Content Audit: Explained
Content Audit is a tool that identifies pages that require re-optimization based on the page performance and Content Score.
Content Audit combines GSC data with SERP analysis to identify pages that require attention; then, it automatically imports your content to the editor, where you can manually optimize it in Content Editor using the AI-generated guidelines and boost the optimization process with the help of Auto Optimize.
Finally, Surfer monitors your content performance (position, traffic, and impressions) daily and alerts you when it requires attention.
Content Audit: Step-by-step
First, a Google Search Console must be connected to your Surfer account.
Under Content Audit, you can select the domain you wish to monitor. If you have multiple GSC accounts, you can pick them from the dropdown.
The tool will automatically detect your site's main location, but you can click on it to update it. Before confirming your project, pick the domain, location, and pages you want to analyze. Once you've set it up, click Add Site. ✨
Feel free to follow the interactive guide below to get a feel of it. 😊
Important: The location detection logic for Content Audit only considers the last 30 days of traffic based on your Google Search Console data. If your domain hasn't had any traffic or impressions for a specific country in the last 30 days, these locations may not appear in the Content Audit location selector.
If you need to update the location, contact our Support Team to remove your project. Then, you can re-add it and manually pick the location.
Content Audit will then show your top 100 pages. Each URL we pull from your GSC property will get data on its Impressions, Traffic (Clicks), and Click-Through Rate (CTR) for the last 60 days.
The reports will show the latest 30-day data, while the prior 30-day data will be shown if you hover over the increase/decrease indicators in the table.
Additionally, we'll select your main keyword based on traffic and show the average position of the page for that keyword. Then, it will analyze the SERPs to calculate your Content Scores.
Within Content Audit, you have the option to:
Open the URL in a new tab
See the exact changes in position, traffic, impression, and CTR.
See the keywords that send you traffic and update the main keyword.
Open the page in Content Editor.
Once in Content Editor, you can maximize your output with Auto-optimize and Internal Linking to make things easier! 🙌
Additionally, you can download the report as a CSV file. 🎉
Simply click on the Export to CSV button, and you'll get a report on the following:
• Title
• URL
• Main Keyword
• Content Score
• Recommendation
• Recommendation Score
• Main Keyword Position (Current Period)
• Main Keyword Position (Previous Period)
• Page Traffic (Current Period)
• Page Traffic (Previous Period)
• Page Impressions (Current Period)
• Page Impressions (Previous Period)
• Page CTR (Current Period)
• Page CTR (Previous Period)
Note: Content Audit shows complete data for the last 30 days and compares it with the previous 30-day data to show trends.
You can hover over the properties to see and compare the 30-day data prior to the latest 30-day data presented in the table.
Content Audit: Control the pages you monitor
You can refresh, add, and remove pages from Content Audit as long as these pages are visible and indexed in your Google Search Console.
This gives you more control over the pages you monitor.
You can track what’s important to you as you keep an eye on the performance of your new and existing pages.
Refreshing pages
You can refresh your Content Audit pages once every seven days. To do so, open the side panel of the page in question and click the Refresh button in the upper-right corner of the Content Score.
Adding pages
Simply click on the Add Page button to select the pages you wish to add and monitor in Content Audit, as shown below 😊
Removing Pages
You can select the pages that you wish to remove or replace and click on Remove selected to proceed.
Easy, right? 😊
Maximize your Recommendations
Content Audit will also immediately highlight the low-hanging fruits under the 🔥 Recommendations tab. These pages rank between 4th and 20th and are likely to respond quickly with valuable insights into what works and needs improvement.
So go ahead and take control of your content with Content Audit! Best traffic increase by simply optimizing the Content Score. 🙌
Remember that recommended pages also have a Content Score lower than 70.
You can also apply your own criteria and prioritize work according to custom filters.
FAQs:
How often does it refresh?
Content Audit fetches GSC data daily, though the data presented is for the last 30 days with complete data.
What is the full/complete data?
The Google Search Console has always had incomplete data in recent days. It’s called Fresh Data, and it’s replaced with Final Data with a delay of about 2-3 days. Content Audit only uses the GSC final data. To know the exact range of dates the data corresponds to, hover over the column titles (Impressions, Traffic, Position).
How does Content Audit determine the main keyword?
Content Audit picks the keyword that sent the most traffic to the page in the last 30 days.
Why am I getting a recommendation for a keyword with a lower traffic count?
The main keywords seen in your project pages are detected and fetched based on the traffic from when your Content Audit project was created, which may result in showing an outdated keyword recommendation. For now, it isn't updated dynamically, but this can change in the future. Instead, you can update the primary keyword manually as seen in the guides above.
What if I want to audit my blog and not the entire website?
If you want to create a Content Audit only for a subdomain or a specific directory you can either:
a. Pick an appropriate URL prefix property when creating a Content Audit. If you haven't configured such a property yet, create it via your GSC account and then go back to Surfer to create a Content Audit for it. Remember that new GSC properties will not have old traffic data, so features like trends will only become available after 60 days of data.
b. Pick a property consisting of your desired pages and create a Content Audit project. From the resulting table, select and remove any unwanted pages. Then, click Add page above the table to add any missing URLs.Why don't the values in Content Audit match what I see in GSC?
Content Audit only shows complete data, so it can accurately show you the changes vs the previous period. GSC shows you a couple of days of incomplete data. Also, the data from GSC API may slightly differ from the data presented in their interface.
The Retry button doesn't work.
First, check if the page's main keyword is correct. If not, change it. Please let our team know if it's correct and if you still get an error when crawling this page.
💭 Do you still need help? You can reach us at [email protected] or by clicking on the chat icon in the bottom-right corner. We're here 24/5! 😊