A content audit is the part of a website audit a business can do itself, and it is the part that finds the most. It is an inventory of every page followed by a verdict on each: keep it, improve it, merge it into another, or remove it. The verdicts come from four questions, and the whole exercise for a small site takes an afternoon with a spreadsheet. This page sets out how to do a website content audit step by step and gives the columns of a website audit checklist template you can copy, which is also the shape of the audit record Stagenix keeps against a site.
Step one: the inventory
List every page on the site with its address. The sitemap, the analytics and a crawl between them find the pages nobody remembers, and there are always some: old blog posts, a landing page from a campaign, a duplicate services page. Against each, note what it is about, when it was last changed, how many visits it had in the last year and whether any enquiry came from it. That is the inventory, and it is the template's first six columns: address, subject, last updated, visits, enquiries, and a blank column for the verdict.
Step two: the four questions on every page
Is it true: does the page describe what the business sells now, at today's prices, from today's address, with today's staff. Is it useful: does it answer the question a visitor arriving at it would have, or does it say the business is passionate about excellence. Is it found: does it get visits, and is it the only page on the site about its subject, because two pages on one subject compete with each other. Does it act: does it lead to the enquiry, the booking or the call, visibly, on a phone. Four columns, yes or no, and the verdict follows from them.
Step three: the verdict and the plan
A page that is true, useful, found and acts is kept. A page that is useful but untrue or does not act is improved, with a note of what to change. Two pages on one subject are merged into the better one, with a redirect from the other. A page that is untrue, unread and answers nothing is removed, with a redirect to the closest page or a proper not-found. The checklist's last three columns are the verdict, the action and who owns it. Sort by visits, and the top of the list is where the afternoon's remaining hours go.
Questions people ask about how to do a website content audit
How often should a content audit be done?
Once a year in full, and every time something the site describes changes: prices, services, staff, address. The full audit takes an afternoon on a small site.
What is the most common finding?
Pages that are no longer true: old prices, a service no longer offered, a staff member who left. They are cheap to fix and they are the pages visitors trust least when they notice.
Should removed pages be redirected?
To the closest page on the same subject, yes. If there is none, let the address return a proper not-found rather than sending it to the home page.