Outdated content on your website can make your organisation seem out of touch to potential clients. Maryrose Lyons explains how your site can go from confusing to consistent

As websites grow larger and more complex, they can become overwhelming and confusing for the site owner and visitors.

Outdated or underperforming content can negatively impact search results and user experience. To avoid this, it's important to conduct regular site audits.

A site audit is an analysis of the components that make a website visible on search engines. It aims to give the owner insight into the content on their site, what is being seen by their audience and how it’s being picked up by search engines.

Auditing your organisation’s website can determine whether it's optimised to achieve your traffic goals, giving you a sense of how you can improve the site to reach those goals. More eyes on your website can translate to more clients.

Step 1: Categorise posts

Download a list of content titles currently on your site and categorise each one based on general categories, such as services, news, or careers.

Then group each category by theme. Under services, for example, you could list audit, tax, or business advisory.

Finally, find 24 unique themes under which you can categorise individual posts. This step is time-consuming, but necessary, in determining what is still relevant to the business.

One theme could be ‘Budget 2010’, for example. Information you will find under this theme is no longer relevant to your business or your clients and so can be deleted. However, ‘Budget 2023’ should definitely stick around.

Step 2: Evaluate engagement

Use a search engine optimisation (SEO) tool to analyse organic search traffic and backlink profiles for each post. Take note of engagement levels to determine which posts generate traffic.

Low traffic means you can delete that post. High traffic means that you should not only keep that post, but also possibly explore the same theme in future content.

When we carried out our own site audit, it was interesting to see how the nature of the content had changed since 2007. Before the advent of social media, all of our short-form posts were published on our blog. Nowadays, many of these would be status updates on social channels.

Step 3: Update and tidy up

Once you have identified your high-performing content, read through it all to see what needs to be updated. This step ensures that valuable content remains current and relevant to users.

Consistent content

By conducting a site audit, your organisation will have a cleaner, leaner, and much more navigable website that offers clear and consistent content.

Regular site audits help maintain a positive user experience and strong search engine rankings. Though the process can be tedious, it's well worth the effort.

Maryrose Lyons is Founder of Brightspark Consulting

Brightspark Consulting is offering a new course to teach leaders how to utilise AI to create a digital marketing plan and produce content. Find more information on ChatGPT training here.