When Is The Right Time To Do A Content Audit For SEO?

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by Lindsey Francy Jan 18, 2023 News
When Is The Right Time To Do A Content Audit For SEO?

Nick asked today's Ask Anseo question.

“What time period is most useful for a content audit? My traffic changes based on Google Algorithm updates and there is also some seasonality. Should I use one year of performance data to influence my strategy or would it be better to use smaller chunks of data?”

Nick, it's a great question.

There is no right or wrong answer for when to do a content audit, as each site is unique, but there are signs that it is time to do a content review.

Performance audits don't hurt either.

It's important to be careful about changing things just because you got a ding, a C-suite executive panics, or there is a search engine update.

Good content and pages will come back when a search engine does a roll back.

Don't rely on updates as a sign that it's time to audit your content

Use these instead.

  • If traffic has plateaued and good pages that should be ranking are not. (After tech and structure issues have been resolved)
  • Content that was always in the top positions has slipped or started to slip, and your content is equal to the pages replacing you.
  • When the busy season is six to seven months away, and you don’t have your rankings.
  • Annual evaluations by category, and page.

Plateaued Traffic

It is a good idea to take a break and look at the content you are publishing when traffic slows.

Do you already have a page that gets the same type of traffic from search engines?

Changing topics and finding new things that can appeal to your audience are ways to stay relevant.

The pages that are working should not be cannibalized. Don't just look at traffic and write about the same thing, look at your audience and user base.

Is it possible that people on social media are stopping sharing and clicking on your pages?

When this happens, you are more likely to post topics that are not interesting to your user base, or you are more likely to post topics that are too much for them.

There are other types of content that meet the needs of the same users.

Think about other single dad problems if you want to target single dads with younger daughters. Birthday parties, hair styling, shopping for clothes, introducing your daughter to your new partner are all possibilities.

Each topic has matching books that can be used to sell your content and give solutions to your audience's needs. Cross-promotional marketing campaigns can be created with companies that complement your niche.

Exposure can lead to natural back links.

It can help get your traffic growing again for a relevant audience while feeding other channels and helping your company grow.

You can become the hero and get a seat at the marketing planning table if you are anseo pro.

Pages And Categories That Are Slipping

This is a good time to audit pages that are slipping.

Don't just pull, peck, and rewrite. Look at first.

  • What has replaced you in the search results?
  • Which topics do they cover that you don’t? Think about how you can naturally incorporate them into your own content if they are relevant.
  • How many backlinks and internal links do they have if their page is getting “real” media coverage? Why are they getting it and you are not? When do they prioritize their content? Are they giving it a boost with extra signals via internal links (especially from pages with quality backlinks)?
  • Do you have proper schema and site structure, and are your pages loading quickly and providing solutions?
  • Has anyone published similar content within your site that could be competing? Use an SEO tool to group a keyword cluster, and then look to see if multiple pages on your site are all showing up for these. If you have competing pages, you may want to combine some, delete some, or rewrite some of them to be more clear about the benefits to the visitor.

Around Six Months Out From Seasonal Traffic

You should check to see if you are showing up for your most important terms six months from now.

Begin looking at how you can improve your copy if you're not.

Six months is enough time so you can get to content and code freeze before your busy season starts, because I like to do more testing than is needed.

Don't split test organic traffic into two parts.

This doesn't go well in a lot of ways. Instead, create a plan, test copy, and wording, and then roll out the best experience with time to watch how it performs.

Annual Evaluations

It's a good idea to do an evaluation every year.

Maybe the category of your site isn't getting exposure because you know what your best performing copy is. This can be found in most packages.

You can sort by traffic and see how the categories are doing.

You can modify the site structure and look for missing areas from there.

It is possible to detect if copy and H tags are working on categories.

Posts that used to perform well fell when others took their place. If you need to redo the pages that fell, you can use a time comparison.

You can double your traffic if you discover that traffic is stable because one post took over as an acquisition.

It's easier to fix older pages than it is to create new ones.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to doing a content search audit.

This helps me.

There's more resources.

The image is by Andrey_Popov.