11 Effective Ways to Perform a SaaS Content Audit

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I can’t tell you how many SaaS teams are currently creating content without ever reviewing the existing content assets they already have.

Most of their current content marketing strategy just involves pumping out loads of content without ever updating it, which leads to content that sits in organic limbo and underperforms until it starts to decay away from the SERPs.

Even high-quality content will start to decay over time.

Creating all this content without ever touching it again makes no sense either.

Optimizing existing content takes significantly less time than creating a new piece of content.

It’s a weird situation that isn’t exclusive to only SaaS websites. I’ve seen this happen for the majority of websites I audit.

However, this seems to be most prevalent with SaaS companies since they need to scale their content efforts to capture their target audience’s complete buyers’ journeys at all search points.

Because of this, most content teams get into a rhythm with their content production efforts and never really pause to analyze what they’ve been putting out there.

A lot of it is just create create create.

Instead, it should be create, analyze, and adjust.

Well, for this article, I’m hoping to help you pause that mentality and give you a few tactics for auditing your existing SaaS content.

Here’s how I typically go about my content audit process for SaaS websites. 

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11 Ways to Perform a Content Audit For Your SaaS

SaaS Content Audit Tip 1#: Look for Zombie/Dead Pages

First, you should always start your content audits by trimming fat off your website.

Zombie pages are pages on your website that have almost 0 potential and are practically a waste of space for search engines.

In this stage of your content audit, you should look at content quality and see which pages can be considered low quality.

If you have been creating content for a while now, you likely have plenty of content that falls into this category.

You’ll likely want to either:

• Delete these pages
• Merge them with another page
• Update them if the potential is there
• Noindex them
• Leave them as is

Whatever it is, you still need to find and categorize these pages, as they are likely dragging down your overall site performance.

Since these pages aren’t performing at all, they’re likely low in quality, duplicate content, or outdated content, so getting rid of them will help with site-wide signals for search engines like the helpful content system.

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

And there you have it; these are all of the pages that are practically dead on your website. 

If any of these articles are less than 3 months old, you should ignore them, but anything older than that is on the chopping block.

Just a note to also use historical backlink and conversion data for this tactic. You don’t want to delete anything that’s brought you business in the past (could be from other marketing channels).

SaaS Content Audit Tip 2#: Look for Low-Hanging Fruit Potential

This type of content will give you the most bang for your buck. 

Content with low-hanging fruit potential is content ranking in positions 4-20 that needs a little work to see improvements.

 Since this content already exists and is indexed, seeing improvements won’t take as long compared to creating an entirely new article.

And in some cases, you can see movement just by adding a few internal links or a title tag change.

Source: Backlinko

So why spend hours creating new content when you can get similar results with a 15-minute tweak?

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

• Add new content
• Update content
• Realign content for intent
• Add internal links
• Update HTML tags
• Update metadata
• Optimize for keywords and entities
• Build links

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

Again, I’ve seen plenty of positive movement from updating content that took me less than 5 hours.

It’s always worth it to go after these queries once a quarter.

You don’t need to pause your content efforts for these keywords either; you just need to allocate some budget toward optimizing them. Here’s a quick article if you need to know how much your SaaS should spend on SEO. 

And in most cases, they take significantly less time. 

Just spend some time optimizing your existing article for that target keyword.

Be sure to make these types of queries a consistent part of your current marketing strategy.

How to Find Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords

You can use either Google Search Console or Ahrefs for these.

I personally 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

SaaS Content Audit Tip 3#: Look for Content With Potential

Underperforming content will likely be a good data source when you’re looking for additional topic clusters to go after.

These are queries that are ranking in positions 30-100 on the SERPs. 

You’ll likely need a brand new piece of content to rank for these queries.

Since these queries are coming from existing articles that aren’t directly related, you likely won’t be able to optimize your existing article to rank for it.

You can try (cause each keyword requires a different approach), but in most cases, you’re better off creating new content around it.  

Google likes to attribute keywords that are somewhat relevant to certain pages, but since the intent is different for the page and keyword, these queries typically rank position 30 and above.   

So they’re similar (topically relevant) to your original page but different since they have a different search intent attached to them. 

However, these queries can be a good source of content ideas for your website.

These queries are coming straight from your target audience and can help build topical authority. You should preferably start with long tail keywords.

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

How to Find Content With Potential

To find these types of queries, you can follow a similar format as the low hanging fruit tactic, but instead of setting position filters for 4-20, it will now be queries ranking above position 30. 

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

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

SaaS Content Audit Tip 4#: Look for No Click Pages

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. 

It all depends on the content data.

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.

SaaS Content Audit Tip #5: Look for Content That’s Been Losing Clicks Consistently

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

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 see the pages that previously brought in traffic for you but aren’t anymore, or at least not bringing in as much organic traffic.

It’s likely a competitor overtook you, or your content started to decay. 

Whatever the reason, you want to audit your content to figure out 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 information will likely be necessary.

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 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.

SaaS Content Audit Tip 6# Look for Pages with High Impressions/Low Clicks

This can also be classified as underperforming content too. 

These pages have high impressions but very low clicks. These pages should have a higher CTR but struggle to get proper visibility. 

This type of content has a lot of potential. 

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

Because of this, this is a prime page to update since you know there’s plenty of traffic potential to go along with it.

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

With higher volume queries, there will likely be more competition, so if you want to beat that competition, you’ll probably need to create better content to outrank your competition.

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 largest click/impression discrepancy.

SaaS Content Audit Tip 7#: Look for Pages Ranking High but with Zero Clicks

These will likely be the easiest fix on this list. 

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

Since these pages already rank on the first page, you likely don’t need to update the content to see ranking increases. Although that can help.

In this case, you should Google your keyword and see how your URL is comparing against your competitor’s articles.

Is it because our title isn’t interesting enough? Does our meta description not summarize the page properly? Is there a featured snippet taking up most of the SERPs?

In most cases, you should update your title tag, meta description, add schema, and, even better, try to snag the featured snippet, giving you the most visibility out of all competitors.

Finding High Ranking Pages with Low Clicks

• 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

SaaS Content Audit Tip #8: Look for Keyword Cannibalization

As I mentioned during the zombie page section, many of these no click/no impression pages are likely causing cannibalization issues, which means that it’s hurting how your content is performing at the moment.

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 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.

When you come across keyword cannibalization, you just want to delete that page (the underperforming one) or merge it into the slightly performing content.

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 bucket load of content on your website, I’d recommend starting with zombie pages and cannibalization. It doesn’t take as long, and you’ll see some pretty positive movement.

In most cases, you don’t even need new content. You just need to remove the content that’s cannibalizing your performing pages. 

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.

SaaS Content Audit Tip #9: Look for Opportunities to add in CTAs

Your content won’t do much if there isn’t a purpose for it. 

You need actionable content on your website. If you want to improve content ROI, you must focus on content goals that help drive results.

Even for your highly trafficked pages, if there aren’t CTAs found within your content, you’re likely leaving leads and maybe even revenue on the table.

Ideally, all of your content should have an objective. Whether it’s to build awareness, capture leads, or help build topical authority.

Whatever it is, these articles still have the potential to capture leads. Even some TOFU articles can generate leads if you properly position your CTAs.

It can be a newsletter signup, a product demo request, or a lead magnet.

You’ll want to know how to write compelling copy for your SaaS content. 

However, with these CTAs, you’ll want to use your content audit data to find the pages with the best opportunities.

You can use Google Analytics for historical conversion data or Google Search Console to find highly trafficked pages.

Whatever it is, you want to identify the pages with the most potential and then use those to guide you along as you optimize your content with CTAs

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.

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

SaaS Content Audit Tip #10: 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 conducted where content teams completely neglect internal links.

Don’t be like those teams.

While auditing your content, look for opportunities to add internal links to help guide users to new pages and distribute link equity across your website, which can help improve keyword rankings.

Essential Tools a SaaS Should Use When Auditing Content

When you get started, you’ll also need some content tools to help you through this process. 

Below are some of the most common content tools I use for my SaaS content audits.

Google Search Console Works For Almost Every Content Audit

You can use Google Search Console for every tip I listed above. It is the most powerful tool in SEO, especially with data; it is second to none.

If you want to do all of the above effectively, use Google Search Console

It works great for finding BoFu, MoFu, and ToFu content.

Using Ahrefs and SEMrush for a SaaS Content Audit

Ahrefs and SEMrush are another set of solid tools for your content audit. While I’d still prefer Google Search Console, you can use Ahrefs to find opportunities with your content.

They even have a section in their tool that automates the opportunities for you, making things easy for you when you’re looking for content to update.

Ahrefs and SEMrush also have solid site auditing features, so finding potential issues affecting your content can be helpful.

You can even use these SEO tools to run a content gap analysis against your competitors and find broken links on your website.

SaaS Content Audit Tools (Surfer, Frase, Clearscope)

You can also use content audit tools to help speed up your content optimization process. 

If you’re new to SEO, these SEO tools will show you what you need to do to improve your content.

I usually recommend Surfer, Frase, and Clearscope.

All three of these tools are great for beginners or non-SEOs looking to improve their content for search. 

They aren’t necessary for your content audits, but they still make the optimization process significantly more straightforward and make it more likely for your content to get organic traction.

What is the Purpose of a SaaS Content Audit?

A SaaS content audit aims to identify any potential opportunities and issues with your content. 

In fact, according to SEMrush, 53% of marketers said that updating their content helped with engagement.

Source: SEMrush

In your content audit, you want to look for anything that might be holding your content performance back and anything that can present a quick win for your website.

Remember, updating existing content will take significantly less time than creating entirely new pieces of it, so you’ll want to find every possible opportunity and issue you can.

 With these, you should be auditing your content at least once every 3-5 months. 

This doesn’t mean pausing content production to optimize existing content; just finding new opportunities to improve your existing assets.

In most cases, your content audits should be performed to attract more visibility for your customer’s journey. You want your potential customers to be able to find your product-led content that you put so much effort into.

And this audit will hit all aspects of the content marketing funnel too. From ToFU to BoFu.

Whether it’s low-quality posts or articles misaligned with search intent, you want to increase organic visibility and reduce the bounce rate for these pages.

Cause someone does have to read this content at the end of the day. And it might leave a bad taste for your customers if your content library is all low-quality blog posts.

Content should be created for user experience, not search engines, so this content audit will hopefully help eliminate those low-quality pages for you.

Why Your SaaS Should Perform Content Audits Regularly

If you neglect these content audits, you’re likely leaving traffic and even revenue on the table. 

Especially when it comes to low-hanging fruit keywords, these keywords have the potential to receive traffic, but that traffic is currently going to your competitors.

 Some of that traffic might be funneling into their pipelines, and in some cases, some of that traffic is turning into leads.

However, this traffic could be going to your site if you had the visibility. So, in the cases of these content audits, you want to do everything you can to get visibility with your content instead of just throwing more content at the wall, hoping it fixes things.

 At the very least, you should run these audits quarterly to find opportunities to increase revenue and leads with your existing content. 

You will hit your business objectives much faster by prioritizing existing content rather than waiting for new content to rank (which will likely end up in the low-hanging fruit category if you don’t optimize it properly).

Things to Avoid When Conducting a SaaS Content Audit

Here are some of the common content mistakes you should avoid when doing any kind of content analysis.

Deleting Pages for the Sake of It

If you want a successful content audit, one thing you have to avoid is deleting pages for the sake of it. Don’t just delete pages because you think you need to.

 Always use data before you make a decision. So, if that page has conversions, then leave it as is.

 Not all pages have to exist strictly for SEO.

Not Using Additional Data to Guide Your Decisions

As mentioned above, you need to use data to guide your decisions during your content audit. 

You can’t just delete noindex pages without having data to back up your decision.

 You can use historical conversion, backlink, click, and impression data for this. You can even use PPC data to help with this.

Whatever it is, you need to leverage data to help guide you while conducting your content audit. 

Customer feedback helps as well. If these pages have a high exit rate, then it might indicate that you need to improve your content quality to keep users on the page.

This is also a user experience audit too in a way.

Another example would be if an article has a quality backlink profile but 0 clicks, you’ll likely want to leave it as is or at least redirect your page to another relevant page to conserve that link equity.

Only Focusing on Pages With The Highest Search Volume

Just because a page has a high search volume doesn’t mean you need to prioritize it.

 Obviously, you should start with audience and keyword research for all of your SaaS content, but when starting your content audit, you also want to identify pages with conversion intent.

 What does that mean? That means pages that will have some form of an impact on your bottom line.

Just remember traffic by itself won’t drive revenue. Intent will.

Not having KPIs Set For Your Content

To maximize ROI with your content audit, you need to have some key performance indicators set to measure trends with your content.

These can be performance metrics or engagement metrics; either way, it should be a KPI that measures whether your performance is trending up after your last content audit or vice versa.

You can use analytics tools like Google Analytics to measure your content inventory and whether you’re seeing improvements.

How Often Should You Audit Your Content?

For your content audits to be successful, you need to give them some time in between each audit. 

This means your content audits should be added to your editorial calendar at least once every 3 months.

 I usually recommend reviewing the performance of your last audit and setting the stage for your next one every quarter.

So, analyze your current content inventory and how the previous audit did, what improvements there were, and what didn’t work, and then use that to set the stage for your next audit.

They should be a part of your content calendar. Scheduling time each quarter to review your audit and your current SaaS content marketing strategy.

It also helps when you have content audit templates or content checklists. I’m hoping to eventually have some content template that I can use for this article.

Performing the Best Content Audit for Your SaaS

With the tips above, this will be enough to run a successful content audit to make a difference for your SaaS.

I use all of the tips above for any content audit I do, and I’ve seen plenty of success with it.

If you want to get the most with your content, you can’t just keep throwing it at the wall, hoping it will stick. For your future content marketing efforts to be successful, this needs to be a continual investment.

While this may seem a hefty lift, it usually takes less time than creating and optimizing a new article.

So, if you plan on starting a content audit for your SaaS, start with your priorities and look for the content that will make a difference with them.

Likely, that will be bottom-of-the-funnel pages that influence your conversion rates, like revenue or demo signups. Content that your target audience is searching for.

But still focus on ToFu content and MoFu content as well.

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.