A Small Business Content Audit: What to Keep, Update or Remove

Make a manageable inventory

Start with important service pages, recent articles and pages linked from emails or social profiles. Record the URL, topic, intended reader, purpose and last review date. You can expand the list later; do not let an enormous spreadsheet prevent you reviewing the pages customers use most.

Add a note about the action each page should support. That might be answering a question, preparing a customer for an enquiry or showing evidence of your work. A page without a clear purpose needs closer inspection, even if it looks polished.

Check usefulness before judging age

An older guide can still be useful. A recent post can still be thin or inaccurate. Read each page from the customer’s point of view: does it answer the question, give practical detail and explain any important limits?

Check service descriptions, contact details, links, screenshots and offers. Look for advice that no longer matches how you work. Remove vague claims you cannot support and replace them with concrete explanations of the work or evidence.

Use five decisions

• Keep: The page is accurate, useful and has a clear role. Set a future review date.
• Update: The purpose is sound, but details, examples or the customer route need improving.
• Merge: Two pages answer substantially the same question and a single stronger resource would help readers.
• Reposition: The information is useful, but the title, audience or links do not make its purpose clear.
• Remove: The page has no continuing use, or it contains information you should no longer publish. Check links and plan any redirect before deleting it.

Do not remove a page solely because it has few visits. A specialist answer can be valuable to a small number of suitable customers.

Use data as context

Review available search clicks, website visits, useful link clicks and enquiries. Compare a meaningful period and consider seasonality. Search impressions can show visibility, but they do not tell you whether the page answers the customer’s question.

If a page attracts visits but few enquiries, read it and follow its next step before deciding it is failing. It may be an information page whose job is to help people prepare. Our Search Console guide explains how to interpret that evidence.

Find missing customer answers

Compare your inventory with recurring questions from enquiries. Which questions are repeatedly answered by email but absent from the website? Which concerns appear before customers decide to buy? These gaps can produce a useful writing plan.

Prioritise questions connected to the services you want to provide. A clear quotation guide or a credible case study may be more useful than another broad list of tips. Use our case study guide when customers need evidence of the working process.

Create a small action list

Choose three tasks rather than rewriting everything at once. For example: update an out-of-date service page, improve one article with a practical checklist, and repair links in an email that points to the wrong destination.

Give each task an owner, deadline and reason. Record what changed. If a URL moves, update internal links and arrange a suitable redirect. Keep the original address in the inventory so you can check the migration later.

Build a review routine

Review pages when services change, a significant project is completed or a repeated customer question appears. A regular small review is easier to maintain than a large annual clear-out. Keep the publishing plan connected to the audit so new material fills a real gap.

Once an article is accurate and useful, our repurposing guide shows how it can support email and social media. If you need help keeping the work moving, explore our ongoing marketing Backpacks.