Regular audits of your web pages can be a helpful and necessary part of your overall search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. As business websites age, the content on them needs periodic maintenance. This is especially true for websites with a significant backlog of content. An effective content audit should include a number of actions that work together to keep your website fresh and relevant while helping new customers find you online.
Aspects of a strong auditing system will include three important components:
- Examination of online pages for signs of content decay
- Assessment of sitemaps for simplicity of user experience
- Necessary updates to correspond with findings
Why Should Small and Mid-Size Businesses Audit Their Websites?
Don’t be scared off by the term audit. It is simply your chance to become more informed so that you can repair and strengthen your website, just as you would any other aspect of your organization. Implementing regular audits can help growing businesses with a strong web presence accomplish multiple vital goals:
- Measure the strength of their website
- Improve the use of keywords
- Attract organic traffic
- Create better online visibility
- Help search engines navigate the site
- Boost search results online
Smaller and mid-size businesses, in particular, will benefit from the aid of a digital marketing expert with auditing experience, whether in house or hired as a consultant. The bottom line is that you want a process in place to ensure certain steps are taken to make your website as fresh and functional as possible.
7 Basic Steps to an Audit of Your Company’s Web Pages
To get started, schedule regular reviews of inventories of your past online content. Essentially, anything on a web page that conveys helpful information to your audience can be considered content. Keep in mind that an audit should be tailored to meet a specific set of goals, since each company’s website is built differently from the next.
- Refer to a spreadsheet or other system to organize your content audit. In essence, you want to create a system for identifying areas that may need to be improved. An organizational system will consist of lists for tracking urls, page descriptions and tags. They can contain video as well as written content.
- Use your audience as a guide during your content audit. Creating solutions following a content audit can be overwhelming. A good rule of thumb when reviewing your web pages is to keep your core audience top of mind. As long as it is relevant and pertinent to the consumers you are trying to attract or your current clientele, then it can pass muster and stay put on your site.
- Review your pages for the quality of content on them. Determine where content needs to be improved by assessing the relevance, accuracy, and quality of writing on each page.
- Identify what actions need to take place. This step will help you figure out which content can be repaired or repurposed somewhere else. Your review may extend to articles, headers, meta tags, and other components of a webpage. But your focus should be on whatever items your team determines are most likely to become outdated, inaccurate or irrelevant.
- Pinpoint and remove older, unhelpful content. This may be anything that no longer contributes something relevant to your website – and can’t be improved or updated.
- Take similar steps with your keywords, removing outdated ones and addressing the overuse (or lack of) appropriate keywords. Consider using tools such as Google’s free Keyword Planner to identify better ones. Doing so helps marketers improve search results and draw users to the most helpful web pages.
- Review your links. They can also become outdated. Sometimes links fall out entirely or direct visitors to a defunct website. In addition, like with keywords, the rules around link usage may evolve over time. This is your opportunity to make any necessary changes to them, as well.
Keep an eye on your system so you can adjust your process. One way to do this is by examining your backlinks following updates to your website. The quality of backlinks can help you determine whether you are growing as a trusted authority in your industry, and whether your site is more likely to rank higher in search results.
How Content Auditing Systems Help Brands Resolve Content Decay
Regular scheduled audits are an important step in branding because they help you resolve content decay and ultimately improve business. Savvy web browsers are quick to notice when a webpage is unhelpful or inaccurate. When your website is fresh and relevant, it helps maintain your reputation as a reliable authority.
An audit of a website is simply intended to reveal the quality of your online content, how well it is performing, and the best steps to rectify any outdated content that turns up in the process.
Connections Marketing Helps Growing Companies Audit Their Online Content
If you have a content-heavy website, some form of routine audit should be central to your SEO strategy. The team at Connections Marketing has the expertise to weave the components of an audit into a wide range of digital marketing services to create, manage and update your digital and online content.
In addition to our passion for creating digital solutions for our partners, we bring a few other notable distinctions:
- 14+ Years in Business
- Certified Google Partners
- Active in 22 States and Growing
Contact Connections Marketing today to get the help you need so that your web pages remain as fresh and high quality as possible.