How to Audit & Refresh Your Underperforming Content with Google Search Console

With approximately 7 million blog posts created daily, content can quickly lose freshness and relevance. Over time, search algorithms evolve, user needs shift, and once-valuable resources fade into obscurity. This phenomenon, known as content decay, presents a tangible challenge for businesses seeking to maintain website visibility and engagement.

A stagnant content library is a barrier to organic traffic and conversion opportunities. Outdated information can frustrate users, while keyword gaps hinder discoverability in search engines.

Auditing and optimizing outdated content often involves complex analysis and reliance on costly tools. However, we're here to share a simplified and cost-free method, using just your Google Search Console and Google Sheets and taking it further with Frase for optimization, as we often do for our clients. This tutorial proves especially valuable for small teams with a limited budget.

We strongly recommend undertaking a content audit every 3-6 months to find the optimal balance between refreshing content and allocating resources to create new content, and maximize your overall content ROI.

With our client as a case study, we saw remarkable improvements after the content refresh, as seen in the screenshot below.

The initial article we revamped shot up from #98 to #3, while the second leaped from #88 to #17.9. The trend continued with the third, going from #88 to a solid 18, and so forth. The average rank shifted from 30.23 to an impressive 18.03.

However, it's essential to acknowledge that achieving a 100% hit rate with content is a lofty goal that might not always be attainable, even with top-notch content quality. But by following the steps in this tutorial, you'll clearly see how we accomplished this.

Moreover, as with any strategy, there are crucial considerations:

• Over time, new content may signal better intent alignment or a shift in SERP intent, affecting the relevance of existing content.

• Only update viable content; refreshing content related to past time-sensitive events may not add value.

• Updating content with dead URLs is less likely to yield value; culling and consolidation are advisable.

• Many update content without realizing they suffer from cannibalization issues; be aware of and address this concern.

• Merely updating titles or years (for example, updating “Top 5 Open Source Documentation Tools in 2024” to 2025) is insufficient; thoroughly reevaluate content based on end-user needs, engagement over time, and user interaction with fatigued content.

Having stated the above, let’s get into the practicals!

And uhm, to avoid analysis paralysis, the relevant metrics to focus on are:

• Impressions: Impressions refer to the number of times your content appears in search results, indicating its visibility to users. It represents the potential reach of your content.

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): CTR is the percentage of users who click on your content's link after seeing it in search results. It measures the effectiveness of your content in enticing users to take further action.

• Clicks: Clicks represent the number of times users click on your content, directly measuring user engagement and interest.

• Monthly Traffic (because no traffic = you don't exist): Monthly traffic is the total number of visits your website receives within a specific timeframe. It is a fundamental metric reflecting your online presence and audience interactions.

• Overall Traffic Trend (decreasing/stable/increasing): This metric assesses the general trend in your website's traffic over time. It helps understand whether your content is gaining, maintaining, or losing audience attention.

• Conversion % on the Most Wanted Action: Conversion percentage indicates the proportion of users who complete the desired action on your site, such as purchasing or filling out a form. It reflects the success of your content in achieving its primary goal.

• Engagement (Time-on-Page): Engagement measures the average time users spend on a particular page of your website. It gauges the level of interest and relevance your content holds for visitors.

Step 1: Set the Time Frame

From the performance overview screen in Google Search Console, filter your data by date range using the "Compare" tab. Set the timeframe to compare the past six months with the previous six.

Step 2: Identify Significant Drops

Look for significant drops in clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR). These dips indicate areas requiring further investigation.

Step 3: Drill Deeper into Queries

Drill deeper by switching to the Query tab. You'll see the specific search queries that triggered those lost clicks here. This information helps pinpoint the content pieces most in need of attention.

Step 4: Analyze Page Metrics

Now, move to the Page tab. Gather essential metrics like clicks, impressions, CTR, and positional changes for all pages. Export this data to a Google Sheet for further analysis.

Step 5: Manual Calculations for Missing Metrics

Not all metrics make it to the exported data. Manually add calculations for changes in your chosen metrics (e.g., clicks, CTR) to understand performance declines better.

These are the completed data for the changes in metrics:

Step 6: Apply Conditional Formatting

Apply conditional formatting to highlight significant drops in performance. This visual cue quickly identifies struggling content, making it easier to prioritize your efforts.

Step 7: Highlight Underperforming Content

In this instance, any changes less than one are highlighted in red. The resulting screenshot reveals many ‘red-headed’ content, indicating that much work is needed for improvement.

Step 8: Categorize Content

After conducting an audit for each blog post, assigning specific actions to optimize and enhance their performance is essential. Here is a refined guide for setting actions for each post:

• Keep: These gems require minimal attention. They have steady or increasing traffic, decent time-on-page, and conversions. Leave them undisturbed.

• Merge: If two pieces cover similar topics, consider merging them into a single, comprehensive resource. This strengthens and consolidates valuable information.

• Delete: Low-quality content with poor performance hampers overall rankings. Delete such pieces, especially if merging isn't an option. Prioritize removing posts with minimal traffic and conversions.

• Update: High traffic with low conversions or high bounce rates, keyword position drops, and outdated information necessitate updates. Find and replace dead links, refresh visuals, add insightful details, cover more ground, plug in brand/service details, and funnel users to relevant pages.

Depending on the size of your content team, distribute tasks for updating and optimizing the identified lagging content. For smaller teams, consider outsourcing this process to allocate resources effectively. At Hackmamba, we specialize in reviving dormant content, as demonstrated with clients like Magnolia. Simply provide us with a brief, and we get the job done.

Bonus Tip - Frase Optimization

As a bonus tip, you can use Frase to optimize underperforming content by switching to the 'optimize existing content' tab and pasting any URLs from the Google sheet.

Provide the necessary information to access the working screen to update missing components in your articles to align with competitor standards. This additional step ensures a comprehensive content optimization strategy.

Wrapping Up

Content should no longer be viewed as a static asset. It is a living, breathing entity that demands attention, adaptation, and strategic revitalization. Strategic content planning and management becomes paramount as businesses face evolving search intent, changing algorithms, and how people consume content.

Our simplified, cost-free method of using Google Search Console and Google Sheets (enhanced by Frase) for content audit empowers small teams with limited budgets. We recommend a content audit every 3-6 months to balance existing and new content, maximizing ROI.

Big and small organizations smartly outsource content refresh to focus their teams on more rewarding tasks. Chat with us to get started.