How to Do a Content Audit and Prune Low-Quality Pages from Your Site

Intro

"Just publish more."

"More pages = more traffic!"

“If you build it, they will come.”

The truth is quality, not quantity, is king for driving traffic to your site. In fact, pruning low-quality pages, updating old content, and redirecting users to more relevant information can actually produce better results than simply publishing more content.

But how do you identify the dead weight that’s holding your site back from its true potential? That’s where a content audit comes into play. So let’s take a closer look.

​​The cost of irrelevant content

As a seasoned digital strategist who's worked with over 300 SaaS and ecommerce brands, I've consistently noticed an alarming pattern on blogs: numerous low-traffic, outdated content pages.

It might seem harmless to let this old content linger. But it’s negatively impacting your SEO potential — in a significant way.

Why? Google notices outdated, irrelevant content. Then it applies this lack of relevance to your entire site, which can affect your overall standing in search engine results.

Meanwhile, competitors who are vigilant about their content's relevance are updating their blog content with fresh, new information regularly. Consequently, your once valuable content may now seem obsolete.

The winning recipe for SEO

So, how do you win the SEO race? At its core, you need three things to be at the top of search results:

• Quality Content
• Relevance/Expertise
• Authority

(Plus, you will also need a well-honed skill set to effectively keep up with the changes in the SEO realm.)

Studies, such as the one conducted by Moz, demonstrate that by pruning 30–50% of your site's low-quality content can improve your overall site's quality and significantly improve your rank.

(Image Source)

This approach makes sense because low-quality content drags down your high-quality content, diluting the overall value of your site. Search engines favor sites with uniformly high-quality content, which helps improve your rankings.

What is a content audit?

A content audit is a thorough process that involves evaluating and analyzing all the content on your website. This front-to-back review gives you a clear understanding of the “winners” and “losers” of your site's content.

The goal is to enhance the performance and relevance of your site by identifying outdated, low-quality, or underperforming content that could be dragging down your SEO rankings.

A content audit isn't just about getting rid of the bad apples, though. It's also about identifying your best content so you can replicate its success. This process helps refine your content strategy, making it more effective over time.

And the best part? You’ll know when it’s working. Your organic traffic will skyrocket, and your bottom line will thank you. Experts suggest performing a content audit at least once per year.

How to perform a content audit

Follow these five simple steps to perform a comprehensive content audit and free yourself from those pesky blog posts that are holding you back.

Step 1: Outline your business goals

Content that was published months ago (or maybe years ago) can:

• Benefit from support by new mediums (images, videos, graphs)
• Need new data to support claims
• Have search intent mismatch
• Contain outdated information
• Require less or more depth

Inaccurate content = a negative trust signal that can ding your whole site. And depending on how much content you have, there’s no way you can prune or refresh every single piece of content that needs some tender, loving care.

So remember, SEO isn’t a silo. It should serve a distinct business purpose. Always, always, always prioritize pages on your site that rank for high-value keywords and contribute to your key performance indicators (KPIs) like organic traffic, leads, or sales.

And here’s another friendly reminder to keep in your back pocket. The purpose of a content audit isn't merely to compile a mountain of data but to uncover valuable insights that directly align with your overall business objectives. Know exactly what you want to accomplish from the get-go, and let these objectives steer your audit process.

Step 2: Analyze your content assets

Before you sharpen the pruning shears, it's crucial to review all the data surrounding your content inventory. Stary by identifying your worst-performing content by looking for the following elements:

• Bad URLs and broken links. These can harm your site’s SEO and result in a poor user experience.
• Organic search traffic. By looking at traffic for the last 90 days, you can identify which content is no longer attracting visitors.
• Pages with unexpectedly low average time-on-site. If users aren't spending time on these pages, they may not find the content valuable or engaging.
• Content with few social shares, no ranking keywords, and zero backlinks. These indicators can suggest that your content isn't resonating with your audience or offering value.

On the flip side, high-quality content is an article ranking on the first few pages of Google, scoring organic backlinks, and aligns with Google's helpful content guidelines. Use Google Analytics to help you identify your best-performing pieces of content.

(Image Source)

Step 3: Bucket each article into a category

Once you've gathered your data, organize it on a dashboard, Excel, or Google Sheets. Tag each piece of content as:

1. Leave it as it is
2. Remove/redirect/consolidate
3. Improve

At a bare minimum, add at least the following data points for each piece of content:

• Article URL
• Article name
• Publish date
• Keyword

Step 4: Prune (or improve) ‌the low-performing content

Next up, establish explicit criteria for your pruning efforts. You may choose to scrap all articles published over two years ago or those that don't draw in any organic traffic.

Bearing these criteria in mind, sift through each article and make your move:

• Cut content that's no longer relevant and add a 301 redirect
• Combine duplicate content into one evergreen article
• Refresh outdated content that can still be salvaged
• Use 'noindex' tags on pieces that aren't SEO positive but still cater to your audience’s needs

Now that you've pinpointed potential targets for your pruning mission, it might not be the best strategy to delete everything in one fell swoop. A more staggered approach will make it easier to track how specific modifications affect your SEO performance.

Draft a priority list of the prime candidates for pruning. After you've executed the first wave of changes, continue monitoring your site's SEO data for several weeks before proceeding with the next batch.

Step 5: Measure your results

Once you've rolled out the changes, your job isn’t over. The beauty of digital marketing lies in its measurability. So keep a close eye on your metrics to gauge the impact of your efforts.

Pay close attention to your organic traffic. Are more people landing on your site via search engines after you pruned your content? If so, it’s a positive sign that your changes are working.

Look, too, at your bounce rates. If they've taken a dive, it shows that visitors are finding value in your content and sticking around to explore more.

Finally, keep tabs on the SERPs. Have you hit the coveted first page of Google yet? Use Rank Tracker to help see exactly how your content audit and pruning efforts are performing. You can even set daily email alerts to notify you of any movement.

(Image Source)

Case study: A pet insurance blog post

To illustrate how to conduct a content audit, let's evaluate a blog post about the costs and benefits of pet insurance.

Blog post

(Image Source)

SEO tool data

(Screenshot by Jeremy Moser)

Content audit analysis

• Relevance: This topic is pertinent to pet owners considering insurance options and aligns with the company's goal of generating leads and conversions.
• Accuracy: The post provides factual information about pet insurance costs, coverage, and influencing factors, citing credible sources and disclaimers that prices may vary.
• Clarity: Clear headings, bullet points, tables, and images are used to present information. The text avoids jargon, and the main message is clear.
• Engagement: The post uses a friendly tone, addressing the reader's concerns and questions. It also uses emotional appeals and includes social proof such as customer testimonials and ratings.
• Optimization: The content uses the target keyword "how much is pet insurance" in the title, URL, meta description, and throughout the text. It also incorporates related keywords and internal links to other relevant pages.

Content audit tag

This piece of content is generating almost 600 monthly organic visitors to Pumpkin’s website. Therefore, this article would land in the “leave as is” category. In fact, writing more pieces like this is the ideal content marketing strategy moving forward.

Case study: A travel blog post

Now, let’s take another look at a similar content type about beekeeping experiences that'd be ripe for pruning.

Blog post

(Image Source)

SEO tool data

(Screenshot by Jeremy Moser)

Content audit analysis

• Relevance: The blog post topic — beekeeping experiences — is of little interest to the audience of a travel blog.
• Accuracy: With beekeeping practices and technologies evolving, a blog post that hasn't been updated in over a year could provide misleading or irrelevant information to readers.
• Clarity: This post's presentation leaves a lot to be desired. It lacks an organized structure, and the absence of visual aids such as images and infographics makes it less appealing.
• Engagement: There's a missed opportunity to incorporate personal stories, reader questions, or testimonials from other beekeepers to boost engagement.
• Optimization: Without a clear SEO strategy, this post misses the opportunity to reach its intended audience through organic search. For instance, targeted keywords such as "beekeeping for beginners" aren't strategically placed in the title, URL, meta description, or throughout the content.

Content audit tag

This piece of content generates zero organic traffic to Home & Jet’s website. Therefore, this article would land in the “remove” category. A simple delete of the blog post will do the trick, followed by a 301 redirect to the home page.

You’re only as strong as your weakest blog post

By categorizing, auditing, and pruning your site's content, you're providing a better, more focused user experience. You're also signaling to search engines that your site is a trusted, up-to-date source of information.

The result? Improved SEO, higher traffic, and, ultimately, better conversion rates.

Close that blank Google Doc (or ChatGPT window) and pick up your pruning shears. It's time to tidy up your content via the content audit process and let your website blossom to its utmost potential.

Remember, the key to success isn't just creating more content but fostering the best, most relevant content for your users. So, go ahead and start pruning! Your SEO rankings will thank you.