In 2023, my workforce and I started engaged on maybe probably the most bold content material audits ever carried out on the HubSpot Weblog. We’ve run content material audits up to now — 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 carried out, we audited over 10,000 weblog publish URLs and over 450 subject clusters.
On this publish, I’m going to deal with part one in all 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 workforce was referred to as the Historic Optimization workforce and we sat on the intersection of HubSpot’s Web optimization and Weblog groups.
We had been answerable for updating and optimizing our current weblog posts and discovering progress alternatives inside our library. (We’ve since developed into what’s now the EN Weblog Technique workforce.)
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 “greatest company weblog … ever” in an Web optimization case examine earlier this 12 months.
Whereas we’re lucky to have a excessive area authority and drive thousands and thousands of visits per thirty days, having a weblog of this dimension doesn’t come with out challenges.
As our library ages, the quantity of alternative for brand spanking 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 may uncover “greenspace” and “quasi-greenspace” — matters that we’ve lined however haven’t capitalized on that nicely — by auditing the oldest 4,000 URLs in our library.
Though this was solely a couple of third of our content material library, we believed we’d be capable to unearth some visitors alternatives and provides our weblog a lift.
Across the similar time, we began to really feel the results of Google’s March 2023 Core Replace that emphasised expertise, which our Technical Web optimization workforce instantly began addressing.
Nonetheless, 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 printed dates starting from 2006 to 2015, we already knew that this chunk of content material was not contemporary 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 may additional handle unhelpful content material and clusters.
How We Audited Our Oldest Content material
1. Outline our objectives.
Earlier than we began auditing the content material, it was necessary for us to find out the goals.
For some publishers, the aim of a content material audit might embody bettering on-page Web optimization, enhancing consumer engagement, aligning content material with advertising objectives, or figuring out content material gaps.
For this explicit audit, it meant uncovering “greenspace” and “quasi-greenspace” in our weblog library, and bettering our general content material freshness.
We additionally needed to decide the scope of our audit.
There’s no proper or flawed method to method this. Relying in your objectives and the dimensions of your web site, you possibly can audit the entire thing in a single go.
You may additionally begin with a small portion of your website (resembling 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 prone to profit from an replace or prune.
We additionally did this realizing 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 objectives and scope, we needed to collect the oldest 4,000 weblog posts and put them right into a spreadsheet.
This course of can fluctuate relying on the instruments and CMS you utilize. Right here’s how we did it utilizing Content material 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 publish data to your e-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 popular spreadsheet software program (I’m normally a Google Sheets girlie, however I had to make use of Microsoft Excel for the reason that file was so massive).
5. Assessment every column within the spreadsheet and delete those that aren’t related to your audit. We instantly deleted the next:
- Publish Web optimization title
- Meta description
- Final modified date
- Publish physique
- Featured picture URL
- Head HTML
- Archived
6. As soon as the irrelevant columns had been eliminated, the next remained:
- Weblog title
- Publish title
- Tags
- Publish language
- Publish URL
- Writer
- Publish date
- Standing
7. Filter the Publish 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. Title the brand new spreadsheet Content material Audit Grasp.
For those who’re feeling fancy, it’s also possible to create a customized report in Content material Hub and choose solely the fields you need included within the audit so that you don’t should filter as a lot when organising your spreadsheet.
3. Retrieve the info.
After compiling the entire content material wanted for our audit, we needed to acquire related knowledge for every weblog publish.
For this audit, we stored it fairly easy, solely analyzing whole natural visitors from the earlier calendar 12 months, whole backlinks, and whole key phrases.
We did this as a result of our advisable actions for every URL had been decided throughout post-evaluation. (We’ll cowl this within the subsequent step.)
We obtained natural visitors knowledge from Google Search Console and used a VLOOKUP to match every URL with its corresponding variety of Clicks.
Then, we obtained backlink and key phrase knowledge by copying and pasting our audit URLs into Ahrefs’ Batch Evaluation instrument and exporting the info into our spreadsheet.
On the time of our audit, the Batch Evaluation instrument may solely analyze as much as 200 URLs directly, so we needed to repeat this step 20 instances till we had knowledge for every URL.
Fortunately, Ahrefs has rolled out a Batch Evaluation 2.0 instrument since then, which may analyze as much as 1,000 URLs directly. So, if we had been to do an identical audit sooner or later, it might take a lot much less time to retrieve this knowledge.
4. Consider the content material.
Subsequent, we assessed every bit of content material through the use of the collected knowledge. Then, we evaluated the publish 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 publish helped us decide its relevance and have become a key think about our resolution to replace or prune.
Whereas this isn’t an exhaustive record of all of the content material varieties you possibly can discover on the HubSpot Weblog, we narrowed it all the way down to the next for the needs of this audit:
- Academic: 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 reports or a press launch that’s possible not evergreen.
- Newsjacking: An industry-related piece of reports or a press launch that’s possible not evergreen.
- Analysis: A set of information or the outcomes of an experiment that’s used to coach the reader. This subject might or will not be evergreen, however the content material isn’t and desires updates to remain contemporary.
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 could possibly be thought of 100% “contemporary.” Nonetheless, we took several types of freshness under consideration when figuring out what motion wanted to be taken on the URLs.
For instance, some matters, resembling Google+, are so outdated that an replace could be foolish. Nonetheless, loads of matters had been nonetheless evergreen, though our content material was not.
The next scale helped us make selections on whether or not the URL had worth with regard to freshness:
- Outdated: The subject is outdated, and an replace will not be attainable.
- Stale: The subject is evergreen, however it might want an intensive replace to make the content material extra aggressive.
- Comparatively Contemporary: The subject is evergreen, and it might 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 positively seek for this, so we’ll must 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 advisable a spotlight key phrase for the re-optimized content material to compete for. We did this by evaluating the prevailing 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 advisable 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 a couple of methods to do that:
- Do a website 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 all the way down to Place Historical past, search your area title, and filter for Prime 20 and your required time-frame (I normally verify the final six months). If a number of URLs are discovered, that will point out cannibalization.
If the main focus key phrase was flagged for cannibalization, we both discovered a distinct focus key phrase or famous that the URL ought to be redirected to the brisker publish.
If no cannibalization was discovered, then we had the inexperienced mild to maneuver ahead with updating the publish.
5. Advocate an motion.
As soon as a publish was utterly evaluated, we turned the insights into motion objects.
Every URL was positioned into one of many following classes:
- Hold: 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 Web optimization practices. Hold the spirit of the article, however refresh and re-optimize to enhance efficiency.
- Recycle: The content material 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 advisable for optimization or recycling. Moreover, 2,888 URLs had been advisable to be pruned. That’s about 72.2% of the audit.
These posts both didn’t have natural potential, posed a cannibalization danger, 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 visitors.
The URLs with natural potential had been delivered to our Weblog workforce and advisable to be optimized or recycled.
In the meantime, the URLs with no natural potential had been delivered to our Web optimization workforce and advisable to be archived or redirected.
First, let’s stroll by means of how we took motion on the posts advisable 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 wanted to determine the next:
- Our capability for strategic evaluation and transient writing
- The capability of our in-house writing workers 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 often called 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 may tackle, we needed to slender down which of them to prioritize. We did this by evaluating the complexity of the carry required for every publish replace:
- Easy Replace: The content material updates wanted are comparatively mild, making them appropriate for freelancers.
- Complicated Replace: The content material updates wanted are heavy, making them higher suited to in-house writers.
- Recycle: Content material isn’t salvageable, however the URL is. Rewrite the publish from scratch, however retain the URL.
- No Alternative: Cross on updating.
We initially prioritized updating the best URLs first, however later pivoted our technique to sort out the URLs with the best MSV potential, no matter replace complexity.
We did this as a result of we wished to get probably the most we may 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 results 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 venture totally in favor of higher-impact workstreams.
Web optimization, am I proper? It all the time retains you in your toes.
Regardless of sunsetting the venture earlier than it was full, we had been nonetheless in a position to carry out 76 publish updates. Six months after the updates had been applied, the cumulative month-to-month 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 happening, we additionally took motion on the two,888 URLs that had been advisable to be pruned.
For the reason that preliminary audit didn’t embody suggestions on how one can 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 Web optimization, advisable we observe 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 below 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 website that also receives Area 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 publish (Web optimization-led) content material from plenty of completely different matters?
- Does this web site nonetheless publish content material? If not, ignore it.
- The Referring web page is from an internet site that you just see linking to loads of EN Weblog posts, by means of a RSS model 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 probably the most related and comparable web page. If we couldn’t discover one, we redirected to the pillar web page of the cluster that the publish 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.
Resolution-making for some content material varieties was simpler than others. For instance, we had been in a position to mechanically assign 301 redirects to URLs that had been flagged for cannibalization in the course of the preliminary audit. We additionally mechanically assigned 404s to URLs with lower than 10 backlinks labeled as Newsjacking and Enterprise Updates.
The whole lot else was manually reviewed to make sure accuracy. To make the analysis course of simpler, we adopted this resolution tree:
It took my workforce about two and a half weeks to make sure that each URL had the proper 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 Web optimization Strategist, Sylvain Charbit, we determined to prune the URLs in batches as a substitute of abruptly. That manner, we may 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 in the course of the weeks in between.
Batches one and two contained URLs meant to be archived and unpublished, and batches three by means of 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 workforce to create a script that will mechanically 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 instrument in Content material Hub.
Be aware: Though we had been in a position to work by means of this course of internally and end earlier than our deadline, I need to acknowledge that manually evaluating over 2,000 URLs might be tedious and time-consuming.
Relying in your sources and the scope of your audit, you could need to contemplate hiring a freelancer to assist your workforce work by means of a process this massive.
Content material Pruning Outcomes
Whereas we efficiently applied every batch, this course of didn’t come with out a few street bumps.
Halfway by means of our pruning schedule, Google rolled out the March 2024 Core Algorithm Replace. We ended up inserting our pruning schedule on maintain so we may higher monitor efficiency in the course of the replace.
As soon as the replace was full, we resumed the remainder of our prune till it was full.
Due to the unstable search panorama in 2024, we didn’t see the visitors beneficial properties we’d hoped to see as soon as the prune was full. Nonetheless, we did have a good time an enormous win for general content material freshness on the weblog.
At first 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 publish that was final up to date on February 19, 2008. Primarily based on the 2024 date, the publish from 2008 is 16.7 years previous or 6,110 days.
As soon as we had the entire ages for each publish on the HubSpot Weblog, we averaged these numbers to find out the common age of our content material library, which was 2,088 days (5.7 years).
Since pruning 2,888 URLs (and updating a whole bunch 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 once we began.
As content material freshness and helpfulness play a good better position in search algorithms, being almost a 12 months youthful could make a giant distinction.
What’s Subsequent?
Earlier on this publish, I discussed that this audit is just one of three that my workforce 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 really carried out — particularly when working with massive libraries. You end one audit, then it’s on to the subsequent.
Though the work might be tedious, the rewards of bettering content material high quality, consumer expertise, and efficiency make it well worth the effort.
