SEO content audit services
SEO content audit services: a verdict on every URL and a fix list ranked by impact
Your site publishes pages that overlap, decay, or never rank, and nobody can say which ones to keep. My SEO content audit services give you a verdict on every URL and a fix list ranked by impact, so you spend your next content budget on pages that can earn traffic.
Free audit first. The $997 teardown grades every finding and ranks every fix.
The service
What does a SEO content audit do?
An SEO content audit service reviews every indexable page on your site against its traffic, rankings and purpose, then returns a verdict for each one: keep, update, merge or delete. You pay for decisions about your content, not a data export.
I examine each URL's clicks, impressions, average position, target keyword, and how it relates to other pages on your site. I also read the content itself, because a page can have healthy numbers and still contradict another page or answer the wrong question.
Organic traffic at a retailer within 6 months of rebuilding its content framework.
Symptoms
Signs your site's content needs an audit
Once you know what the service produces, the next question is whether your own site shows the symptoms it fixes. Four patterns point to a need.
- 01
Pages that earned traffic last year and now earn far less.
- 02
Pages that have been live for months and never reach the first two results pages.
- 03
Several pages that answer the same search.
- 04
Content written before a redesign, migration or change in what you sell.
Run an audit before a migration so you move only pages worth keeping, and after a sharp traffic drop so you know whether content or something else caused it. A site publishing steadily needs one at least once a year.
Check it yourself in Search Console
Google Search Console shows most of this for free. In the Performance report, compare the last three months against the same period a year earlier and sort by pages with the largest click loss. Then filter by one query and open the Pages tab: two URLs appearing for one query signals overlap.
Scope
What a content audit checks on each page
The symptoms above trace back to page-level problems, so the checks that find them come next. Every URL in the audit gets these checks:
- 1
A row in the content inventory with clicks, impressions, average position, primary keyword and last update date from Search Console and a crawl.
- 2
A quality flag if the page is thin, outdated or contradicts another page on your site.
- 3
A review of the title, H1 and subheadings against the search intent the page targets.
- 4
A count of internal links pointing to the page and the anchor text they use.
- 5
A structure check for AI answers: does a clear sentence near the top answer the question, and are claims stated plainly enough to be quoted?
I build the inventory by crawling your site and joining the crawl to Search Console data, so each URL carries its own performance history. Thin and contradictory pages surface quickly because they sit beside every other page that covers the same ground.
The most common finding
How keyword cannibalization is found and fixed
Cannibalization is the one check that needs more than a list item, so it gets its own section after the full set of page checks. It means two or more of your pages compete for the same search, and neither ranks as well as one strong page would.
A language-learning site has a "how to learn Spanish fast" guide and a "fastest way to learn Spanish" post.
In data, it appears as one query with two or more URLs collecting impressions, with rankings that alternate week to week and clicks split between them. I pull query-and-page data from Search Console and group URLs by shared queries to find every pair.
The fix depends on the pair.
Merge and redirect
If both pages serve the same intent, I merge the weaker into the stronger and 301 redirect it.
Re-target one page
If they serve different intents, I re-target one to a different keyword and adjust its title and headings.
The criteria
How the audit decides which pages to cut
With the problems identified, each page needs a verdict, and the criteria are fixed in advance so you can check my reasoning.
The page earns traffic or conversions and is accurate.
The page ranks but has dated information.
Another page covers the same intent more strongly.
Only if the page earns no traffic, has no useful links, and serves no business goal.
Before any page is cut, I group your pages into topic clusters tied to what you sell. A page with no traffic can still support a commercial page in its cluster, so I judge it by its role in the group. That grouping is what stops me from pruning content that is quietly doing a job.
Pruning protects earned traffic through redirects. A merged or deleted page that has rankings or backlinks gets a 301 to the closest surviving page, and I record its current clicks so you can check afterward that the traffic held.
What you get
What a content audit delivers
Once page verdicts are reached, they need to land in a document your team can act on, so the deliverable has three parts:
Page-by-page spreadsheet
The verdict, supporting data and recommended action for each URL.
Prioritized fix list
Every finding graded by severity and every fix prioritized by impact.
Topic gap list
Subjects your customers search that your site does not yet cover.
Because every finding is graded by severity and every fix is prioritized by impact, the first row on the list is the change most likely to move traffic, and you never have to decide between forty items that look equally urgent.
I also walk you through the findings on a call, although you end up with a comprehensive document with findings and a clear action plan that brings results.
Scope check
How a content audit differs from a technical audit
Now that you have seen what the content audit hands you, you can tell whether your problem is a content one.
What pages say and whether they should exist
Judges the content itself: its traffic, intent match, accuracy and overlap with other pages.
Whether search engines can crawl, index and render pages
Covers what a content audit leaves alone:
- Crawling and indexation
- Redirect chains and canonical tags
- Sitemaps and site speed
Pages that never appear in Google at all often have a technical cause such as a noindex tag or blocked crawling, while pages that appear but rank poorly or split rankings point to content.
Many sites need both. Run the technical audit first, because a content fix on a page Google cannot index changes nothing. I do both, and the $997 teardown is a full hands-on audit rather than a content-only review.
Pricing
How much does an SEO content audit cost?
Site size and page count drive the price most, because every URL needs a verdict.
| Audit type | Price | What it covers | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free audit | $0 | Exactly what is holding your content back | Checking for obvious problems |
| Full teardown | $997 | Every finding graded by severity, every fix prioritized by impact | Sites ready to act on a fix list |
| Agency content audit | $2500+ | Varies by agency | Very large or enterprise sites |
Start with the free audit if you are unsure, because it shows you findings before you pay, and buy the teardown when you want page-level verdicts. Whether paying is worth it comes down to what the audit finds: one merge that restores a lost ranking on a revenue page can repay $997 faster than a month of new articles.
Build or buy
Doing a content audit yourself versus hiring one
After seeing the price, the sensible comparison is doing the work in-house with tools.
- Google Search ConsoleFree. Clicks, impressions and positions per page.
- Screaming FrogCrawls your site and exports titles, headings and word counts.
- Semrush and AhrefsAdd keyword and backlink data.
Tools produce data but make no judgments. They will not tell you that two pages should merge, which one should survive, or that a quiet page supports a commercial one in its cluster. Those calls come from having seen how similar sites respond to merges and cuts, which is what you are paying for.
Makes sense on a small site
Or when someone on your team already knows SEO and has a free week.
Is cheaper overall
When staff time costs more than $997 or when a wrong deletion could cost you rankings you already hold.
Timeline
How long a content audit takes and what follows
Having decided whether to hire, you need to know when the work arrives and when results follow. A content audit takes from a few days to a few weeks, depending on page count.
- 1Fixes ship
- 2Google recrawls the changed pages
- 3Rankings move
Ranking changes appear after the fixes ship, not after the audit lands, and they depend on how quickly Google recrawls the changed pages.
Questions people actually ask
Frequently asked questions about SEO content audits
Can ChatGPT do an SEO content audit?
ChatGPT can review page text you paste in and summarize an exported spreadsheet, such as spotting thin copy or inconsistent claims. It cannot see live rankings, traffic or crawl data, so its findings rest only on what you hand it. It will not know that a page it calls weak is earning your top conversions.
How often should you audit your content?
Sites that publish weekly benefit from a yearly audit, while a site that rarely changes can wait longer. A traffic drop, a migration or a Google core update each justify an audit right away, because each can change which pages deserve to stay.
Does a content audit suit ecommerce and SaaS sites?
Yes, with different targets. Ecommerce sites tend to have category and product pages overlapping on the same search, plus thin product copy. SaaS sites often have feature pages and blog posts competing for one term, and old posts describing features that no longer exist.
Who makes the fixes after the audit?
Your own team can make the fixes straight from the prioritized list, since each item names the page and the change. If you want me to make or check the changes, I do that as hands-on support.
Get started
Book a graded audit of your site's content
With cost, scope, timing and the remaining questions answered, you are ready to act. Request the free audit below, or book the $997 teardown if you already know you want page-level verdicts. After booking, the first step is access. I ask for read-only Search Console access and your site URL, then crawl the site and build your content inventory.