A recent study by the Pew Research Center revealed an alarming rate of “link rot” on the internet – 38% of webpages from 2013 are no longer accessible just a decade later. This widespread digital decay underscores the need for content creators and website owners to regularly audit and update their old content.
Here are some key reasons why an ongoing content audit process is essential.
Maintain a Positive User Experience
Dead links and outdated information frustrate users and make your site seem unreliable or neglected. By proactively finding and fixing broken pages and links, you ensure visitors can access the content they need, thus providing a smooth user experience. This helps build trust and credibility for your brand.
Preserve Your Rankings
Search engines want to surface fresh, high-quality content for searchers. Pages with dead external links or stale information may get demoted in rankings over time. Auditing old posts allows you to update facts, statistics, broken links, and any references that are no longer relevant or accessible. This keeps the content timely and useful, which search engines reward.
Demonstrate Expertise
Even evergreen content can become outdated after a few years, especially in fast-changing industries. Refreshing old posts shows readers that you keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and knowledge in your niche. It presents your brand as an authority that stays on top of developments in the field.
Increase Traffic
Older content that still ranks well can drive significant organic traffic to your site. But over time, neglected pages lose rankings as competitors produce more recent, optimized content. Giving these posts some TLC – updating facts, adding related articles, converting to new formats like video – can help regain lost rankings and viewers.
Create Linkable Assets
Every broken external link is a missed opportunity to bring in referral traffic. Fixing dead links helps preserve domains pointing back to your site. Even better, update the anchor text for each working link to use highly relevant keywords. This turns old posts into stronger link building assets.
Boost SEO Value
An ongoing audit identifies pages that can be improved to better align with your keyword targets and current SEO best practices. For example, you may find thin content that can be fleshed out and optimized for valuable search terms. Adding multimedia elements, formatting content for scannability, and optimizing titles and meta descriptions boosts the page’s ability to rank.
Cut Out Irrelevant Content
Over time, many websites accumulate content that is no longer helpful or relevant to users. This dated or low-value content only clutters up the site and slows page load times. Regular audits help prune unnecessary pages that detract from the user experience. Removing or archiving this content ensures visitors see more useful, targeted information.
Consolidate Duplicated Content
Many sites end up with similar content published across different sections, or outright duplicate pages created by accident. Auditing exposes duplicated content that can be merged or rewritten. Eliminating thin, repetitive content in favor of unique, meaty posts improves overall quality and focus. It also avoids potential duplicate content penalties from search engines.
Identify New Content Opportunities
Auditing surfaces gaps in your content coverage, revealing high-performing topics or formats that could benefit from fresh content. For example, you may find blog categories that have not been updated in over a year and are underperforming. Producing new content on trending or underserved subjects in these sections helps attract searchers and grow your audience.
Preserve Brand Consistency
Over the years, your brand voice, tone, messaging, and design aesthetics may drift across different pieces of content. A regular audit ensures brand consistency is maintained, so users encounter familiar styling and messaging throughout the site.
How to Audit and Update Content
Now that we’ve explored the many benefits of auditing old content, here is a step-by-step guide on how to tackle the process:
- Use Google Search Console to identify error pages. Fix or remove any broken pages to improve site health and prevent crawling errors.
- Export your sitemap and check for dead or indexed pages that should be removed. Redirect dead URLs to avoid losing equity and preserve link juice.
- Use a backlink analysis tool to identify referencing domains. Check whether your site’s external links are still live and functional to maintain citations.
- Run site content through a plagiarism checker like Copyscape to identify duplicate content issues that could lead to penalization.
- Review heatmaps and analytics to pinpoint low-value pages that can be consolidated or removed to reduce clutter.
- Evaluate page titles, meta descriptions, headers, and body copy for opportunities to optimize targeting and readability to boost SEO.
- Check that branding elements like logo, fonts, colors, and messaging are consistent to maintain brand recognition.
- Update key facts, statistics, and references that may be outdated to keep content fresh and accurate.
- Add related internal links to highlight your newer, more relevant content and improve site navigation.
- Fix or remove broken media elements like images, videos, and embeds to enhance page visuals.
- Scan for grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors to uphold quality standards.
- Convert qualified articles into new formats like videos, podcasts, and webinars to repurpose and broaden reach.
- Identify potential new content topics and formats based on gaps and opportunities to expand your offering.
- Implement a schedule for regular technical and content audits so your site stays healthy and current.
Like a garden, your website content needs regular tending to remain vibrant and fruitful. A proactive audit and update schedule keeps information fresh and usable while preserving your investment in existing content. Protect your rankings, increase traffic, and create a stellar user experience by making content audits a priority. The time spent now saves you significant time recreating neglected content down the road.
Hiring an SEO agency to audit your content offers immense value through their expertise and outside perspective. A qualified agency has the seasoned technical skills to thoroughly evaluate issues like broken links, site errors, thin or duplicated content, accessibility problems, and more. Their guidance and solutions can boost your website’s health and results.