Content Audit for SaaS: 11 Ways to Audit Your Content

One of the common issues I see SaaS marketers make is just focusing on creating new content.

There’s nothing wrong with new content, but chances are you have existing content where we can see quick wins just by giving it a little update.

Most of their current content marketing strategy involves pumping out loads of content without ever updating it.

Content that’s either under-optimized for search or over-optimized where it hurts the UX of your page.

No matter what, you should always spend at least some time auditing your existing content.

In this article, I’ll show you how to do a full audit of your content and how to make the most out of it.

Let’s jump in.

What is the Purpose of a SaaS Content Audit?

When we do a SaaS content audit, we want to find pages that are either:

• Underperforming for SEO
• Underperforming for conversions
• Just aren’t relevant to your audience

This means finding opportunities where we can:

• Get more leads out of our content
• Earn more backlinks with our content
• Increase traffic
• Earn more email signups

Whatever your goal is, a content audit goes beyond SEO. 

It’s not just to increase traffic but to ultimately attract more traffic that converts.

When Should You Run a SaaS Content Audit? 

While there is no perfect cadence to content audits, you should aim to audit your existing content once a month.

While new content is always tempting, updating your existing content is an easy way to get quicker wins without spending much effort on it.

Even just a small paragraph update or title tag tweak could be enough to see movement in rankings. 

For small updates, I’d recommend running a small audit once a month.

For larger audits (like we’ll cover in this article), you’ll want to do one once every 3 months.

What to know before you do a full content audit

1. Research your ICP

First things first, before you start with a content audit, you have to understand who your target audience is. 

You want to know which content is relevant for them and which content can be pruned.

Remember, while traffic is nice and all, the end goal should always be more traffic with intent. 

Having your audience in mind will help you keep content consistent and ensure your efforts will be effective across the board.

2. Set Goals For The Audit

This will be an important one for any content audit or strategy.

Is your goal to:

• Increase traffic
• Earn more leads through your content
• Earn more backlinks

Whatever your goal is, you’ll want to keep that in mind while you’re running your audit.

That way, you’ll at least know the pages that will have the most impact for you by updating them.

Almost always, your main goal should be conversions, so you’ll likely want to start with the underperforming pages with conversion intent.

3. Start with the pages that won’t take up as much time for you.

The goal for this audit should be to find pages that are low leverage/high reward.

Like I mentioned before, sometimes updates only need to be a small title tag tweak.

Even a tweak like that can lead to some decent quick wins.

So, before you even start with a content audit, try to label each page based on the effort it will take to update.

Keeping the previous tip in mind about conversions, your best bet is to start with pages that are low leverage but have conversion intent attached to them.

4. Is that page relevant to our product?

Is that page actually relevant to your product?

This applies specifically to SaaS, but when you’re creating content, it should always be somewhat relevant to your brand and/or product.

If you’re creating content where you can’t plug in your product or can’t show your product as a solution, it will mostly be ToFu.

Nothing wrong with ToFu content, but for your content to work for you, it should take a product-led approach.

So, once you find product-related content, you’ll want to update it so you can show off what your product is capable of. 

5. Does that page have conversion intent?

Checking whether a page has conversion intent will be your best bet when running a content audit.

For a SaaS specifically, these are usually going to be articles or pages that have these keywords in them:

• Software
• Tool
• Product
• Solution
• Alternative

If you find one of these keywords in a low-hanging fruit position, this will be one of the updates you’ll want to start with.

6. Has that page driven previous conversions?

Use GA4 to check whether a page has previously driven conversions for you.

Data will be your best friend during a content audit, so you’ll want to check GA4 for conversion data.

If you find a page that’s previously driven conversions or is a top converter for you, this will be a pretty clear-cut sign that you should prioritize these pages.

You can even connect Google Search Console to GA4 so you can combine GSC data with conversions.

11 Easy Ways to Audit Your Content

Alright, now we’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how to actually perform a content audit.

This will be a mix of updating for SEO and updating content to drive more conversions.

These are all tactics I personally use whenever I audit a website.

Look for Content That Could Be Considered Dead

First, you should always start your content audits by finding zombie/dead pages on your website.  

Zombie pages are pages that have almost 0 potential for earning traffic and are pretty much a waste of space on your website. 

It’s either a result of cannibalization, outdated content, or just low-quality content.

If you have been creating content for a while now, you probably have plenty of content that will fall into this category.

To fix zombie pages, you’ll want to either:

• Delete these pages and redirect that URL to another relevant one

• Merge them with another page: Basically turning garbage into gold with your dead content)
• Update them if there is potential: If you think that page actually would be worth having, then you could always give it a full update to see if there’s any movement on that page.
• Noindex them: If that page doesn’t have any potential for search and you want to keep it on your site, you can just noindex it.
• Leave them as is: You can also just leave it as is, but I’d recommend running through these other options before you do this.

Whatever you decide, you should categorize these pages before updating them so you know which ones to start with.

How to Find Zombie/Dead Pages

To find these pages, all you need to do is:

• Load up GSC
• Head over to the page tab
• Set the date range to the last 16 months
• Set an impression filter for less than 100
• Set a click filter for less than 1

After that, you’ll want to export this data to a spreadsheet where you can categorize them based on what I mentioned above.

Bonus tip: If any of these articles are less than 3 months old, you should ignore them. There might not be enough data to decide whether it’s worth deleting or not. However, anything older than that is on the chopping block.

Bonus Bonus Tip: You’ll also want to check whether that article has driven previous conversions or has backlinks pointing towards it. If it does, then you’ll likely want to keep it as is. You don’t want to delete anything that previously brought in leads (in some cases, it could be from other marketing channels).

Look for Keywords With Low-Hanging Fruit Potential

Low-hanging fruit keywords are probably the best place to start when updating your content. 

Content with low-hanging fruit potential is content ranking in positions 4-20, which just needs a little update to see movement. 

Since this content is already indexed, it shouldn’t take as long to see wins from it compared to a new article. 

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to see movement, either.

It could be just a few internal links or a title tag change to see movement on that page. 

Source: Backlinko

Most times, all you need to do with this content is: 

• Add new content sections to that page 
• Update that existing content so it’s fresher
• Realign content for intent
• Add internal links to that page
• Update HTML tags
• Optimize for keywords and entities
• Build links to that page

You don’t have to do all these in order, but at least doing a few should be enough to move the needle.

I’ve seen plenty of movement on these pages just by adding an update that took under an hour. 

It’s always worth it to go after these low-hanging fruit keywords once a month. 

You don’t need to pause your content efforts for these keywords either; you just need to make some time to optimize those pages.  

 Here’s a quick article if you need to know how much your SaaS should spend on SEO. 

How to Find Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords

You can use either Google Search Console or Ahrefs for low-hanging fruit keywords.

I prefer Google Search Console.

To do this, you should:

• Head over to Google Search Console
• Head over to the query report in the performance tab
• Filter the last 28 days
• Set a position filter for 4-20
• Now, sort by impressions

With Ahrefs, all you need to do is:

• Load up site explorer
• Plug in your URL
• Load up the organic keywords tab
• Set a position filter for 4 and 20

Bonus Tip: This is where you should plug in a keyword modifier like “software” to see if you can find any pages with conversion intent. You could also do the same thing in GA4 to find low-hanging fruit pages that have previously driven conversions.

Look for Content With Traffic Potential

Underperforming content will likely be a good data source when you’re looking for additional topics to cover with content.

Especially if you want to build topical authority with your content.

These queries rank in positions 30-100 on the SERPs and don’t have a dedicated article attached to them. 

Since we don’t have a relevant page dedicated to that keyword, you’ll probably have to create a new piece of content to be able to rank for it. 

You can still try to update your page to rank for that keyword, but if the intent behind it is unique enough, you’re probably better off creating new content for it.

When I say intent, I mean the search results are entirely different for each search, and the topic itself wouldn’t be covered as a small article. 

The reason we can find these pages is because they’re somewhat relevant to another keyword (that we have an article for), but since our article isn’t specifically relevant to that keyword, that page will usually fall pretty low on the SERPs.

So we can see data for it, but we probably won’t be able to for it without entirely new content.

Just be careful to avoid duplicate content when creating these pages.

How to Find Content With Potential

Finding content topics with potential is very similar to the low-hanging fruit method.

Instead of setting position filters for 4-20, we will now be looking for keywords between positions 30-80. 

And again, sort by impressions once you have your position filter set.

These content topics will be great to add to your editorial calendar.

Look for Pages With 0 Clicks and High Impressions

Like zombie pages, you want to find pages that aren’t receiving any clicks. 

Something needs to be done about these pages, whether they have low or high impressions.

Either way, they’re underperforming.

Whether they need new content added or just to be merged into another page depends on the update potential for that page.

If they’re high impressions and no clicks, it’s likely underperforming content.

If it’s low impression, no clicks, it’s likely a zombie page that must be reviewed.

How to Find No-Click Pages

 To find these pages:

• Head to Google Search Console
• Load up the page report
• Set a date range to the last 16 months
• Now set a click filter for less than 1

 Now, you’ll have all of your website pages with 0 clicks. 

As mentioned, you’ll likely want to bucket them into underperforming and zombie pages.

Look for Content That’s Been Losing Clicks Consistently

You’ll also want to perform a traffic drop analysis on your content.

Content that’s been losing clicks consistently month over month.

You want to find pages that have been consistently losing organic traffic over a specific period of time. 

Likely 6 months over 6 months. 

You want to find pages that have previously done well with driving traffic and have fallen off recently. 

It could be:

• A competitor overtook you
• Your content is starting to decay
• Your content is outdated
• There’s seasonality behind that keyword
• The search intent behind that keyword changed
• Your title tag sucks compared to the competition 

Whatever the reason, you want to audit your content to determine the cause of the traffic drop and get that page back to where it needs to be.

In most cases, this will be caused by content decay, so updating that page with fresh content will usually do the trick. 

Giving your content a makeover with new content, data, videos, and images could be worth it.

Anything new (and helpful) you add to that content will help with visibility and rankings.

How to Perform a Traffic Drop Analysis

We’ll also use Google Search Console to find pages that dropped in traffic.

Just:

• Head over to the page tab
• Set a date filter to compare the last 6 months over the previous 6 months
• Click on a URL that saw a significant drop
• Then, review the queries specifically that saw a drop

Now, you need to determine whether these keywords dropped due to content decay or lost positioning due to a competitor.

If the positioning drops, it’s likely to decay and competitors. 

If it’s a loss of impressions, it was likely a search intent change, which means you need to reoptimize the page for the new intent.

Look for Pages with High Impressions/Low Clicks

You’ll also want to look for pages with high impressions and low clicks.

I call these underperforming pages. 

These pages have search potential behind them but we’re not capitalizing on it for whatever reason. 

If you’re receiving some clicks for them, your content already has visibility on the SERPs.

So if we update this page, we know there’s plenty of traffic potential that we can capture out on.  

When you find these pages, depending on where it’s currently ranking, you’ll likely need to overhaul them.

For keywords with higher impressions attached to it, there will likely be more competition attached to it.

If you want to overtake your competition, you have to figure out ways to outdo them with your content.

Give your content a complete makeover. 

Add images, videos, and new content sections. 

Anything that will make it more fresh than it previously was.

How to Find High Impression/Low Click Pages

You probably guessed it. It’s our good friend Google Search Console again.

Now you’ll just:

• Load up the page tab
• Set a date range for the last 16 months
• And a click filter for less than 10
• Now, sort by impressions

Now, you’ll have all of the pages on your website that have some visibility (clicks) but aren’t maximizing their full potential for impressions. You can also sort by CTR to find pages with the most significant click/impression discrepancy.

Look for Pages Ranking High but with Zero Clicks

Another easy audit task is to find keywords that are ranking high but are driving 0 clicks.

This will probably be the easiest update to go after.

These pages rank on the first page of the SERPs but aren’t receiving clicks for whatever reason.

Especially if there are impressions attached to those keywords, we know there’s potential, but we’re not capitalizing on it. 

Since these pages already rank on the first page, you likely don’t need to completely overhaul that page to drive more clicks. 

I mean, you can, but it’s not entirely necessary. 

For high rank/low click pages, you should Google your keyword and see how your URL matches up against the competition. 

It could be:

• Your title tag isn’t interesting enough 
• Your meta description isn’t capturing the searchers attention
• We’re not using schema that could their attention
• A featured snippet that’s taking up most of the SERPs

Whatever it may be, you should start by updating your title tag and meta description.

Finding High Ranking Pages with Low Clicks

Finding these pages is very easy.

 

All you have to do is:

 

• Head to the Query tab
• Filter for the last 28 days
• Position filter for less than 10
• Click filter for less than 1
• Sort by impressions

Look for Keyword Cannibalization

As I mentioned during the zombie page section, many of these no-click/no-impression pages are caused by cannibalization.

Meaning, they’re targeting the same keyword with similar intent.

Which means Google is finding one page relevant for that keyword and discarding our other page.

Content marketing teams who neglect SEO typically fall into this category since they don’t know how to differentiate intent and end up creating content that matches the same intent as another piece of content they’ve created.

It’s happened with every SaaS company I’ve worked with. 

But hopefully not with yours.

Even if it did, that’s why this article is here.

When you come across keyword cannibalization, you want to delete that page (the underperforming one) or merge it into the article that’s actually performing. 

My personal favorite is to merge. 

In this case, you’re turning garbage into gold by taking something that hasn’t been performing well and merging it with another article that helps it perform much better.

If you have a large profile of existing content, I’d recommend starting with zombie pages and cannibalization. 

It’s a super easy update to go after, and that merged content will usually help your other article perform better.

How to Find Cannibalization

To find cannibalization, plug your dead URL into Google Search Console and review the query report. 

Once you have your list of queries, cancel your URL filter and see which URLs are leftover.

You likely have cannibalization issues if multiple URLs exist for that specific query. You’ll probably want to take this further and review each query’s SERPs to see if that URL is being cannibalized. You can also use this checklist to guide your SaaS SEO efforts.

Look for Opportunities to add in CTAs

Outside of SEO, you’ll want to find content where we can plug in CTAs to drive more conversions.

Even for pages that are receiving a solid amount of traffic, it’s a missed opportunity by not having a CTA front and center.

Even some TOFU articles can drive leads if you add a few CTAs to that page. 

Finding opportunities to add CTAs

My favorite way to find these opportunities is to use Google Search Console to see which pages get the most clicks.

Start from the top down and look for pages with the most clicks and impressions. 

You can see GA4 to find pages that have previously driven conversions yet don’t have a single CTA on them.

Look for Internal Linking Opportunities

Last on this list, you’ll also want to look for opportunities to add internal links.

While this isn’t necessarily content-related, I can’t tell you how many content audits I’ve done where content teams completely ignored internal links.

Don’t be like those teams.

If you’re auditing your content, see if there’s any opportunities to add internal links to other pages on your site.

My personal favorite is to create some kind of a widget that we can add to these articles where they automatically link to other pages.

We get the same result without actually having to add the links manually.

Reasons Why Content Underperforms

So there can be a few reasons why your page is underperforming, so I’ll give you the most common culprits here:

• Your site doesn’t have enough authority built up (not DA, actual authority): Google doesn’t see your website as relevant enough so the more links you build, the more trustworthy your website will appear.
• Content isn’t relevant to the query: Relevance really is the main thing to consider when optimizing a page. If relevance isn’t even considered, your page is going to struggle to rank. If you want to check your page for relevancy, you should check the SERPs to see how other articles are structured. That doesn’t mean copy what’s already there, but you’ll want to see if there’s any patterns in how the content is covered.
• Your content is outdated: If your content is dedicated to a previous year, then there’s a good chance that Google finds that content to be updated. That doesn’t mean you should just make the year current, but you should update your content so it’s actually relevant to that year. Some content is evergreen where you can get away with updating the year, but in most cases, you’ll probably want to give that content a minor fresh update anyways.
• Content is either weak or repurposing what’s already out there: Going off the relevance point, if your content is just repurposing what’s already been said, then it’s going to struggle to rank. You have to consider information gain when you’re updating and creating content.

Wrapping Up

So after this article, hopefully you’ll have a better idea of how to run a content audit for your SaaS.

The best SaaS content audits are always based around your product, so always start with that and your overall goals in mind.

Need Help With a SaaS Content Audit?

Need help auditing your SaaS blog content? Feel free to schedule a free SaaS SEO strategy call with me.

One of my main services is content auditing, so if you need help, feel free to reach out.

I’m a SaaS SEO consultant with over 4+ years in SEO. I can help you create content and reach your goals and objectives with SEO and content.