In our last post, we discussed why content audits are a good idea for brands wishing to improve performance. There’s virtually no situation where a brand won’t benefit from analyzing their content, but some websites need the service more than others. It can be hard to motivate yourself to undergo a step-by-step analysis of every aspect of your site’s content if nothing seems amiss: how can you be sure that the effort will be worth it?

Whether it’s removing negative indicators from your SEO campaign or outright improving performance, there’s always justification for an audit. However, in the case of the former, content audits really are non-negotiable. Continuing our week-long look at content audits, we’ll examine how you can determine whether or not your website truly needs a content audit.

Traffic Without Conversions or Leads

Above all else, content serves to generate traffic – but not just any traffic. Ultimately, generating traffic that results in actions, engagements, conversions and leads is the goal. By pinging search engines, social media and other mediums with content, the end goal is to make those who visit do something. One of the biggest indicators that it’s time for a content audit is that content may be generating traffic, but isn’t actually generating the actions you want that content to provide.

Whether it be sales, subscriptions or simple community engagement, tracking where your conversions and leads are coming from – and whether they’re coming at all – is crucial. If you’re getting plenty of traffic but a minimal amount of engagement, then it’s time to audit.

No Profit from Blogging

Virtually every website regardless of focus has a blog these days – and if yours doesn’t, it absolutely should! However, one of the biggest indicators that a content audit is necessary can be found in the performance of blog posts. Successful brands and businesses actually generate profit via their blog content: after all, that’s one of the primary goals of having a blog section in the first place (alongside better SEO performance).

If your blog content isn’t resulting in more sales, subscriptions or other forms of traffic that indirectly generate revenue, then it’s time to look under the hood. Each blog post should be driving traffic to your website and providing incentives for those visitors to engage in other ways with the brand as a whole.

Inferior Content Engagement

Another telltale sign that content auditing is needed is the lack of traffic and engagement with your pages and posts. While it should be expected that recently created content may not be ranking highly in search results or driving tons of traffic, long-established pages and posts should be delivering results. If many of your pages are failing to do so (besides those that serve a singular purpose, such as a contact page), then they are likely not up to par with SEO expectations. Pinging search engines with too many of these pages can actually damage your reputation; a content audit will uncover which pages are not performing as they should, providing you with an opportunity to either improve them or remove them altogether.

Sooner or later, your growing website will need a content audit. Some of the biggest indicators of such include the situations mentioned above; if you find this is true for much of your website, then laying the groundwork for an audit as soon as possible is highly recommended.