A 5-Step Guide to B2B Content Audits for Marketers

If your SEO content is slowly decaying and bringing in less organic traffic, but you’re not sure how to get it back on track, a content audit is a good place to start. While content audits have gotten a bad rap from SEO providers who offer little more than a PDF of data from Ahrefs, a good audit goes much deeper. 

Audits should be a 360-degree look at your content and company positioning to provide a clear and strategic path for building a content library that actually drives revenue. 

Without an audit, you might accidentally create content redundant to what you already have, write articles irrelevant to your ideal customer, or fail to prioritize the highest-impact activities. 

This is what we call the “content hamster wheel”: always running, but not sure where you’re going (or why you’re doing what you’re doing). An audit is the foundation for making informed decisions about your content marketing strategy. 

Keep reading to learn how to conduct a content audit that will tell you what to do, when to do it, and why.

Step 1: Understand the reason for conducting the audit

A content audit helps you evaluate how well your website content performs and what steps to take for a stronger strategy. It’s different from a technical audit, which looks at your website’s backend structure.

But before you can judge performance, you need clear, measurable goals tied to your business objectives. 

Work with your team to define your target audience and the conversions that matter for your digital marketing strategy. When you align content assets (blogs, whitepapers, product and service pages, etc.) with business goals, you’ll focus on real performance metrics.

Retailers might benefit from casting a wide net, but B2B marketing is all about building trust with specific, well-informed audiences. Lead generation takes more than just traffic — you need to attract the right people.

It’s common for content audits to uncover high-traffic articles that don’t connect with your ideal customer persona (ICP). Imagine a company selling executive coaching. If their most-visited article is about organizing a desk, it might bring in thousands of readers — but not the decision-makers they want to reach. 

We call those “vanity metrics.”

This happens when strategies chase traffic instead of meaningful engagement. Would you rather have a post with a million visits and zero conversions or one with 300 visits and a 20% conversion rate? The right content strategy prioritizes quality over quantity.

A thorough content audit process looks beyond traffic numbers. It helps you:

• Assess whether existing content aligns with your ICP
• Ensure messaging matches the buyer’s journey
• Identify gaps and new content opportunities
• Find ways to refresh or repurpose existing content

By the end, you’ll have a clear roadmap to turn your content into a conversion-driving engine that attracts your ideal customers.

Step 2: Inventory your content library

Before starting your audit, take stock of everything on your site. Tools like Ahrefs and Google Search Console give you snapshots, but creating your own inventory gives you more control.

A simple spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Excel is great for this, with each row dedicated to a single piece of content. Add columns for:

• Type of content (blog, landing page, etc.)
• Title
• URL
• Publish/last updated date
• Word count
• ICP alignment
• Place in the content funnel (use a drop-down menu for easy sorting)

This might sound tedious, but tools like Screaming Frog can automate much of the work. It’ll crawl your site and pull key details for you to cut back on manual effort.

Step 3: Collect performance data

Data is one of the most important parts of a content audit. But it can also be tricky — no dataset is perfect, and different tools often contradict each other.

To get a complete view, use multiple tools to track key metrics like:

• Web traffic
• Search rankings
• Page views
• Bounce rates
• Conversions/revenue
• Conversion rates
• Number of backlinks

Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console are great for tracking organic traffic and search terms but have limited historical data. For even more valuable insights, we also recommend Semrush and Ahrefs for their historical data and extra features like keyword research, competitor evaluation, and backlink analysis.

Your CRM or revenue source of truth can also be extremely helpful if it has good revenue attribution set up. When possible, it’s always best to try to get as close as possible to understanding the real revenue impact of content.

Remember, data tools aren’t perfect. Traffic dips don’t always have clear explanations, and different tools report slightly different numbers. Instead of obsessing over small discrepancies, focus on trends — how content performs relative to other pieces and competitors over time.

These tools can get expensive, and if you’re not sure how to use them, you could waste valuable marketing dollars. Working with an agency like ours can help you set up these tools and understand how to use them. (Plus, the cost of these tools is usually baked into your agency fees!)

Step 4: Assess content and analyze the data

Every piece of content should align with your business objectives and ICP. But assessing content isn’t just about traffic — it’s about impact. 

To do this, you need a thorough understanding of your company’s goals and challenges, as well as the context surrounding the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry and how algorithm changes affect content performance. 

You can use the content inventory spreadsheet you created earlier in the audit process to keep notes on your evaluation of content. A quick way to prioritize and flag underperforming content is to categorize each piece into:

• Keep as-is
• Delete
• Refresh
• Merge with similar content

SEO algorithms evolve, and outdated content can hurt performance. If two similar pieces compete in search rankings, merging them may be the best move. An experienced agency can help you determine when to refresh, consolidate, or remove content to avoid cannibalization.

Once you've categorized everything, you'll have a clear picture of what’s working, what’s dead weight, and where opportunities exist.

Step 5: Identify next steps and action items

Now that you understand your site’s content landscape, what’s next? It’s time to create a plan for refreshing existing pieces and filling in content gaps with new ones.

Start by listing all the content that needs updates or creation. This becomes your action plan. Then, prioritize those items based on their potential impact on your business goals.

The tech world moves fast, and content needs refreshing at least every two years to stay competitive in search rankings. When building your content team and strategy, make sure you’re operating at a pace that allows you to keep creating new content while revisiting older pieces every other year.

Your plan also needs to stay flexible. Industry trends, new technologies, and major announcements can create urgent content needs. 

Remember when large-language AI models hit the mainstream? Everyone suddenly had questions about how AI would affect their industry. The most successful content teams were the ones who were able to quickly shift priorities to create new content to address those questions. 

Content creation is time-consuming. Be sure to address and allocate the resources you need ahead of time. Are you going to hire new content writers or work with a content agency that can fill in gaps on your team? Are you going to conduct a technical audit, too?

If you’re unsure how to tackle it all, we can help. Ten Speed is a full-stack content marketing partner that builds custom plans for organic growth. We’ll help you prioritize high-impact work and provide the resources to make it happen.

Ask for help when you get stuck

Any in-house marketing team could benefit from an expert’s outside perspective and experience when building an impactful content engine. 

But if you decide to seek an agency to partner with, make sure you choose someone familiar with the strategies that work in B2B marketing. 

Be wary of agencies that overpromise and underdeliver, like those that “guarantee” results based on a static playbook or speak about SEO strategy in black-and-white terms. Instead, look for a partner who asks smart questions, offers multiple strategies, and tailors their approach to your unique needs.

Ten Speed is a leading B2B organic growth agency that offers full-service SEO and content packages based on each client’s needs. Founded by proven content marketers with decades of experience, Ten Speed is trusted by some of the biggest names in B2B, including Bitly, Workvivo, and Ziflow.

Ready to work with an organic growth agency that gets it? Let’s talk.