Our latest Blog

There is no set timeline for when websites should be updated. In general, experts recommend a redesign or revamp every two to four years to keep up with the latest changes in technology. But this doesn’t mean your website doesn’t need attention in between this time. The fact is that your website is a living, breathing entity that requires regular attention to stay relevant and up to date.

Here at WSI Net Advantage, our clients regularly ask us how often they should be updating their web content. To help you out, we’ve put together this useful guide on how often you should perform a content audit and refresh your information.

What is a Content Audit?

A content audit involves taking a look at all the content on your website and assessing its strengths and weaknesses. By making the necessary improvements, you can continue improving your content so that it performs better and better.

Content audits look at a variety of elements, including word count, keywords, spelling, grammar and voice and tone. As your brand evolves, you’ll want to make sure your content adheres to your in-house style guide and brand guidelines.

How Often Should You Run a Content Audit?

At the minimum, we recommend running a content audit each year. However, some audits should be done more frequently than others.

Awareness Content – Every 6 months

Awareness content is designed to attract potential customers to your website. It usually answers questions that people are searching for online. You should be adding weekly articles to your blog and doing audits every six months to ensure you’re driving the right traffic to your blog.

Metrics to pay attention to are:

• Pageviews
• Unique visitors
• Time on page
• Bounce/exit rate
• Social shares
• Comments
• Backlinks

Consideration Content – Every 3-6 months

Consideration content helps prospects decide which option is right for them. This type of content includes ebooks, templates, checklists, comparison videos and blog posts.

Aside from the standard metrics like pageviews and unique visitors, you should also pay attention to:

• Assisted conversions
• Backlinks
• Trust flow
• Social shares

Conversion Content – Every quarter

We recommend a quarterly audit for your conversion content, or content that gets prospects to take action. Evaluating conversion content isn’t easy, but you should be able to spot data trends based on your conversion timeline.

We recommend looking at the following metrics:

• Pageviews
• Unique visitors
• Time on page
• Bounce/exit rate
• Goals/conversions

Retention Content – Annually

Retention content like tips-and-tricks or previews of upcoming products tends to have lower engagement metrics because it targets a smaller audience. But you should have enough data to determine how effective this content is.

Pay attention to all of the same metrics that you do for the other content, including pageviews, bounce rates, unique visitors and social shares.

Can You Audit All Content at the Same Time?

If you don’t want to run separate audits, you can run one large content audit once or twice a year. An annual content audit is helpful because you’ll have a year’s worth of data to look at. The problem is that conducting an audit once a year makes it difficult to stay ahead of the curve.

However, there is no right or wrong decision. There are pros and cons to running multiple audits or doing one large one each year. You’ll also want to consider your SEO goals, as this influences how often you should run content audits. Metrics to look at for this purpose are backlinks, target keywords and keyword rankings.

Basic Tips for Running a Content Audit

There are a number of tools you can use to run a content audit, including Google Analytics, SEMRush and Screaming Frog. For a personalized recommendation for your content audit needs, contact WSI Net Advantage.

Regardless of the content audit tool you use, here are some tips for running a content audit.

• Think of your goals. What do you want to accomplish? Are you trying to find the top performing content? Determine which pages need to be SEO optimized? Identifying your goals will help you categorize your content.
• Gather your content. Choose the type of content you want to audit – product descriptions, blog posts, multimedia, etc. Collect the URLs of the web pages you choose to audit either manually or using your audit tool.
• Categorize your content. After reviewing your content, categorize it on the spreadsheet. Your tool may do this for you, but you can also go through it yourself. Categories you can use are content type, author, publication date and format.
• Analyze your data. Now it’s time to look critically at your data. Are there topics you haven’t covered yet? Content that isn’t performing as well as it should? Content that should be updated?
• Take action. Lastly, decide how you will take action. Are you going to keep the content, delete it or rewrite it?

Content audits might sound like a lot of work at first, but you’ll get used to doing them. And if you need help running these audits, be sure to contact WSI Net Advantage at 510-687-9737. We’ll make sure your content is performing to the best of its ability while offering suggestions on how to make continued improvements for the best results. The more often you run these audits, the better you can elevate your campaigns