How To Do a Content Audit

If you’re wondering how to do a content audit, you’ve come to the right place. A content audit is a crucial step that will help you avoid wasting unnecessary time and budget.

By revealing what works, what doesn’t, and where any gaps are, you can keep your strategy as smart and as focused as possible. Content can work wonders for brands, attracting all the right people and resulting in benefits such as increased leads, better engagement, and enhanced brand awareness.

The Content Audit Checklist

Before creating new content, it’s important to review what you already have. A content audit helps you understand what ...

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But it needs to be more than just words on a page. And a content audit can help.

In this blog, we’re exploring how to do a content audit, what you actually need to review, and how you can use the insights you find to boost traffic and conversions.

What Is a Content Audit (And Why Does It Matter)

A content audit is a process of evaluating content on a website and identifying any areas where improvements are needed. Content that is audited involves:

• Blog posts
• Landing pages
• Product descriptions

The audit bases performance on how accessible it is, how often people spend on a page, conversions, and keyword performance. By using software to help, you can get a clear insight into areas that are doing well and others that aren’t performing as they should.

Ask yourself:

• Are we creating content that actually drives traffic and conversions?
• Is our content consistent, and does it reflect our brand correctly?
• Where are the content gaps and opportunities?

Why this matters:

• The audit will reveal content that’s underperforming or outdated, and show you where resources are being drained.
• It identifies high-performing content that you can replicate or expand.
• You can use insights to improve SEO and user engagement.
• It aligns content with sales and marketing goals.

Provides a foundation for website redesigns, lead generation, and content strategy.

You might be looking to refresh your content, or you could be in the beginning stages of a rebrand, but either way, a content audit will be incredibly useful. You can use your findings to put you on track for future decisions and make any necessary changes.

What a Content Audit Report Should Include

Any website can have content, but if it’s not performing as it should, the bottom line is that there’s no point in it being there.

All content should be strategic and aligned with the brand. And a content audit report is an excellent way to steer everything in the right direction.

A content audit report should include:

• Informative summary: An informative report that highlights why the content audit was completed in the first place and the key findings. If you’re reporting back to senior members of your organisation, this can be useful for backing up any necessary changes.
• Content inventory: A list of all the content types and assets on a website. It would be useful for the different formats to be laid out, the types, and the date they were published.
• Performance metrics: Specific data regarding traffic, bounce rates, conversion rates, and engagement.
• SEO audit: Does your content utilise keywords? Are there backlinks? Are you ranking for the keywords you want to be associated with?
• Quality assessment: Check if the content is relevant. Is it accurate and up to date? Is it consistent, and does it reflect the brand’s tone effectively? All content across a website needs to follow the same tone and reflect your brand for it to be effective.
• Gap analysis: Identify whether there are key topics missing. Is there a large gap in buyer journey stages? Are all necessary personas accounted for?
• Recommendations: An informative list of where any updates are needed, where any archives would be useful, what content needs archiving, or where new content would work.
• Visuals or spreadsheets: A clear way of presenting findings as clearly as possible.

The 5 Core Areas to Audit

To make it a bit easier to handle, you can break down an audit into 5 core areas. This will keep everything focused and help avoid gaps, especially if you have a lot of content on your website.

The five core areas are:

Purpose

Every piece of content should exist for a reason. When you look across your library, ask whether each asset supports your brand goals, audience needs, or sales funnel.

Content without a clear purpose clutters your site, confuses visitors, and wastes resources. An audit helps you pinpoint what’s aligned, what’s outdated, and what’s just taking up space.

Key questions to ask:

• Does each asset serve a clear goal (awareness, engagement, conversion)?
• Is it still relevant to your current strategy?
• Are there pieces that no longer add value?

Example:
A blog post that once explained a discontinued product might still get traffic. But, if it no longer supports your current offer, it’s a distraction rather than an asset.

Audience

Strong content only works if it resonates with the right people. A content audit should explore whether your library truly meets the needs, interests, and challenges of your target audience.

If your content is attracting visitors but failing to engage them, it may signal a mismatch between what you’re publishing and what your audience actually wants.

Key questions to ask:

• Does the content answer the real questions our audience is asking?
• Are we creating resources for every stage of the buyer journey?
• Is our tone, depth, and style appropriate for our audience segments?

Example:
A B2B company might produce high-level “what is” blogs that drive traffic but overlook detailed comparison guides or case studies. Without these, potential buyers have nothing to move them closer to a decision.

Visibility

Great content has little impact if no one can find it. Visibility is about making sure your work reaches the right audience through search engines, social channels, and other distribution paths.

An audit helps you spot whether strong content is hidden, under-promoted, or technically held back from ranking and being discovered.

Key questions to ask:

• Are our key topics and assets easy to find through search?
• Do we have a healthy mix of organic, social, and referral visibility?
• Are technical issues (like broken links or missing metadata) holding us back?

Example:
An educational blog series might deliver excellent advice, but if it lacks clear keywords or is buried three clicks deep on your site, it will struggle to attract readers.

Relevance

Not all content is created equal. This area focuses on how well your content serves your audience and supports your goals. It’s about value, clarity, and engagement rather than just checking boxes.

Key questions to ask:

• Does the content answer your audience’s questions or solve their problems?
• Is it aligned with your brand’s messaging and strategy?
• Are users engaging with it as intended (clicks, shares, conversions)?

Example:
A product guide might exist, but if it’s outdated or uses confusing language, users won’t benefit, and the effort spent creating it is wasted.

Opportunities & Next Steps

A content audit isn’t just about spotting issues, it’s about identifying where you can improve, expand, or repurpose content to meet your goals. This section turns insights into actionable steps.

Key questions to ask:

• Which gaps or underperforming areas should be addressed first?
• What content can be updated, consolidated, or repurposed?
• Are there new formats or topics that could better serve your audience?

Example:
After auditing blog posts, a marketing team realises several older posts could be updated and combined into a comprehensive guide, boosting SEO and providing more value to readers.

How To Do a Content Audit (Step-by-Step)

Now you know what you’re looking for, it’s time to put it into practice.

Here is our step-by-step guide to doing a content audit:

Step 1: Take Inventory of Your Content

Before you can improve your content, you need to know exactly what you have. Without a complete picture, you’re flying blind. Taking time to compile all of your content will help you know your starting point and help you determine where to go from there.

To do this:

• Export a list from your CMS or use a dedicated audit tool that will help you get everything where it needs to be.
• Include publish date, last update, format, and URL for each asset.
• Flag duplicates, outdated pieces, or content buried too deep to find.

Step 2: Analyse Performance

Understanding how your content performs is key to knowing what to keep, improve, or cut. Performance data gives you insight into what your audience values and how they engage with your brand.

But numbers alone aren’t enough; you need to interpret them thoughtfully to uncover meaningful trends and actionable insights.

To do this:

• Review traffic patterns: Look beyond just page views. Analyse unique visitors, session duration, and pages per session to see if visitors are truly engaging or bouncing quickly. High traffic with low engagement could signal content that attracts clicks but fails to hold interest.
• Examine engagement metrics: Look into time spent on page, scroll depth, comments, shares, and click-through rates to evaluate how well your content connects with readers.
• Track conversions and goal completions: Tie your content to business objectives. Which pages or posts lead users to take desired actions: signups, purchases, downloads?
• Spot underperformers: Identify content with high bounce rates or poor conversion rates. These may need updating, rethinking, or removing altogether. But don’t discount why they underperform; sometimes it’s poor promotion, outdated info, or misalignment with audience needs.
• Look for seasonality and trends: Some content shines during specific times (like holiday guides or annual reports). Spotting these patterns lets you plan timely updates or promotional pushes.
• Assess promotion and distribution: Great content doesn’t promote itself. Check whether your top content is actively supported through social, email, or paid channels. Sometimes high-performing pieces fly under the radar due to a lack of exposure.

Step 3: Review SEO Elements

Even the best content won’t make an impact if it can’t be found. SEO is your content’s visibility engine, making sure your target audience can discover your pages through search.

A thorough SEO review uncovers hidden issues and opportunities to boost organic reach and drive consistent traffic.

To do this:

• Evaluate keyword targeting: Are you using the right keywords that match your audience’s search intent? Check that each piece of content has a clear focus keyword or phrase, integrated into titles, headings, and body text.
• Audit metadata: Titles and meta descriptions are your first impression in search results. They should be compelling, accurate, and include primary keywords. Poor or missing metadata can drastically reduce click-through rates, even if your page ranks well.
• Inspect heading structure: Proper use of headings helps search engines understand your content hierarchy and improves readability. Headings should include keywords but remain natural and informative.
• Check for broken links and duplicate content: Broken links frustrate users and can damage SEO rankings. Duplicate content confuses search engines and dilutes authority. Use tools to find and fix these issues promptly.
• Check for alt text on images: Alt tags aren’t just for accessibility, they help search engines index your images and improve rankings. Every image should have descriptive, keyword-appropriate alt text.
• Assess page speed and mobile-friendliness: Slow-loading pages and poor mobile experiences push visitors away and hurt rankings. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix performance bottlenecks.
• Review backlink profile: External links pointing to your site boost authority and search visibility. Check the quality and quantity of backlinks, and remove any links that don’t make sense for your brand.

Step 4: Assess Quality and Relevance

Great content isn’t just about having lots of pages or posts; it needs to resonate with your audience, stay true to your brand voice, and provide up-to-date, accurate information.

Assessing existing content and working out how relevant it is will help you make decisions for future content.

To do this:

• Check accuracy and timeliness: Outdated or incorrect information can damage your credibility and frustrate users. Review facts, stats, data points, and any time-sensitive advice to make sure everything is current and reliable.
• Evaluate alignment with brand tone and voice: Does your content sound like you? Consistency in tone, whether it’s friendly, professional, playful, or authoritative, reinforces your brand personality and helps build recognition and loyalty.
• Assess usefulness and relevance: Ask if the content genuinely serves your audience’s needs today. Is it solving problems, answering questions, or inspiring action? Content that’s no longer relevant or helpful should be updated or retired.
• Identify content gaps or redundancies: Sometimes content overlaps unnecessarily or duplicates existing resources. These clutter your ecosystem and dilute your message. Consolidate where possible to create stronger, more comprehensive assets.
• Determine action for each piece: Decide whether each asset needs a quick refresh, a full rewrite, or to be removed altogether. If you decide that a refresh is needed, it might involve updating stats or information.

You might need to rewrite content if it needs a new angle or tone, and removal applies to obsolete or low-value pages that don’t support your strategy.

Step 5: Identity Gaps and Relevance

This is where the real magic happens. After assessing what you have, it’s time to find the missing pieces that could propel your content strategy forward.

To do this:

• Cross-check against buyer personas: Are you speaking to all your key audience segments? Map your existing content to personas to see who’s getting enough attention and who’s being overlooked. Tailor content to different needs, preferences, and pain points to deepen connection.
• Map content to sales funnel stages: Do you have enough top-of-funnel awareness pieces, mid-funnel educational content, and bottom-funnel conversion-focused assets? If certain stages are starved of content, prospects may drop off before converting.
• Audit topic coverage: Analyse whether you’re covering all the important topics your audience cares about. Emerging trends or overlooked questions can reveal ripe opportunities to attract new visitors and establish thought leadership.
• Spot underused formats: Are you stuck in just blog posts and newsletters? Consider mixing things up with videos, podcasts, webinars, resources, infographics, or interactive tools. Different formats engage audiences in new ways and extend reach.
• Look for repurposing chances: High-performing content can often be transformed into other formats or updated with fresh insights to reach new audience segments without starting from scratch.

Using Your Content Audit as a Launchpad for Growth

A content audit is a great way to enhance growth and trigger change.

You can use your findings to:

• Uncover opportunities to improve SEO, engagement, and conversions.
• Prioritise content updates, repurposing, or new content creation.
• Align content plans with business goals for measurable results.
• Link to tools, templates, and strategic guides for content planning.

Once you’re happy with your findings, take some time to spread the word with the different teams in your organisation. Doing this will allow you to make sure everything is aligned and as strategic as possible from all angles.

Common Content Issues Revealed by Audits

Content audit reports don’t just expose problems, but they shine a light on opportunities, and this is great! When you start digging into your content, you might come across a long list of areas that need attention. It can feel overwhelming at first, but don’t be discouraged!

This is your chance to refine your strategy, fix what’s holding you back, and move forward with confidence.

Common things you might hear or discover include:

• “We have lots of content, but no clear strategy.”
• “Some pages get traffic, but don’t convert.”
• “SEO basics are missing or outdated.”
• “Our content tone is inconsistent or off-brand.”

If you find yourself coming across issues, don’t worry! Audits are meant to raise questions and highlight any areas where improvements are necessary.

Finding issues means you can take steps to solve them and prevent further ones down the line.

Should You Hire a Content Audit Expert?

Doing a content audit yourself can work well if you’re a small team or have a straightforward website.

But if your content ecosystem is large, complex, or you want deeper insights, bringing in an expert can make a real difference.

Content audit specialists combine SEO expertise and strategic content planning to uncover hidden opportunities and tackle any challenges that come up along the way.

Here’s what experts bring to the table:

• Deep SEO analysis to boost discoverability.
• User experience (UX) insights to improve engagement.
• Strategic guidance on content gaps and priorities.
• Actionable recommendations to streamline your content workflow.
• Scalable plans that evolve with your business needs.

At Canny, we help teams prioritise what really matters and create scalable content plans that grow with your business.

Need a thorough content audit? We’re ready to help.

How To Do a Content Audit

A strong content strategy starts with a clear understanding of what you already have and what’s actually working.

A thorough content audit will:

• Reveal your content’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Provide clarity on what to keep, improve, or retire.
• Give you the confidence to plan smarter, more effective next steps.

Ready for a content audit that drives real results?

At Canny, we’ve developed our own audit tool that:

• Automates the inventory and analysis process.
• Provides clear, actionable insights based on your data.
• Highlights SEO issues, content gaps, and performance metrics.
• Helps you prioritise improvements with confidence.

Ready to see how our audit tool can transform your content strategy? Watch this space.

In the meantime, let’s discuss your project and how we can help.

Tony Hardy

Founder & Director

Tony specialises in B2B brand strategy, high-performing websites, and SEO-led content. He works with marketing teams to identify what’s holding their marketing back, and turn it into clear, commercially focused action. With over a decade of experience across branding, web, and content, he leads on strategy, ensuring every project is built to drive measurable results, not just look good.