Content Audit Checklist
For sites with a year or more of published content and no clear view of what works. Run it before a redesign, before a content plan, or when traffic has stalled.
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- critical
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Without a goal the spreadsheet grows but nothing gets decided.
- How to check or fix it
- State the aim, for example find pages to update or prune, and the sections included. Fix the date range, usually the last 12 months.
- critical
Why and how
- Why it matters
- You cannot audit pages you have not listed, and orphan pages are easy to miss.
- How to check or fix it
- Crawl with Screaming Frog, filter Internal to HTML, and keep status 200 and indexable. Add URLs from the XML sitemap and Search Console.
- critical
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Quality is judged by what a page earns, not by how it looks.
- How to check or fix it
- Connect the Search Console and GA4 APIs in Screaming Frog, or merge exports by URL. Add referring domains per page from Ahrefs or Semrush.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Age and type help you spot stale pages and compare like with like.
- How to check or fix it
- Take dates from the CMS or schema. Add a column for page type such as guide, product, category or landing page.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Pages that miss intent cannot be fixed with small edits.
- How to check or fix it
- Search the target query, compare the page with the top results, and score fit as good, partial or poor.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- These are candidates for update, merge or removal.
- How to check or fix it
- Sort by Search Console clicks ascending. Check indexing status for each in the Pages report before judging content.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Strong visibility with weak clicks often needs only a better title or description.
- How to check or fix it
- Filter for pages with many impressions and click rate well below similar pages. Queue title and description rewrites.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Many near-identical pages dilute signals and waste crawl attention.
- How to check or fix it
- Run Screaming Frog Content then Near Duplicates and sort by word count. Review the lowest and the closest matches by hand.
- important
Why and how
- Why it matters
- An audit without decisions is only a list.
- How to check or fix it
- Use a fixed set: keep, update, merge, redirect, remove. Add owner, effort and priority columns.
- nice
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Existing links give these pages a head start once improved.
- How to check or fix it
- Sort by referring domains, then check which have low engagement or poor rankings. Put them at the top of the update queue.
- nice
Why and how
- Why it matters
- Content decays and a one-off audit goes stale.
- How to check or fix it
- Save the sheet as a template and book a lighter review every quarter, with a full audit yearly.
Checklist complete. Re-run it after your next release or major change, and use the related lists below to keep going.
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Common questions
How often should I run a content audit?
A full audit once a year works for most sites, with a lighter quarterly check on top pages and declining pages. Large or fast-moving sites may need it more often.
Should I delete pages with no traffic?
Not automatically. Check backlinks, conversions, internal links and whether the page serves a purpose outside search, then decide between update, merge, redirect or removal.