In 2023, my crew and I started engaged on maybe probably the most bold content material audits ever performed on the HubSpot Weblog. We’ve run content audits in the past — however not like this.
We ran the audit in three phases:
- Part 1 addressed our oldest content material.
- Part 2 evaluated our lowest-performing content material.
- Part 3 assessed the worth of our subject clusters.
When it was all stated and accomplished, we audited over 10,000 weblog submit URLs and over 450 subject clusters.
On this submit, I’m going to deal with part certainly one of our audit. I’ll stroll you thru how we audited our oldest content material and the way we took motion. Plus, I’ll share the outcomes we discovered.
However first, let me offer you some background on why we determined to run an audit of this magnitude.
Why We Audited
It began in early 2023. On the time, my crew was referred to as the Historic Optimization crew and we sat on the intersection of HubSpot’s Search engine optimisation and Weblog groups.
We had been liable for updating and optimizing our existing blog posts and discovering development alternatives inside our library. (We’ve since advanced into what’s now the EN Weblog Technique crew.)
In case you’re new right here, the HubSpot Weblog is HUGE.
For context, the weblog was dwelling to 13,822 pages in February of 2023, the month we started our audit. Ahrefs’ Mateusz Makosiewicz even declared it because the “largest company weblog … ever” in an SEO case study earlier this yr.
Whereas we’re lucky to have a excessive area authority and drive tens of millions of visits per 30 days, having a weblog of this measurement doesn’t come with out challenges.
As our library ages, the quantity of alternative for brand new content material throughout our weblog properties and clusters shrinks.
So, we determined to audit our library to search out alternatives for optimization.
We hypothesized that we might uncover “greenspace” and “quasi-greenspace” — subjects that we now have coated however haven’t capitalized on that properly — by auditing the oldest 4,000 URLs in our library.
Though this was solely a few third of our content material library, we believed we’d be capable to unearth some site visitors alternatives and provides our weblog a lift.
Across the identical time, we began to really feel the effects of Google’s March 2023 Core Update that emphasised expertise, which our Technical Search engine optimisation crew instantly began addressing.
Nevertheless, one other a part of that algorithm replace emphasised content material freshness and helpfulness. In different phrases, how cutting-edge and helpful our content material is to our readers.
That is the place we actually felt a way of urgency.
As a result of we had 4,000 URLs with revealed dates starting from 2006 to 2015, we already knew that this chunk of content material was not recent or useful.
So, we started working and audited these weblog posts over the course of ten weeks.
Ultimately, we added phases two and three to our plan so we might additional handle unhelpful content material and clusters.
How We Audited Our Oldest Content material
1. Outline our targets.
Earlier than we began auditing the content material, it was necessary for us to find out the targets.
For some publishers, the aim of a content material audit might embody enhancing on-page Search engine optimisation, enhancing consumer engagement, aligning content material with advertising targets, or figuring out content material gaps.
For this specific audit, it meant uncovering “greenspace” and “quasi-greenspace” in our weblog library, and enhancing our general content material freshness.
We additionally needed to decide the scope of our audit.
There’s no proper or flawed solution to strategy this. Relying in your targets and the dimensions of your web site, you can audit the entire thing in a single go.
You may additionally begin with a small portion of your web site (reminiscent of product pages or particular subject clusters) and construct out from there.
Since HubSpot has such a big content material library, we opted to restrict this audit to our oldest 4,000 URLs. Not solely was this extra manageable than reviewing all of our content material in a single audit, however this additionally focused URLs that had been extra more likely to profit from an replace or prune.
We additionally did this understanding that we might later handle the remainder of our library throughout phases two and three.
2. Collect our content material stock.
As soon as we established our targets and scope, we needed to collect the oldest 4,000 weblog posts and put them right into a spreadsheet.
This course of can range relying on the instruments and CMS you utilize. Right here’s how we did it utilizing Content Hub:
1. Log into HubSpot and navigate to the Weblog web page in Content material Hub.
2. Navigate to the Actions drop-down and click on Export weblog posts.
3. Choose File format and click on Export. This can ship your entire weblog submit data to your electronic mail. Additionally, you will get a notification in HubSpot as soon as your export is prepared.
4. Obtain your export and open it in your most well-liked spreadsheet software program (I’m normally a Google Sheets girlie, however I had to make use of Microsoft Excel because the file was so giant).
5. Evaluation every column within the spreadsheet and delete those that aren’t related to your audit. We instantly deleted the next:
- Submit Search engine optimisation title
- Meta description
- Final modified date
- Submit physique
- Featured picture URL
- Head HTML
- Archived
6. As soon as the irrelevant columns had been eliminated, the next remained:
- Weblog identify
- Submit title
- Tags
- Submit language
- Submit URL
- Writer
- Publish date
- Standing
7. Filter the Submit language column for EN posts solely. Delete the column as soon as the sheet is filtered.
8. Filter the Standing column for PUBLISHED solely. Delete the column as soon as the sheet is filtered.
9. Filter the sheet by Publish date from oldest to latest.
10. Spotlight and duplicate the primary 4,000 rows and paste them right into a separate spreadsheet.
11. Identify the brand new spreadsheet Content material Audit Grasp.
For those who’re feeling fancy, you can too create a custom report in Content Hub and choose solely the fields you need included within the audit so that you don’t should filter as a lot when establishing your spreadsheet.
3. Retrieve the information.
After compiling the entire content material wanted for our audit, we needed to acquire related information for every weblog submit.
For this audit, we stored it fairly easy, solely analyzing whole natural site visitors from the earlier calendar yr, whole backlinks, and whole key phrases.
We did this as a result of our beneficial actions for every URL had been decided throughout post-evaluation. (We’ll cowl this within the subsequent step.)
We obtained natural site visitors information from Google Search Console and used a VLOOKUP to match every URL with its corresponding variety of Clicks.
Then, we received backlink and key phrase information by copying and pasting our audit URLs into Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool and exporting the information into our spreadsheet.
On the time of our audit, the Batch Evaluation software might solely analyze as much as 200 URLs without delay, so we needed to repeat this step 20 instances till we had information for every URL.
Fortunately, Ahrefs has rolled out a Batch Evaluation 2.0 software since then, which might analyze as much as 1,000 URLs without delay. So, if we had been to do an analogous audit sooner or later, it could take a lot much less time to retrieve this information.
4. Consider the content material.
Subsequent, we assessed every bit of content material through the use of the collected information. Then, we evaluated the submit itself to find out the next:
- Kind of Content material
- Freshness Stage
- Natural Potential
Kind of Content material
The HubSpot Weblog is dwelling to many several types of weblog posts, every serving a singular function. Labeling every submit helped us decide its relevance and have become a key consider our determination to replace or prune.
Whereas this isn’t an exhaustive checklist of all of the content material sorts you can discover on the HubSpot Weblog, we narrowed it right down to the next for the needs of this audit:
- Instructional: A subject that may educate the consumer on a ache level or drawback they know they’ve.
- Thought Management: A subject that may educate the consumer on a ache level or drawback they didn’t know they’d till an knowledgeable drew it to their consideration.
- Enterprise Replace: A HubSpot-related piece of stories or a press launch that’s doubtless not evergreen.
- Newsjacking: An industry-related piece of stories or a press launch that’s doubtless not evergreen.
- Analysis: A group of knowledge or the outcomes of an experiment that’s used to teach the reader. This subject might or is probably not evergreen, however the content material just isn’t and desires updates to remain recent.
Freshness Stage
As a result of the posts on this audit hadn’t been up to date in a very long time, none of them might be thought-about 100% “recent.” Nevertheless, we took several types of freshness into consideration when figuring out what motion wanted to be taken on the URLs.
For instance, some subjects, reminiscent of Google+, are so outdated that an replace could be foolish. Nevertheless, loads of subjects had been nonetheless evergreen, regardless that our content material was not.
The next scale helped us make choices on whether or not the URL had worth with regard to freshness:
- Outdated: The subject is outdated, and an replace is probably not attainable.
- Stale: The subject is evergreen, however it could want an in depth replace to make the content material extra aggressive.
- Comparatively Contemporary: The subject is evergreen, and it could solely want a average replace to make the content material aggressive.
Natural Potential
To find out the natural potential of every URL, we needed to ask ourselves the next query: Will anybody seek for the content material on Google?
- Sure: Somebody would undoubtedly seek for this, so we’ll have to optimize/recycle the content material.
- No: Somebody wouldn’t seek for this. There’s no level in optimizing/recycling the content material since there’s no attainable focus key phrase.
For the entire posts marked “Sure” for natural potential, we beneficial a spotlight key phrase for the re-optimized content material to compete for. We did this by evaluating the present title, slug, and content material. Then, we did some key phrase analysis on Ahrefs and reviewed the Google SERP for that question.
We additionally included the main focus key phrase’s month-to-month search quantity (MSV) to assist prioritize which updates to carry out first. We did this by plugging the beneficial key phrase into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer and including the MSV to our grasp sheet.
For an additional layer of warning, we additionally checked for cannibalization on all posts marked “Sure” for natural potential. There are just a few methods to do that:
- Do a web site search and see if any URLs come up for the main focus key phrase.
- Plug the main focus key phrase into Google Search Console to see if any URLs come up.
- Plug the main focus key phrase into Ahrefs’ Key phrase Explorer, scroll right down to Place Historical past, search your area identify, and filter for Prime 20 and your required timeframe (I normally test the final six months). If a number of URLs are discovered, which will point out cannibalization.
If the main focus key phrase was flagged for cannibalization, we both discovered a special focus key phrase or famous that the URL must be redirected to the brisker submit.
If no cannibalization was discovered, then we had the inexperienced mild to maneuver ahead with updating the submit.
5. Advocate an motion.
As soon as a submit was fully evaluated, we turned the insights into motion gadgets.
Every URL was positioned into one of many following classes:
- Maintain: No motion is required as a result of each the content material and the URL are good.
- Optimize: The content material is sweet however outdated when it comes to freshness or Search engine optimisation practices. Maintain the spirit of the article, however refresh and re-optimize to enhance efficiency.
- Recycle: The content material just isn’t salvageable, however the URL nonetheless has worth (when it comes to backlinks or key phrase alternative). Create new content material from scratch, however retain the URL.
- Prune: Neither the content material nor the URL has worth from an natural standpoint.
Audit Insights
Out of the 4,000 URLs we audited, 951 (23.78%) had been categorized as posts with natural potential and beneficial for optimization or recycling. Moreover, 2,888 URLs had been beneficial to be pruned. That’s about 72.2% of the audit.
These posts both didn’t have natural potential, posed a cannibalization threat, or had been so outdated that there was no level in updating them.
The remaining 161 URLs both didn’t require any motion or had already been redirected.
How We Took Motion
The motion taken for a URL was decided by its potential for natural site visitors.
The URLs with natural potential had been delivered to our Weblog crew and beneficial to be optimized or recycled.
In the meantime, the URLs with no natural potential had been delivered to our Search engine optimisation crew and beneficial to be archived or redirected.
First, let’s stroll by how we took motion on the posts beneficial to be optimized or recycled.
Taking Motion on Content material with Natural Potential
Earlier than addressing any of the 951 posts with natural potential, we would have liked to determine the next:
- Our capability for strategic evaluation and transient writing
- The capability of our in-house writing employees and out there freelancers
- Our capability to edit the updates
We coordinated with stakeholders and decided we solely had the bandwidth to replace 240 posts in 2024 (along with the handfuls of weblog posts we replace every month). This initiative was internally referred to as the “De-Age the Weblog Challenge” and was led by my EN Weblog Technique teammate Kimberly Turner.
As soon as we knew what number of posts we might tackle, we needed to slim down which of them to prioritize. We did this by evaluating the complexity of the carry required for every submit replace:
- Easy Replace: The content material updates wanted are comparatively mild, making them appropriate for freelancers.
- Advanced Replace: The content material updates wanted are heavy, making them higher suited to in-house writers.
- Recycle: Content material just isn’t salvageable, however the URL is. Rewrite the submit from scratch, however retain the URL.
- No Alternative: Go on updating.
We initially prioritized updating the only URLs first, however later pivoted our technique to deal with the URLs with the very best MSV potential, no matter replace complexity.
We did this as a result of we needed to get essentially the most we might out of our updates.
De-Age the Weblog Outcomes
Initially, we projected that these updates could be full by the top of H1 2024, however we needed to shift our technique … once more.
Like many different publishers, we felt the consequences of Google’s March 2024 Core Replace in addition to the introduction of AI Overviews.
After having positioned the De-Age the Weblog Challenge on maintain whereas we addressed the problems, we deprioritized the undertaking solely in favor of higher-impact workstreams.
Search engine optimisation, am I proper? It at all times retains you in your toes.
Regardless of sunsetting the undertaking earlier than it was full, we had been nonetheless in a position to carry out 76 submit updates. Six months after the updates had been applied, the cumulative month-to-month site visitors for these posts had elevated by 458%.
This goes to indicate that even updating a small portion of URLs could make a giant distinction.
Taking Motion on Content material with No Natural Potential
Whereas the De-Age the Weblog Challenge was going down, we additionally took motion on the two,888 URLs that had been beneficial to be pruned.
Because the preliminary audit didn’t embody suggestions on methods to prune, we had to return and re-review every URL to find out how we might prune.
Right here’s how we evaluated the posts:
- Archive (404): The URL has lower than 10 backlinks and the backlink profile doesn’t have worth.
- Redirect (301): The URL has greater than 10 backlinks and/or the backlink profile has worth.
How precisely did we decide the backlink profile worth? Rory Hope, HubSpot’s head of Search engine optimisation, beneficial we comply with these steps:
1. Login into Ahrefs and submit the URL into Ahrefs’ Web site Explorer search bar.
2. Choose Overview from the left-hand sidebar.
3. Scroll down and click on Backlink Profile.
4. Scroll down additional and choose By DR beneath Referring Domains.
5. Analyze and examine any referring domains which might be > 50.
6. Navigate to the Referring Area you’re investigating > 50 by clicking the quantity.
7. Analyze the Referring web page.
Choose Redirect (301) if:
- The Referring web page hyperlink is from a site that also receives Area site visitors.
Choose Archive (404) if:
- The Referring web page hyperlink seems to be “spammy.” You’ll be able to decide this by asking the next questions:
- Does this web site solely publish low high quality visitor submit (Search engine optimisation-led) content material from a lot of completely different subjects?
- Does this web site nonetheless publish content material? If not, ignore it.
- The Referring web page is from a web site that you just see linking to a whole lot of EN Weblog posts, by a RSS fashion automated linking system.
Moreover, all URLs labeled “Redirect (301)” required a brand new URL to be redirected to.
When selecting a brand new URL, we did our greatest to select essentially the most related and related web page. If we couldn’t discover one, we redirected to the pillar web page of the cluster that the submit belonged to.
If for some purpose, the URL didn’t belong to a cluster or there wasn’t a pillar web page, we redirected it to the HubSpot Weblog homepage.
Determination-making for some content material sorts was simpler than others. For instance, we had been in a position to routinely assign 301 redirects to URLs that had been flagged for cannibalization throughout the preliminary audit. We additionally routinely assigned 404s to URLs with lower than 10 backlinks labeled as Newsjacking and Enterprise Updates.
Every little thing else was manually reviewed to make sure accuracy. To make the analysis course of simpler, we adopted this determination tree:
It took my crew about two and a half weeks to make sure that each URL had the right label. In the long run, we had 1,675 URLs assigned to be redirected and 1,210 URLs assigned to be unpublished and archived.
As soon as every URL was evaluated, we had been lastly able to take motion.
After coordinating with Rory and Precept Technical Search engine optimisation Strategist, Sylvain Charbit, we determined to prune the URLs in batches as a substitute of unexpectedly. That method, we might higher monitor the impression of redirecting and archiving a big amount of content material.
Initially, we deliberate to implement our prune in 5 batches over 5 weeks, permitting us time to observe efficiency throughout the weeks in between.
Batches one and two contained URLs meant to be archived and unpublished, and batches three by 5 contained URLs designated for 301 redirects.
As a result of there have been so many URLs to unpublish and archive, we labored with builders on HubSpot’s Digital Expertise crew to create a script that might routinely unpublish and archive URLs and redirect them to our 404 web page.
Then, we had been in a position to implement the 301 redirects with the Bulk URL Redirect tool in Content material Hub.
Be aware: Though we had been in a position to work by this course of internally and end earlier than our deadline, I wish to acknowledge that manually evaluating over 2,000 URLs may be tedious and time-consuming.
Relying in your sources and the scope of your audit, you might wish to take into account hiring a freelancer to assist your crew work by a process this huge.
Content material Pruning Outcomes
Whereas we efficiently applied every batch, this course of didn’t come with out a few street bumps.
Halfway by our pruning schedule, Google rolled out the March 2024 Core Algorithm Replace. We ended up inserting our pruning schedule on maintain so we might higher monitor efficiency throughout the replace.
As soon as the replace was full, we resumed the remainder of our prune till it was full.
Due to the risky search panorama in 2024, we didn’t see the site visitors good points we’d hoped to see as soon as the prune was full. Nevertheless, we did have fun an enormous win for general content material freshness on the weblog.
Firstly of our audit in 2023, we calculated the freshness of our content material library by taking a look at every URL’s publish date and quantifying the variety of days since they had been up to date.
For instance, say the present date is November 12, 2024, and you’ve got a submit that was final up to date on February 19, 2008. Based mostly on the 2024 date, the submit from 2008 is 16.7 years previous or 6,110 days.
As soon as we had the entire ages for each submit on the HubSpot Weblog, we averaged these numbers to find out the typical age of our content material library, which was 2,088 days (5.7 years).
Since pruning 2,888 URLs (and updating tons of of URLs from the audit and past), the HubSpot Weblog’s common age has dropped to 1,747 days — that’s 341 days youthful than after we began.
As content material freshness and helpfulness play a fair higher function in search algorithms, being practically a yr youthful could make a giant distinction.
What’s Subsequent?
Earlier on this submit, I discussed that this audit is just one of three that my crew has labored on in 2024.
Our part two audit focuses on the lowest-performing posts that weren’t included in part one, totaling over 6000 URLs. Then, part three assesses the worth of our Weblog’s subject clusters.
We’re nonetheless taking motion on the outcomes from these audits, however I’m so excited to share the method and insights after they’re full.
Finally, content material auditing is a job that’s by no means actually accomplished — particularly when working with giant libraries. You end one audit, then it’s on to the subsequent.
Though the work may be tedious, the rewards of enhancing content material high quality, consumer expertise, and efficiency make it definitely worth the effort.
