What is a content audit? (And when you actually need one)

A content audit is a strategic review of your website or blog that assesses clarity, accuracy, consistency, usefulness, performance, and risk. It’s about diagnosing what’s holding your content back, and giving you a clear plan to fix it.

A content audit might sound simple — “review what we’ve published and see what’s working.” But for B2B companies in markets like finance, SaaS, and regulated industries, it’s not that straightforward. A good content audit doesn’t stop at listing pages and ticking boxes. It performs a strategic diagnosis that maps out why your content isn’t meeting goals and how to fix it.

What a good content audit will reveal:

• Why the content isn’t delivering the expected performance
• Where your messaging is unclear or broken
• How and where content contradicts itself
• Any unnecessary risk or compliance issues
• Content that’s outdated or factually wrong
• Information that AI tools can’t interpret (and won’t surface in search)
• How your content ecosystem works — or where it falls apart

If your website or blog feels “fine” on the surface but isn’t driving results, a content audit is often your best tool to uncover deeper issues.

Why B2B businesses need content audits

B2B content breaks for different reasons than consumer-focused content. Instead of selling lifestyle products, you’re selling credibility, clarity, expertise, and often regulated solutions or services. Content breakdowns lead to trust issues, stalled sales, and wasted marketing effort.

Common content problems in B2B

B2B websites often fail because:

• Messaging is vague or confusing
• Claims contradict each other across pages
• Content reflects old positioning or outdated strategies
• Product or service details are inaccurate or outdated
• Teams can’t identify “the source of truth” for critical information
• Dense, unreadable content overwhelms visitors without answering key questions
• Content volume takes priority over clarity
• Approval processes water down the value of the message into corporate jargon
• Strategically worthless content is technically correct but unhelpful

Publishing more isn’t the answer — fixing the underlying system is.

To understand where cracks appear in most B2B content ecosystems, read 11 Common Content Issues (coming soon).

What a good content audit should include

A proper content audit doesn’t just sort pages into a spreadsheet or colour-code them based on performance. It uses a structured framework to assess content strategically.

When I work with B2B brands, I focus on seven key areas:

1. Clarity

Can your buyers understand your message easily?
Is it clear, specific, differentiated, and human?

2. Accuracy

Are the details correct?
Are claims outdated?
Does your content accurately reflect how your product, service or solution works today?
This is particularly critical for financial services, insurance, SaaS, and regulated industries.

3. Consistency

Do pages contradict each other?
Are definitions aligned across your site?
Does the tone shift depending on who wrote the content?

4. Utility

Does the content help buyers solve a problem, evaluate options, or take action?
Is it offering real value, or just filling space?

5. Performance

How is the content actually performing?
Traffic, rankings, engagement, conversion rates — but deeper analysis is required. It’s not about vanity metrics — it’s about how well the content serves its purpose.

6. Risk

Does any of your content expose your business to compliance or reputational risk?
Outdated claims or incorrect info can create surprising liabilities.

7. Opportunity

Where can you go deeper and establish authority?
Which topics deserve expansion?
Where are the ecosystem gaps you can build to strengthen performance?

This is where an audit becomes a content diagnosis — evaluating both what's working and what's holding your strategy back.

The 3 types of content audits (and when you need them)

Most B2B brands benefit from combining a performance, quality, and conversion audit.

1. Performance audit

Analyses rankings, clicks, search intent, topic gaps, and content decay.
Use this when you’re struggling with flat or declining traffic.

2. Quality audit

Focuses on clarity, messaging alignment, tone, accuracy, and contradictions.
Use this when your content isn’t building trust or converting consistently.

3. Conversion audit

Examines structure, flow, CTAs, UX, internal linking, and alignment to your buyer journey.
Use this when people visit pages but don’t take action.

A full audit covers all three areas, delivering a comprehensive fix for deep content problems.

Signs it’s time for a content audit

If any of these issues sound familiar, your content has likely drifted off course:

• Your website feels outdated or disconnected, but you can’t pinpoint the cause
• Pages contradict each other, creating conflicting messages
• You’re embarrassed to show your site to investors, stakeholders, or candidates
• Bounce rates are high, engagement is low, and conversions are flat
• Your team rewrites the same ideas across multiple pages over and over
• No one knows where the “source of truth” for content sits
• Your messaging has evolved, but your content hasn’t kept up
• You’ve gone through rebrands, but the content still reflects old narratives
• In regulated industries, any outdated content creates compliance risk
• You’ve published plenty of content, but it’s not delivering traction
• You’re planning a website overhaul and need to know what to keep or cut

These are common challenges for B2B businesses, especially if content has been created by multiple teams, contributors, or agencies over years of publishing.

How long a content audit takes

The complexity of your content ecosystem determines how long the audit will take. In my experience:

• 1–2 weeks for small, straightforward websites
• 2–4 weeks for medium-sized sites (common for B2B)
• 4–6+ weeks for enterprise, multi-product, regulated or highly complex sites

Factors that influence timing:

• Number of pages in scope
• How outdated the content is
• Whether regulated claims need review or clarity
• Contradictions across content sets
• Complexity of your product or industry
• Stakeholder alignment and approvals required

Most of the time is spent analysing, validating information, mapping the content ecosystem, and diagnosing systemic issues.

What you get at the end of an audit

A well-executed content audit delivers:

• Clear maps: What stays, what’s removed, and what needs rewriting
• No guesswork: Decisions backed by evidence, not opinions
• Prioritised plan: Fix what matters most first
• Messaging clarity: Where the story works, breaks, or confuses
• Risk identification: Where incorrect or outdated content could create liabilities
• Ecosystem clarity: How pages interconnect, and where gaps appear
• Optimisation recommendations: Specific actions to improve performance—beyond “add keywords”
• Content direction: A roadmap for the next 3–6 months. Once the foundations are clear, strategy becomes significantly easier.

To see an example of results from an audit, read Blog Audit: Improve Rankings, Readability & Conversion.

When NOT to run a content audit

A content audit isn’t always the right first step. Don’t invest in an audit if:

• You’ve got no content to review—start by creating a foundation instead
• Your business model is about to shift dramatically
• You’re planning to rebrand, but the brand framework hasn’t been finalised
• Your messaging hasn’t been defined at all
• Stakeholders haven’t agreed who your customers are

In these cases, clarity must come before diagnosis. If you’re starting from scratch, read How to Build a Content Engine from Scratch.

How AX Content runs content audits

Our audits are built for B2B teams in:

• financial services
• fintech
• SaaS
• B2B tech
• professional services
• regulated industries
• approval-heavy organisations

Our proven framework:

1. Clarity: Does the messaging make sense?
2. Accuracy: Is the content correct and up to date?
3. Consistency: Is there any contradiction across pages?
4. Utility: Does this content help buyers solve a problem?
5. Performance: Is this content meeting its goals?
6. Risk: Does this pose compliance or reputational risks?
7. Opportunity: What can we deepen, expand, or improve?

We deliver a strategic diagnosis, not just a spreadsheet.

Fix your content, fix your results

If your content feels inconsistent, outdated, or isn’t delivering traction, a content audit gives you the clarity to fix what’s holding you back.

A proper audit can:

• Remove outdated or incorrect content
• Improve clarity and usefulness
• Align messaging across pages
• Strengthen search + AI visibility
• Increase conversion rates
• Build trust with your audience
• Set a clear direction for your strategy

Book The Website Audit or The Blog Audit

Or tell us what’s going wrong, and we’ll guide you to the right option.