There are many steps in SEO. Some are done before SEO, and some are done intermittently between the processes. Since SEO is a thorough and continuous process, hence many things need practice and repetition, checking and analysis again and again from scratch, or through a series of steps. And you cannot omit them. If you omit or ignore, then the impact of the other steps taken for SEO would also get lower, and the way you are planning to rank the site against the targeted keyword will not work as planned.

One such step is a content audit, and you need to audit things for the site. The content of the site, for the site, and by the site, that had been created ever since the site is into existence, and the content that is still getting created, all must pass through a periodic audit. This reveals many important and interesting data. And then based on the revealing, you can plan the structure of your future content development and SEO much better. More than simple planning, this helps in realizing past mistakes and can help you cover them up, rectify some, and make the next plans with more care and understanding.

What is content auditing?

Content auditing, as the name suggests is all about auditing the content. The content may be o the site, or off-site. The content has to be in link with the site, the business, the cause, or the product. Normally such content is developed and posted for supporting the site. Many contents are directly posted on the site, and many are posted on sites of related niche, like blogs, guest posts, social media posts and more, so that the site’s backlinks can be created, or just the site can be discussed elsewhere. And all these contents have a big role in the SEO of a site. Hence an audit or checking of the contents on a periodic basis is required, so that any flaw or big problem related to keyword use, quality, controversies, reputation management, product information, etc can be managed.

Why is this important?

The importance of content audit lies in the role of the content in bringing the site to a visible position in search engine results against a typed keyword. When a user types in a keyword in a search engine to find related information, then a list is generated by the search engine against that keyword or phrase. And this list is too big, and only the first 10 pages are shown on the first page of the search results. To become visible and get traffic from real users, your website must be visible on this first page and also as much towards the top of the list as possible. And this happens only when the content throughout the web, supporting this site, is strong enough and good quality, and supports this keyword. That is why the content must be checked for the right usage of keywords in the most optimal way.

Many flaws with a site’s ranking, many old issues, and many issues arising after a recent Google update can be resolved using content auditing method. This is no doubt time taking, but surely yields results.

Do you need to do this?

Whether you need to do content auditing or not can be understood, when you find out what are the problems that you may face without the audit. Some of the problems that you may have without ever getting your content edited are:

You will have no track of what got posted where. In the future, if you have to change something with a post; it may be a keyword, a thought, a writing pattern, bad language, fact, or anything, then without any track, you will not be able to.

Auditing helps you tag your content appropriately. If you had posted content 3 years back with some keywords which you no longer use and work with, then you must change the keyword usage in that content. And after this editing, you need to tag the content for having this particular new keyword. This kind of tagging of all the content on the web that relates to your site is much necessary.

When you look back, then only you realize the problems with your old marketing strategies. You can identify the content posting of a phase by the result in traffic as a success or failure. And on the basis of this lesson learned, you can then decide the future course of action.

If the problem is with some strategy or style of writing or use of a keyword, etc, you can change it and save the future content from being affected. Every piece of content that gets affected due to wrong posting or developing strategies can be saved from the defect.

Some things are best handled by professionals

There are some things which are best handled by professionals. Content auditing is also one such thing. When you are auditing content for a website which probably never got things audited before, then you will be going through one of the most lengthy, disorganized, and hardest jobs ever. And surely you need professional assistance here. Once the content gets audited a few times by professional SEO experts like keyword firebird, things will get streamlined, and you will feel it. Then every time you audit content, you won't have to tag them or organize them freshly. Things will already be organized in batches.

Finally

Content auditing is a vital step in SEO and marketing, to make sure that the track you chose is correct. Previous mistakes can be rectified, new mistakes can be avoided, and better strategies for SEO and marketing can be formulated on the basis of studying records of user reactions to content. Traffic, sales, etc would tell you the reaction of users to content. And all these things combined help you analyze things better. Moreover in the process of auditing, when you tag your content, you create much organized personal records for them to refer to them instantly anytime later.