How to Do a Content Audit & Sell It as a Service

Now is a really good time to learn how to do content audits so you can sell some of your strategic goodness. Why?

Two reasons.

First, clients are creating and publishing more content than ever. Some of it’s decent. Some of it makes you do this face. A lot of it has been produced reactively, by different people, over a long stretch of time, with no real oversight.

Second, AI has made it so businesses can blast out a bunch of alright-sounding words at speed. Which sounds great until you realise no one’s stopped to ask whether those words are saying the right thing, targeting the right audience, matching the site’s offers, or doing anything useful once they’re live.

So there are more sites now with:

• Inconsistent messaging
• Pages targeting the wrong terms
• Pages not optimised for AI (AI overviews reduce clicks to top-ranking pages by 34%!)
• Old articles no one remembers publishing
• And plenty of “good enough” content that never should have gone out in the first place

That makes audits timely. And very sellable. 

So, here’s how to do a content audit yourself and some of my best tips for getting people to want one. 

Let’s get one thing straight first. What exactly is a content audit? 

If you don’t already know, a content audit is a review of all the content a business has online, so you can work out what should stay, what should be improved, what should be merged, and what belongs in the bin.

That includes:

• Website pages
• Blog posts
• Landing pages
• Downloadable resources
• Google Business Profile content
• Social profile messaging
• Sometimes even PDFs and lead magnets

You’re basically reviewing how useful it is, how current it is, how well it lines up with the client’s goals, and whether it’s doing anything worthwhile. Then making strategy-backed recommendations. 

Cool, what’s in it for my clients?

A lot of clients are making decisions based on a very incomplete picture.

They know their site feels a bit messy.

They know traffic isn’t where they want it to be.

They know leads could be better.

They know the blog hasn’t been touched in ages.

But they often don’t know why things aren’t working, where the biggest issues are, or what to do about any of it. Stressful. 

That’s why audits are so helpful.

They can help your client:

• Stop wasting time creating pages/blogs they don’t need
• Fix messaging that no longer reflects the business
• Identify opportunities for SEO and AI optimisation
• Make better decisions about where to invest next

Okay, now what’s in it for me?

Lot’s! It’s one of the most useful services you can offer, especially if you do content strategy, SEO, website copy, content marketing, or honestly any kind of work where you’re expected to improve a site’s performance without just lobbing fresh words at the problem.

It gives you something extremely valuable: a much better starting point for whatever comes next.

Once you’ve done the audit, you’re in a much better position to recommend:

• A website rewrite
• Service page improvements
• Blog optimisation
• New content production
• Messaging work
• SEO support
• Ongoing content strategy

So it’s handy in its own right and it opens the door to other projects. Lovely.

Want more advice for growing your agency in these post-AI times? See why building a personal brand is the way to go.

Now, here’s how to follow the content audit process 

Some articles out there might make you think you need to build some giant terrifying audit tool to do this well. You don’t. But you do need to be pretty methodical about it, (and willing to sit with a lot of tabs open for quite a while!)

Start with the goals before you touch the site

Funny how almost any step-by-step article will have you start with goals. There’s a reason for that. You need to know what “better” looks like for your client before you go wasting time looking at the wrong stuff. 

Do they want more leads? Better-quality leads? More visibility? More enquiries from a certain audience? To support a repositioning? To improve local presence?

Don’t know yet?

Ask your client about:

• Business goals
• Main services or offers
• Priority audience
• Key problems with the current site
• Any recent changes in the business
• Whether they’ve done search engine optimization or content work before
• Whether there are pages they already know are underperforming

This gives the audit direction from the get-go.

Do some audience research

You need to understand:

• Who the audience is
• What they care about
• What they’re worried about
• What they need from the site
• How they search
• What language they use
• What would make them trust this business

This helps you assess whether the content on the site is actually speaking to real people, or just saying lots of generic business things.

If the client already has audience personas, great. Review them (with a healthy amount of scepticism).

If they don’t, piece it together from discovery notes, reviews, existing customer language (I’m sure you already know how to do this bit, so I won’t go into detail here).

Do some industry research, too

You also want the big-picture-view of what’s happening in the client’s space.

Get a grasp on:

• Trends in the industry
• Recent shifts in customer behaviour
• Key topics people are talking about
• Stats or market changes worth noting
• What competitors are leaning into
• Whether AI, regulation, pricing pressure, or market changes are affecting how people buy

This gives you context for everything else you’re about to recommend. A page might be underperforming because it’s badly written, sure.

But it might also be aimed at a market that’s changed, an offer people no longer buy in the same way, or a topic the industry has already moved on from.

Pull your Google Analytics baselines

Before you recommend changing anything, get a sense of what the site is doing now.

Create a complete list of everything that’s live. Not just the obvious pages, but blogs, resources, downloads, old campaign pages, and anything else tucked away across the client’s content management systems

Go into Google Analytics and pull some core numbers on existing content:

• Top landing pages
• Traffic trends
• High-converting pages
• Low-engagement pages
• Time on page
• Engagement rate
• Pages users exit from quickly

Look for patterns.

For example:

• Are some old blogs bringing in a surprising amount of visits?
• Do service pages get plenty of traffic but no conversions?
• Are there pages with decent traffic but poor engagement?
• Is traffic coming from a country they don’t even target?
• What pages are getting the most engagement?

This helps you separate pages that are just a bit ugly from pages that are actually underperforming.

Review the site page by page for content quality

Now you go through the pages properly.

For each page, ask:

• Is this still relevant?
• Is it accurate?
• Is the message clear?
• Is it written for the right audience?
• Does it support the client’s goals?
• Is there a clear next step?
• Does this page deserve to exist?

You’re also checking for more specific issues like:

• Broken links
• Duplicate content
• Weak copy (or not enough)
• Outdated content
• Poor formatting
• Inconsistent tone
• Unclear structure
• Missing internal links
• Weak page title tags
• Weak meta descriptions
• Weak headings
• On-page SEO performance

You’ll find pages that are still useful but need fresh stats.
Pages that say the right thing in the most confusing way possible.
Pages that rank but don’t lead anywhere.
Pages that exist for no clear reason.
Pages that don’t have enough content.

Pages that don’t match the brand tone of voice. 

All useful findings.

Run an seo content audit on competitors

Review their top 3–5 competitors for:

• Domain trust
• Organic traffic
• Paid traffic
• Backlinks
• Referring domains
• AI overview mentions
• Top traffic by country
• Top ten keywords
• Top ten pages

Then go deeper.

What do those top pages tell you?

What themes come up again and again?

What are competitors clearly investing in?

What kind of intent are they targeting?

Where are they stronger than your client?

Where are they weaker?

Do the content gap analysis

Once you’ve reviewed the client’s site and the competitors, you can work out what’s missing.

That includes:

• Missing topics
• Missing service support content
• Weak audience targeting
• Poor intent matching
• Low-quality pages that need replacing
• Opportunities to outrank weaker competitors
• Keyword themes the site has ignored

This is the point where you can look at:

• What competitors rank for
• What that means for the client
• How the client could realistically improve
• Which pages should be updated first
• Which new content opportunities are worth pursuing

Turn it into recommendations

Please do not hand over twenty pages of observations, stick on Netflix, and call it a day. An audit is only good if the client knows what to do with it. Otherwise, all you’ve really given them is a very expensive reminder that their website is a bit of a mess.

Once you’ve gathered all your findings, pull them out of the weeds and turn them into practical, prioritised recommendations the client can actually understand and act on.

They should be able to look at the final section of your audit and think, “Right. I know what needs doing first, what can wait, and why.”

That means grouping your recommendations into two main buckets:

Quick wins

These are the relatively straightforward fixes that can tidy things up, improve usability, or remove obvious problems without needing a huge strategic rethink.

That might include things like:

• Updating title tags and meta descriptions
• Fixing broken links
• Improving internal linking between related pages
• Redirecting dead or outdated URLs
• Improving weak calls to action
• Refreshing stats or examples on older pages
• Cleaning up formatting so pages are actually readable
• Removing duplicate or overlapping bits of copy

Bigger strategic actions

Then you’ve got the deeper work: the changes that need more thought, more time, and usually more collaboration.

This might include:

• Rewriting core service pages that no longer reflect the business
• Filling major topic gaps where the site isn’t speaking to key customer needs
• Restructuring the blog so it’s not just a giant pile of unrelated articles
• Building content clusters around important service areas or search themes
• Improving conversion paths between informational content and money pages
• Consolidating pages that are splitting traffic and confusing Google
• Reworking messaging where the tone, positioning, or offer has drifted

Prioritise the recommendations

Not everything needs doing at once, and if you present it like it does, most clients will either freeze, or pick the easiest thing and ignore the rest.

So rank your recommendations.

What’s urgent?

What’s high impact?

What can wait a quarter?

What’s worth doing only if the client is investing in SEO, a new website, or a broader content strategy?

Explain the “why”

Don’t just say “rewrite this page” or “create more content around X.” Explain why you’re recommending it.

For example:

• This page has decent traffic but no meaningful next step
• This topic is clearly important in the market, but the site doesn’t cover it at all
• This article is ranking, but it doesn’t align with a relevant service
• These two pages are competing with each other and weakening both
• This messaging no longer reflects what the business sells now

Clients are much more likely to buy into the work when they can see the logic behind it. 

And yes, set KPIs

Please. I am begging.

Give them something to measure progress against. Otherwise the client updates five pages, waits ten minutes, and decides SEO doesn’t work.

Which, as you know, is not how any of this works.

Your KPIs should link back to the purpose of the audit and the client’s goals. Depending on the project, that might be:

• Stronger organic traffic to key pages
• Better engagement on updated content
• Improved rankings for priority topics
• More enquiries from service pages
• More traffic from the right countries or audiences
• Fewer low-value or irrelevant visits

Okay, now for the selling part.

When should you pitch a website content audit?

I’d recommend pitching it when:

• A client wants more content but the site is a bit all over the place
• They’re considering a website rewrite
• Traffic is flat and no one knows why
• They’ve changed positioning or services
• They’re about to invest in SEO
• The site feels inconsistent, or out of sync with the business

How to pitch them

In many cases, it’s enough to say:

“Before we start creating more content, I’d recommend we review what’s already live. That way we can see what’s worth keeping, what needs improving, and where the best opportunities are.”

That lands because it sounds sensible. Which it is.

You can also frame it around saving money, improving results, and avoiding unnecessary work: all very popular concepts with clients, for some reason.

Also worth checking out while you’re here: How Your Agency Can Sell Fractional Marketing Services (& Why It’s a Good Move).

What they might push back on & what to say

You’ll most likely hear a version of:

• “Can’t we just start writing?”

You can, but if the site’s foundations are messy, you’re just adding more content on top of the mess.

• “We don’t want to pay for analysis.”

Totally fair. But the audit helps stop wasted spend, unnecessary rewrites, and random content decisions that don’t go anywhere.

• “We just redid some of this.”

Newer doesn’t always mean better. A recently updated page can still miss the mark on messaging, SEO, structure, or conversions.

• “Can’t AI help with that?”

It can help with bits of the process. It can’t apply judgement, business context, or tell you what’s strategically worth doing next.

• “We already know what’s wrong.”

Perfect. The audit is where you confirm it, prioritise it, and tie it to action.

It’s a solid little offer with a lot of legs

With AI happily churning out words at speed, the people who know how to stop, assess, and make a strategic call are only getting more valuable.

That can be you.

So if this is the kind of work your brain enjoys (the reviewing, the pattern-spotting, the strategic tidying-up) take that as your sign to build it into your offer properly.

And if you want some company while you figure it all out, come hang out with us in The Admin Bar. You’ll find a whole bunch of web and marketing people building better, brainier services around the stuff clients actually need right now.

And if you want the deeper support, extra resources, and more of the “oh thank God, someone finally explained this properly” kind of stuff, Barflies is where the extra goodies live.