7 Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of Tools and Use Cases

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7 Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

You’ve been working hard on your content, and it can be really frustrating when you see that other websites are outranking you. The process of adding new content to a website is something that takes time. But with the use of SEO Content Audit Tools, identifying what needs improving becomes easier while saving precious hours in the long run.

A Content audit tool will allow you to find gaps in your current online presence so you can improve the quality, quantity, and relevancy of those pages with ease. This article will lead you through a guide of 7 different SEO Content audit tools that are available to help find gaps in your website’s content and make necessary changes.

What is an SEO content audit?

A content audit is an assessment of all the indexed content on a website in order to determine which pieces need to be improved and removed. The purpose of an SEO content audit is to improve the quality of a site and optimize ranking signals throughout the website.

This can be done by improving the on-page optimization, fixing broken links, removing low-quality content, etc. There are a variety of different tools that can help with conducting a content audit, including but not limited to Outranking AI, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, etc.

Ton put this in perspective, an SEO content audit is a comprehensive analysis of all the website’s indexed content with the goal of improving the quality and performance of that content. The main use cases for a content audit are identifying which pages need copywriting or editing, determining which topics are being covered more than once, finding undiscovered marketing opportunities, and more.

The purpose of an SEO content audit is to improve the perceived trust and quality of a domain while optimizing the crawl budget and the flow of PR and other ranking signals throughout the site. Pruning low-quality content from search engine indexes can often be one way to achieve these goals.

What are the different types of Website content audit tools?

On-page content auditing tools: On-page SEO content audit

On-page SEO audits are a critical part of any comprehensive SEO strategy. The purpose of an on-page SEO audit is to evaluate how well your website’s content and structure support your overall marketing goals, identify areas where you could make improvements, and track the progress of your efforts over time.

Depending on the type of website you have, there are a number of different on-page SEO audit tools that you can use. eCommerce websites should use tools like Smerush to audit their product pages, while blogs can use tools like Outranking AI SEO, Ahrefs, and Google Search Console to evaluate their blog posts.

Website content inventory tools: Content gap analysis

Content gap analysis is the process of assessing the difference between the content on a website and the content that is performing well. Gap analysis helps identify areas on a website where content is underperforming and needs to be revised or changed.

The data generated by content gap analysis can be used to make appropriate adjustments to the overall content strategy. Content gap analysis tools can help content marketers improve the performance of their websites by determining which areas need improvement.

What are some use cases for SEO content audit tools?

Improve SEO metrics for new content as its written

SEO content audit tools can be used to analyze what type of content performs well and take note of the details to improve your content. You can then repeat your successes to create content that performs similarly.

Additionally, you can use SEO metrics to determine what content types are successful and which ones need more work. By measuring the success of new content through regular content audit tools, you can ensure that your content is performing well.

Find opportunities to create and optimize new content

SEO content audit tools can help you find opportunities to create and optimize new content.

  • Content that’s missing: Analyze what your audience is interested in that you haven’t covered.
  • Content that’s underperforming: Which pieces of content aren’t getting the numbers you want?
  • Outdated content: Can it be updated or reworked to maintain optimization? Home run content: Content that has performed extremely well.

Organize your findings in a spreadsheet format so you can easily see which topics need more coverage, which pieces of content need to be improved, and which ones are outdated and need to be updated.

Find content cannibalization across your webpages

Content cannibalization is when one piece of content on a website ranks better than another piece of content on the same website.

An SEO content audit tool can help you find and fix content cannibalization by measuring different data metrics such as the number of backlinks, social shares, and organic search traffic.

By identifying content cannibalization, you can improve the ranking of the underperforming content.

Find gaps in your content on your website vs. that on the competitors

An SEO content audit tool can help you find gaps in your content so that you can improve your website’s overall performance. To use an SEO content audit tool, you will need to look at your content to see where it is duplicating, outdated, or not evergreen.

You can use tools like Semrush to find content gaps, Perform manual audits of your website and your competitor’s websites to find content opportunities.

Find gaps in your content on your website vs. that on the competitors

You will also need to check to see if your content is targeting the right keywords and if your metadata is correct. Additionally, you will want to identify content that is underperforming on your site based on search rankings, traffic, and social engagement.

Finally, you will want to compare your content to that of your competitors and identify what content is doing well in order to create a better content strategy moving forward.

What are the features of the best SEO content audit tools?

On-page scoring and finding content gaps using SERP data

Use the Optimize Content for More Organic Traffic tab to make your content more appealing to organic traffic. The Score the Most Important On-Page SEO Elements tab will help you identify which on-page SEO elements are most important to target.

 Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

The Outranking AI SERP Analysis tool is a great way to get an understanding of what’s ranking on the SERP for your target keyword. You can use the Keyword Data tab to identify related keywords and topics people are asking about.

You can also use the Questions tab to find closely related topics that people are asking about. And, finally, you can use the Optimize Content for More Organic Traffic tab to optimize your content for more organic traffic.

Outranking AI SERP Analysis tool

Google search console integration for in-depth data on ranking to find the right opportunities

Google Search Console integration allows you to have in-depth data on your ranking and find the right opportunities. The Outranking AI strategist integrates with your GSC to help with SEO content strategy planning and execution. It can find your best content opportunities, use deep SERP research, and find related keywords for you to rank for.

Google search console integration for in-depth data on ranking to find the right opportunities

The strategist’s job is to help you find gaps in your topical authority coverage and prioritize your content creation and optimization efforts. The strategist will also look at data from the SERPs as far as 50 pages deep to find the most important topics. Once that information is gathered, the strategist can help you come up with content ideas that have a better chance of ranking well.

Finding gaps in topical authority coverage

To find a topical authority gap, you need to identify the main topics that are of interest to your target audience. Once you have identified the main topics, you need to find content that covers those topics. However, not all content is created equal. You need to find content that is high-quality and authoritative in order to fill the topical authority gap.

Semrush and Ahrefs are two of the most popular SEO content audit tools available. They both help identify gaps in topical authority coverage. This is done by identifying the keywords that the two (or more) websites cover. The tools will then show you what you’re missing, so you can fill in those gaps and improve your overall topical authority coverage.

Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

Once you have found content that covers the main topics, you can assess how well it performs in terms of search rankings, social media shares, and traffic.

Content readability, plagiarism, and tone improvements

Tools like Hemingway Editor and Grammarly can help to improve the readability of your content by highlighting sentences that are too complex or long. This is especially popular among bloggers and content producers who create a lot of textual content, making it an important part of their workflow.

Content readability, plagiarism, and tone improvements

Hemingway is a popular tool that helps you improve the readability, tone, and plagiarism of your content. It also grades your content so you can see where you need to make improvements.

Best SEO Content audit tools for each use case in 2022

1. Outranking

Outranking offers a SERP Analysis tool that shows you what’s ranking on the SERP for your keyword of choice. The tool provides the minimum, average, and maximum length of the top search results. Additionally, you can determine the number of images, meta title length, and meta description length using Outranking AI SEO Content Optimization Tool.

The Keyword Data tab will show you the frequency with which your target keyword and related ones are used throughout competitors’ content. This can help you reveal important topics to cover and opportunities to stand out.

The Questions tab reveals closely related topics that people ask about. You could discuss these topics in your content, providing valuable information for your audience.

Outranking

The Score the Most Important On-Page SEO Elements tab will score your content for all important on-page SEO elements, letting you know where you need to improve.

Outranking will help you dominate your competition by giving you the data you need to make sure your content includes all the semantic terms and keywords related to your focus. The Semantic and Related Keywords tab will give you the right data to make sure your content is optimized for SEO.

You can also use this tool to re-optimize your old and underperforming content and track the progress of your optimization efforts.

Outranking AI-powered content optimization tools can help you improve your SEO. The tool provides quantitative data on your content, such as the minimum, average, and maximum length of the top search results. Outranking AI also uses NLP data to create content that meets the search intent. In addition, the tool provides internal link suggestions without having to access the CMS.

Pros

  • With its SERP Analysis tool and NLP data, this tool can help you rank higher on the SERP for your keyword of choice. Additionally, it uses questions people ask to create content that meets their search intent.
  • This tool also provides internal link suggestions without having to access your CMS or worry about violating any rules
  • Outranking provides accurate and detailed information about the search results for your keyword.
  • By understanding how your content is performing and what to cover, you can make sure it’s optimized for more organic traffic and better ranking in Google search results.
  • Outranking helps you set standards for your content: The SERP Analysis tool gives quantitative data on what Google deems as acceptable and indicative of high-value content.
  • Outranking AI Helps you save time by knowing what Google deems as high-value content: Knowing what Google deems as high-value content can help you save time by setting standards for your own content before publishing it.
  • With this tool, you can find information about the length and number of images in the top search results
  • With its detailed analysis and easy-to-use interface, Outranking tool will help you optimize your content for more organic traffic reach.

Cons

  • It offers only 10 documents and content analyses for $99
  • It is not a traditional keywords research tool

Pricing

  • Starts at $99

2. SEMrush

Semrush site audit tools are used to scan websites for technical and SEO errors and produce user-friendly page reports that give an overall SEO score. They can be used to take a closer look at how a certain page is performing and identify issues that reduce its potential to rank on search engines.

How to Perform a Technical SEO Audit in 15 Steps

While this s a great tool for sitewide audits, it is not the best tool for SEO content audits. You are better off using Outranking AI to optimize and analyze your content.

Pros

  • SEMrush offers a wide range of tools to help you improve your website’s SEO.
  • Semrush specializes in keyword research, competitor intelligence, paid ad research, content optimization, rank tracking, and social media monitoring.
  • SEMrush’s Site Audit tool scans your website for issues relating to AMP implementation, JavaScript and CSS, internal linking, HTTPS security protocols meta tags SEO content website crawlability, and page loading speeds.
  • Includes scans for over 130 technical SEO errors, runs thematic reports sorting out pages into three groups based on severity errors Warnings Notices, integrates with Google Analytics compares crawls.
  • SEMrush provides resolution insights and graphs to help you identify where your website is failing in regard to SEO.
  • You can pay $99.95 per month for 100,000 monthly page crawls or $24.95 per month for unlimited page crawls.
  • Reports are easy to understand and score overall SEO of pages on your website with an overall score, making it easier for you to see where your website falls short in terms of search engine friendliness.

Cons

  • Semrush does not offer comprehensive SEO content audit and optimization like Outranking AI.
  • The SEMrush Site Audit tool does not compare the results of different SEO audits, which can make it difficult to determine the severity of an issue.
  • It can be difficult to understand the detailed results of an SEO audit because there are so many categories and subcategories listed.

Pricing

  • Semrush provides 100 web pages for a free audit, but beyond that, you will need to pay at least $99.95 per month for 100,000 monthly page crawls.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that offers a range of features, including site explorer, keyword explorer, rank tracker, content explorer, and site audit. It also provides actionable recommendations on how to fix the SEO issues discovered in your website.

Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

Ahrefs offers crawls of your desktop and mobile versions of your site for insights into performance and potential issues. You can choose between the premium version, which has more features, or the basic version, which has more features than the free version.

Pros

  • Ahrefs is an SEO powerhouse: Ahrefs provides access to domain analysis, page analysis, backlink reports, and rank tracking.
  • It has a variety of cool reports: Content Gap report, Top Pages report, and more.
  • It’s great for content planning and research: Overall tool for content planning and research.
  • It’s great for site monitoring, analysis, and auditing: Ahrefs is great for monitoring SEO progress as well as analyzing data to find trends or mistakes

Cons

  • Does not offer comprehensive SEO content Audit
  • You cannot access Ahrefs’s keyword data unless you buy the keyword research add-on for an additional $99/year.
  • Ahrefs is more expensive than Semrush and Outranking AI which may be a deterrent for some users.
  • Although Ahrefs provides recommendations on how to fix the SEO issue, these do not always involve actions that users can take right away.

Pricing

  • The premium versions start at $82 per month.

4. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a comprehensive tool that provides website owners with detailed information about their visitors’ behavior. It can help you to see which pages are getting the most traffic, and which ones are causing people to bounce away (leave your site without visiting any other pages).

This information can help you to make decisions about how to improve your website based on what your visitors are looking for. While Google Analytics is not a traditional content audit tool, however, it can still provide you with verifiable insights into how your content is performing.

 Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you identify if your traffic is rising or declining, which channels are most prosperous, and which pages people are viewing the most. The best part is that it’s simple to use; the basic reports are easy to understand and can be quickly analyzed. You can also customize your reports to get more specific insights into how your website is performing.

Pros

  • Google Analytics is a powerful tool
  • It is free
  • It’s simple to use: The basic reports are easy to understand and can be quickly analyzed.
  • You can easily look at conversion rates and visualize your website funnel with Google Analytics.
  • It helps improve conversion rates: If you want to improve your conversion rate, Google Analytics may be the only tool on the list that can help you with that.
  • Google Analytics helps you to study visitor behavior in detail and see if your efforts are making any money.
  • Google Analytics is one of the most popular content audit tools and for a good reason.
  • You can find out which of your posts attract more visitors: You can use Google Analytics to find out which of your posts attract more visitors.
  • You can analyze entry and exit points to understand what type of content generates more engagement.

Cons

  • While Google Analytics provides a lot of detail about your website’s traffic and activity, it does not provide as much granularity as other web analytics tools.
  • Its information can be in-depth and overwhelming for beginners.
  • To use Google Analytics, you must have a Google account.
  • You will need to install the Google Analytics tracking code on your website.

Pricing

  • Google Analytics is free

5. Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a comprehensive search performance tool that provides insights into your site’s indexation and accessibility issues, as well as information on how your site appears in search results. It also monitors, tests, and tracks your AMP pages and provides crawl stats directly from Googlebot.

Google News performance report added to Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a powerful suite of tools that can help you audit your website’s SEO. It can identify pages that have failed to be indexed, as well as 404 and 500 errors. Additionally, it helps you understand how well your site is performing for certain keywords. Finally, it shows you all the pages that Google has indexed on your website.

The Google Search Console is a free tool that you can use to monitor your website’s visibility on Google. It will send you email alerts immediately if it detects any issues on your site. Additionally, it will review your index coverage and help you identify any areas where you may be losing traffic.

Pros

  • Tracks all the pages that have been indexed by Google: The tool generates customized audit reports to show you which pages are being indexed and which aren’t.
  • It can also help you find pages that might have user experience issues that are impacting their ranking.
  • Google Search Console is free of charge: Google Search Console is completely free of charge to all users.

Cons

  • To use Google Search Console, you must have a Google account.
  • Limited insights: Only a quick scan through the insights should give you a good idea of your site’s indexation and accessibility issues.
  • Free but limited: The Google Search Console is free, but it does not provide as much information as some of its competitors.
  • User experience issues: Some users have reported experiencing user experience issues with the Google Search Console.

Pricing

  • Google Search Console is free of charge

6. Grammarly

The Grammarly content audit tool helps improve the quality of your writing by eliminating grammar and punctuation mistakes, poor word choice, passive voice overuse, and other errors.

By auditing your textual content, Grammarly provides content producers with all kinds of tips and indicators so that they can produce better writing.

 Best SEO Content Audit Tools: Types of tools and Use Cases

By eliminating unnecessary words, you can make your text much easier to read and understand. This can increase dwell time on your website, which is a ranking indicator for Google.

Pros

  • Grammarly can help you to eliminate grammar and punctuation mistakes, which will make your text easier to read and understand.
  • By auditing your textual content in real-time, Grammarly provides you with data that helps you to improve the quality of your writing.
  • Improving the quality of your writing makes it easier for visitors to understand and use it.

Cons

  • If you’re not a content producer, then most of Grammarly’s tools will likely be irrelevant to you.
  • Grammarly is not always accurate: While Grammarly is usually accurate, it may not catch all the errors you make in your text.

Pricing

  • Grammarly offers a free version but has feature restrictions. The premium plan with advanced features starts at $12.50 per month for one person. There is also a 20% off discount available on Grammarly.

7. Hemingway

Hemingway is a content audit tool that analyzes each sentence, taking into account its length and word order from the point of view of the correct construction of sentences.

Hemingway is a content audit tool that analyzes each sentence

Hemingway monitors for passive voice, complex structures, and unnecessary adverbs. Hemingway is a great complement to Grammarly.

Pros

  • Hemingway is a great complement to Grammarly: Hemingway analyzes your content for readability and helps you improve your content by simplifying it.
  • Hemingway is an effective tool for improving your content: It monitors for passive voice, complex structures, and unnecessary adverbs in your text.
  • Hemingway is affordable and can be used on a budget: The tool is affordable for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills.
  • Hemingway recommends keeping your style simple: Hemingway recommends keeping your style simple so that your writing is easy to read and understand.
  • Hemingway recommends editing your writing: Hemingway also recommends editing your writing, to make sure it is concise and easy to understand.

Cons

  • Its readability tool of Hemingway is not always accurate, and it can be inaccurate for complex sentences.
  • Style disappears: If you get too nit-picky about your style, it can disappear altogether.
  • It does not score your SEO optimization

Pricing

  • The web version is free but the desktop version, Hemingway App, is available for a one-time payment of $19.99

On-page SEO content analysis example with Outranking

Outranking’s SERP Analysis tool is a great way to identify topics and keywords that people are searching for. It provides the minimum, average, and maximum length of the top search results for images, meta title length, and meta description length. This information can help you set standards for your own content so that you can ensure that it is as optimized as possible.

Outranking AI is an SEO AI tool used by companies and individuals. It is an all-in-one SEO AI Writer and Content Optimization online tool that can help you with on-page SEO content analysis. You can use it to find out how frequently your target keyword and related keywords are used throughout competing content, as well as information about related topics that people might ask about (questions).

By combining outranking strategist and action features, you will improve your topical relevance and track your optimized articles in real time by connecting outranking to your search console in order to monitor how your content is doing on the SERPs.

It can also help you optimize your content for better organic search traffic by scoring all of your article’s on-page SEO elements and providing tips for improving them according to Google’s guidelines.

Conclusion

SEO content audit tools are used to help identify and correct problems with content on a website. They can also be used to help assess the impact of changes to the content on search engine rankings, as well as help to prioritize which pages should be improved or rewritten.

One common use for SEO content audit tools is to help identify and remove content that is low-quality or duplicative, in order to avoid penalties from algorithms such as Panda. Good copywriting needs to be done in order to improve or rewrite content on Style pages, in order to ensure unique and robust content, as well as proper keyword targeting.

Pankil Shah
Pankil Shah
Pankil is a CEO, marketer, and avid trekker who loves his Golden Retriever almost as much as he loves beating his competitors. If he's not found strategizing for Outranking, you can find him on a mountain, planning his next move while his furry companion patiently waits for him to throw a stick. You can find Pankil on Linkedin