GA4 → Reports → Engagement → Pages & screens. Filter to organic source. Export CSV. This is your universe of pages that matter.
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Content Audit Checklist.
Thirty points across six categories, ending in a KEEP / UPDATE / CONSOLIDATE / PRUNE decision. For sites with 50+ pages where you can't remember what's on every page — this is the framework that tells you which pages earn their keep.
◆ Your progress
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01 · Performance analysis
Zero-traffic pages fall into three buckets: (1) new/unindexed, (2) stale but salvageable, (3) truly dead. Separate them by age and intent.
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Pages with high impressions + low CTR need title/description work. Low impressions + decent position = need more promotion or internal links.
high
Compare last-90-days to previous 90-days. Declining pages need attention. Growing pages need protection (don't break them in redesign).
high
GA4 attribution. Pages that drive actual business — purchases, bookings, leads — get priority over pages with just traffic. Revenue/session is the real metric.
high
02 · Technical health
Pages returning 404, 410, 500 — flag for removal or fix. Pages with canonicals pointing elsewhere — consolidate.
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Spot-check 10 random pages from your audit list. If they're 'Crawled — currently not indexed' or 'Discovered — currently not indexed', indexation is the blocker before content work matters.
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Pages that fail CWV rank worse regardless of content quality. Check PageSpeed Insights field data for your top 20 pages at minimum.
high
BlogPosting on blog posts. Service on service pages. FAQPage on FAQ. Schema contributes to rich results and AI Overview eligibility.
high
Screaming Frog → Titles / Meta Descriptions → Duplicates report. Duplicates signal weak differentiation to crawlers.
high
03 · Content quality
Transactional query: 400-800 words often works. Informational: 1,500-3,000. Comparison: 2,500+. Right-sized content; padding is as bad as thinness.
high
Originality.AI or manual spot-check. Straight AI output without human editing is increasingly detected by Google's content quality systems.
critical
Old dates signal staleness. Either update and bump the date, or mark as archival in the intro. Orphan timestamps from 2019 on evergreen-seeming pages are a red flag.
high
Every image has alt text. Embeds load lazily. Video transcripts exist. Media without purpose slows load and adds no SEO value.
ongoing
Blog posts attributed to a named author (via Person schema @id reference). Drives E-E-A-T signals for YMYL categories especially.
high
04 · Intent match
Search the target query. Are the top 10 results informational guides or transactional landing pages? Your page needs to match that template, not fight against it.
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Top-of-funnel informational = 'read more' / newsletter sign-up. Bottom-of-funnel transactional = 'book a call' / 'order now'. Mismatched CTAs reduce conversion.
high
Featured snippet eligibility + user attention span. If the core answer is buried at word 800, the page underperforms even with good total content.
high
Two pages targeting the same query split ranking signals. Either consolidate (recommended) or clearly differentiate intent (e.g., commercial vs informational variant).
high
05 · Internal linking
Orphan pages don't rank. Pages with weak internal link equity rank poorly. Audit internal link counts via Screaming Frog's 'Inlinks' report.
high
Passes equity through, helps users explore topics deeper. Outbound internal links should be contextual (in-body), not just footer/nav.
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Descriptive anchor reinforces topical relevance. Generic 'learn more' or 'click here' wastes the link's signal value.
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Reference links to authoritative sources (dofollow by default). Affiliate or sponsored links get rel='sponsored'. User-generated content (comments) gets rel='ugc'.
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06 · Decision framework
Don't touch pages that are performing. 'Optimization' of winners often breaks them. Revisit in 12 months, not sooner.
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Update examples, statistics, screenshots, internal links. Bump the 'Last updated' date. Re-submit for indexing. 30% of a typical audit falls here.
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Pick the canonical URL (usually the best-performing or shortest). 301 the others to it. Merge unique content. 20% of typical audits involve consolidation.
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Dead weight hurts. Low-quality pages drag down Google's site-quality assessment. 410 Gone signals intentional removal; 301 only if you have a genuine replacement.
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Spreadsheet with page URL, decision, reason, date, outcome. Historical record matters when you revisit the audit in 12 months.
high
Batch of 5-10 pages per week. Monitor GSC Coverage and organic traffic between batches. Catch issues before they compound.
high
Content quality is not a one-time project. Repeat the audit every 12 months. Each pass gets faster because you've already prioritized.
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Start here
A content audit finds the dead weight. An SEO audit finds the growth levers .
If you want help scoping a content audit for a larger site, or prioritizing the prune / consolidate work, the $197 audit includes content analysis as one of its categories.