6 Benefits of a Strategic Content Audit for Engineering Companies

When it comes to creating a good content marketing strategy, there’s no better place to start than a content audit.

Sometimes an audit is helpful when you’ve noticed a triggering event, such as a decline in web traffic or conversions. Other times, it’s just standard routine maintenance.

While there are many different types of marketing audits, a content audit allows technical and engineering companies to take stock of their marketing materials such as articles, white papers, or webinars to see what’s working and what’s not.

Why is a Content Audit Important?

There are several reasons why technical and engineering companies should do a content audit. Here are a few of the benefits:

1. Improved SEO: By identifying outdated or irrelevant content, you can improve your website's search engine ranking. A content audit can also help you find opportunities to optimize your content for relevant keywords.
2. Find duplicate content: Duplicate content can confuse search engines and hurt your SEO. A content audit can help you identify and remove duplicate content, or even combine into one comprehensive resource.
3. Better user experience: A website with well-organized and up-to-date content is more likely to provide a positive user experience. A content audit can help you identify areas where your content can be improved for clarity, readability, and overall user engagement.
4. Content gap identification: A content audit can reveal areas you’re lacking information that your target audience is searching for, as well identify the content pieces you’ve created for each stage of the buyer’s journey. This can help you pinpoint opportunities to create new content that will attract more visitors and leads.
5. Content repurposing: A content audit can help you identify existing content that can be repurposed into new formats, such as infographics, videos, or social media posts. This can be a great way to get more mileage out of your existing content, and save you time and money.
6. Strategic content creation: By understanding what content is performing well and what is not, you can make more informed decisions about your future content creation strategy. This can help you ensure that you are creating content that is relevant to your audience and meets your business goals.

Considerations for Auditing Your Existing Content

When assessing the value of your content pieces, there are two types of criteria to consider – quantitative and qualitative data.

Quantitative Data to Evaluate

• When was the content created?
• Is it still getting views?
• Are those views converting into leads or sales?
• What is the keyword profile of the content?
• How much organic traffic is it getting?
• What is the page authority of the content?
  
  

Qualitative Data to Evaluate

• Is the content well-written and informative?
• Is it on brand, incorporating your brand’s messaging?
• Is it valuable to your target personas?
• Is it covering your current products and services?

Keep, Kill, or Combine?

Once you have your data, you can start to make decisions about what to do with your content. We call this the “Keep, Kill, Combine” process.

• Keep. If the content is still current and relevant, and it's performing well, then there's no need to change anything. If the content is slightly outdated or could be improved, then you may want to update it.
• Kill. If the content is outdated, irrelevant, or not performing well, then you may want to remove it from your website.
• Combine. If you have multiple pieces of content on the same topic, you may want to combine them into one piece.

Frequency of Conducting Strategic Content Audits

We recommend conducting a content audit at least annually, but different content pieces have a different shelf life.

Top performing content pieces that rank in search results should be reviewed once a year to ensure you’ve included the best calls-to-action.

White papers, ebooks, and long-form content should be evaluated every 2-3 years. Videos and webinars are typically harder to update, which often leads to a keep or kill decision.

Focus on Quality over Quantity

It's important to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to content marketing. Five high-quality pieces of content that are bringing you quality new leads are better than 100 generic pieces that don’t convert well.

By doing a content audit, you can make sure that your content marketing efforts are effective and efficient. Best of all – you’ll be operating from a clean slate.

Curious for more? Listen to our episode, How to Increase Organic Traffic and Improve Domain Authority with a Content Audit, on the Content Marketing, Engineered podcast.

Need help conducting a content audit for your engineering company? Learn about our cost-effective, fast-turnaround marketing initiatives designed to reignite your marketing strategy with momentum boost.