what to update, consolidate, or promote.
5. Assign status and next steps
The next step is to assign a clear action to every page in your inventory. Giving each piece of content a status helps you move from analysis to execution and ensures that every page has a defined purpose in your strategy.
Each page should be assigned one of four actions: Keep, Update, Merge, Remove. When deciding what action to assign, it's important to prioritize pages with strategic value.
Focus your efforts first on pages like product pages, top converting pages, or high-potential blog posts.
To identify high-priority pages, look for:
- High-traffic but low-converting pages: These pages attract visitors but fail to convert, signaling an opportunity to improve CTAs, offers, or UX.
- Pages ranking on page 2 of search results (positions 11–20): These are often just a few tweaks away from breaking onto page 1 and driving much more traffic.
- Pages with declining traffic: Content that once performed well but has started to fade may need updates, re-optimization, or repromotion.
Recommendations view in Surfer Content Audit automatically filters your pages based on performance and optimization opportunities. It highlights priority pages, such as those with declining traffic, low content scores, or ranking just outside of page 1.
Pro tip: Once you identify priority URLs, you can use Surfer’s Auto-Optimize feature for fast, AI-powered rewrites. It generates SEO-focused improvements based on the page’s current keyword data, helping you update content more efficiently and boost rankings faster.
Top 6 content inventory tools
Creating a content inventory can be much easier if you choose the right tools. Here are the top content inventory software and how they contribute to creating a complete inventory:
1. Surfer's Content Audit
Best for: SEO performance analysis and quick optimization.
Surfer's Content Audit pulls in real-time data from Google Search Console to generate a comprehensive list of your pages. It surfaces key SEO metrics including:
- Current rankings
- Organic traffic
- CTR and impressions
- Content Score
You’ll instantly see which pages are underperforming and why. If a page has a low Content Score, you can click Optimize to open that page in Surfer’s Content Editor and make targeted improvements.
This creates a seamless audit-to-action workflow, making it an effective tools for maintaining and improving SEO content at scale.
2. Screaming Frog
Best for: Technical audits and structural content mapping.
Screaming Frog is a powerful desktop crawler that scans your entire website and extracts metadata like:
- Page titles and meta descriptions
- H1 tags and canonical URLs
- Indexability and response codes
It’s particularly useful for identifying missing tags, redirect chains, duplicate content, and orphan pages. Exporting this data into a spreadsheet helps you build the skeleton of your content inventory and understand your site’s architecture at a glance.
3. Google Sheets / Excel
Best for: Custom tagging, tracking, and manual content organization.
Sometimes the simplest tools are the most flexible. Google Sheets and Excel give you full control to:
- Manually add or import URLs
- Assign categories, tags, funnel stages, goals, and priority scores
- Sort, filter, and annotate with ease
They're especially useful in the early stages of content auditing or for small teams who don’t need advanced automation but want a clear and customizable system for managing their content assets.
4. Google Search Console
Best for: Organic performance insights and indexing status.
Google Search Console provides invaluable SEO data straight from Google, including:
- Total impressions and clicks
- Average position and CTR per URL
- Indexation issues
- Mobile usability and Core Web Vitals
This data helps you identify which content is underperforming, whether pages are indexed, and how users are finding your site—all crucial inputs for making inventory decisions.
5. Google Analytics (GA4)
Best for: Engagement and conversion analysis.
GA4 gives you deep insight into how users interact with your content. You can track:
- Page views and session time
- Bounce rates
- Conversions and goal completions
- User flow across different pages
These engagement metrics help you understand which content drives results, which pages need UX improvements, and where content is falling flat—insights that directly inform your content audit and prioritization process.
6. Notion / Airtable
Best for: Collaborative project management and visual organization.
Notion and Airtable go beyond spreadsheets by offering dynamic, relational databases that can:
- Link content entries with tasks, owners, deadlines, and comments
- Filter and group content by cluster, priority, or goal
- Create kanban boards, calendars, and views for different teams
These tools shine in team settings where multiple stakeholders (content, SEO, product, design) need visibility into what’s being audited, updated, or rewritten. They’re ideal for large-scale audits, redesigns, or ongoing optimization workflows.
Key takeaways
- A content inventory is a complete list of all your website content that includes key information like URLs, SEO data, and performance metrics.
- Defining your inventory goals, such as SEO optimization, site migration, or content planning, will determine which metrics and details matter most.
- Start creating a content inventory by extracting all live URLs with tools like sitemap generator or Screaming Frog for larger websites.
- Create clear tags and categories such as content type, topic, or funnel stage to help collect the right data and navigate through the content inventory.
- Pull key performance data such as impressions, clicks, CTR (from GSC) page views, session duration, and conversion rate (from GA4).
- Assign every page a clear status: Keep, Update, Merge, or Remove, and prioritize pages based on strategic value and performance.
- Top tools like Surfer Content Audit, Screaming Frog, Google Sheets, GSC, GA4, and Airtable help streamline the inventory process.
- Surfer Content Audit can import URLs connected to Google Search Console and auto-populate traffic and content score metrics.
