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

You’ve been working hard on your content, so when you see other content creators outranking you, you might feel like throwing your computer into the dumpster.

Let’s be honest: the process of adding, researching, and optimizing content can feel like it takes forever. But if you want to save yourself some time (and sanity), you need a reliable SEO content audit tool. 

A good content audit tool can look at your website, tell you how to improve different pages and provide actionable insights on what you need to do to jump higher in the SERP (search engine results page). To help you reach the top, here are seven of the best SEO content audit tools you should consider.

Disclaimer: This blog was created by the team at Outranking, a trusted content analysis tool for digital marketers. In this review, our team analyzed seven tools, some of which are competitors with Outranking. 

What is an SEO content audit?

A content audit assesses indexed content on a website to determine what you need to do to improve your website’s media (videos and photos) and text. The purpose of an SEO content audit is to refine user experience for your site through a process known as “optimization.” 

Indexed content refers to everything Google can find on your site, while optimization is just a fancier term for “improve.” 

Specifically, SEO nerds refer to this as “on-page optimization.” This might include the following:

• Fixing broken links
• Removing low-quality content
• Improving good-quality content
• Making your website faster 
• Ensuring your site is easy to navigate

A variety of different tools can help with conducting a content audit. These include Outranking, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, and many more. 

So, what do you do with this information? 🤔

By sifting through the technical stuff, an SEO audit uncovers pages that need some TLC, including copywriting or editing, catching redundant topics, unveiling new marketing opportunities, and more.

When you do this, you improve the quality of your domain while optimizing the crawl budget and the flow of PR and other ranking signals throughout your site. These ranking signals (many of which relate to content) tell Google your site’s worth visiting. 

What are the different types of website content audit tools?

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

You can use a number of different on-page SEO audit tools depending on the type of website you have. Here’s a quick list of those options:

• All-in-one tools: These tools attempt to be everything at once, often including optional marketing features. Hubspot and Semrush are two examples. 
• Technical tools: Focused on technical aspects, these tools provide information about potential technical improvements. Screaming Frog is an example. 
• Backlink tools: These tools tell you about the incoming and outgoing links from your website. The HOTH provides tools like this. 
• Tracking tools: Designed to monitor incoming and outgoing visitors to your site, these tools often use tracking tags. Google Analytics is one example.
• Keyword tools: These tools inform you of potential keywords you can target. Examples of this include Google Search Console and Keywords Everywhere. 

After some research, you’ll often find that tools fit multiple categories. But most of them (outside of the technical ones) have one goal in mind: ensuring your website has the content it needs to compete. 

Simply put—one of the most important tools you can invest in is one for gap analysis. 📊

What you need to know about content gap analysis tools

Content gap analysis is the process of comparing your website content with your competitor’s site. It’s often done to identify holes in your content that your competitors are (or aren’t) hitting.

This means that if you can find out where to fill the gap, you’ll be able to better compete for organic traffic. 

The data generated by a 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?

1. Improve SEO metrics for new content as it’s written

SEO content audit tools can 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 attention. By measuring the success of new content through regular content audit tools, you can keep your content performing well. 💪

2. Find opportunities to create and optimize new content

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

• Missing content: What is your audience interested in that you haven’t covered?
• Underperforming content: Which content isn’t getting the numbers you want?
• Outdated content: Can it be updated or reworked to maintain optimization? 
• Exceptional content: What steps can you take to make sure it maintains its rank?

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.

3. Find keyword cannibalization across your web pages

Keyword cannibalization happens when you have multiple content pages that rank for the same keywords. As a result, one-page hogs traffic that another page could earn. 🧟 An SEO content audit tool can help you optimize your content for another keyword. This way, you can tweak each article to attract different traffic targets.  

Keyword clustering can help you identify these hungry keywords and improve the ranking of the underperforming content.

4. 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 to improve your website’s overall performance. To use an SEO content audit tool, dive into your content and find where it’s duplicating, outdated, or not evergreen.

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

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

Finally, compare your content to your competitors and identify what content is doing well to create a better content strategy moving forward.

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

1. On-page scoring and finding content gaps using SERP data

Use the Optimize tab to make your content more appealing to organic traffic. From here, you can identify which on-page SEO elements are most important to target.

The Outranking SERP Analysis tool is a great way to understand what’s ranking on the top of the SERP and why. The score summary page lets you browse through keywords found throughout the headings, metadata, and body to better optimize for the top ten results.

You can also use the Questions tab (found under Outline) to find closely related topics that people are asking about. These sections are ideal for making sure you’re covering the topic completely.

2. 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. Outranking 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.

3. Finding gaps in topical authority coverage

To find a topical authority gap, you must pinpoint the main topics that interest your target audience. Once you have identified these primary topics, it’s to find content that covers those topics. Remember, not all content is created equal. ☝️ You need to find content that is high-quality and authoritative to fill the topical authority gap.

Semrush and Ahrefs are the most popular SEO content audit tools available. They both help identify gaps in topical authority coverage by revealing the keywords 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.

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

4. 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 feature is especially popular among bloggers, making it an important part of their workflow.

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 2023

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’s SEO Content Optimization Tool.

The tool guides you through content creation, starting from the target keyword, title creation, outline creation, first draft production, and optimization. 

The Title tab is first, providing you with a list of engaging titles based on proven elements from Google’s top results.

Below is the Outline tab, which builds an outline using the same competitive data. You’ll also find a tab for questions here, enabling you to cover related queries and provide depth to your content.

Third is the Writing Tools tab, which lets you create your first draft. The tool lets you control the word count, provide instructions, and decide what background data you’ll use to create different sections. 

Finally, in the Optimize tab, you can refine your content. You’ll find ratings for important SEO elements that include the originality, number of images, common terms (and where to find them), and the number of links. You can even automatically optimize your content, ensuring you don’t miss important keywords or phrases.

This complete package comes together with a score summary, which collects all this information. By getting your score into the green bar, you’ll see progress as you continue to improve your writing.

Outranking will help you dominate your competition by giving you the data you need to ensure your content includes all the semantic terms and keywords related to your focus. You can also use this tool to re-optimize your old and underperforming content and track the progress of your optimization efforts.

Based on its happy customer base, it’s a proven tool for writing SEO-friendly articles. Here’s one such customer experience:

Need some convincing? Check out this case study featuring Slaterock.

Outranking’s 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. 

Pros

• Powerful SERP analysis features: With its SERP Analysis tool and NLP data, this tool can help you rank higher on the SERP for your keyword of choice.
• Internal and external link suggestions: This tool also provides internal link suggestions without having to access your CMS or worry about violating any rules.
• Up-to-date current information: Outranking provides accurate and detailed information about the search results for your keyword.
• Measurable data: The SERP Analysis tool gives quantitative data on what Google deems acceptable and indicative of high-value content.
• Understand 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.
• AI-driven content builder: You can build your content automatically, optimizing it for the top keywords with little effort, thanks to the built-in AI features and auto-optimization tool.
• V13 update: Outranking has recently revamped its tool for better usability, building confidence that customer service is a priority.

Cons

• Limited entry-level plan: It offers only ten documents for the entry-level plan
• Doesn’t focus on pure keyword research: It’s not a traditional keyword research tool

Pricing

• Starts at $59 per month, making it accessible for users seeking advanced SEO content optimization tools.

2. SEMrush

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

While this tool is great for sitewide audits, it’s not the best for SEO content audits. Its built-in content editing tool also provides very little information. If you want to improve your content, Outranking is a better alternative.

It’s also known for being incredibly expensive, which you can see in this G2 review:

Pros

• Wide range of tools: SEMrush offers many tools to help you improve your website’s SEO.
• Covers numerous digital marketing areas: Semrush specializes in keyword research, competitor intelligence, paid ad research, content optimization, rank tracking, and social media monitoring.
• SEMrush’s site audit tool: The built-in system 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.
• Technical scans: Includes scans for over 130 technical SEO errors, runs thematic reports sorting out pages into three groups based on severity errors, warning notices, integrates with Google Analytics, and compares crawls.
• Steps for improvement: SEMrush provides resolution insights and graphs to help you identify where your website is failing in SEO.
• Simple reports: Reports are easy to understand and score overall SEO of your web pages with an overall score, making it easier to see where your website falls short in search engine friendliness.

Cons

• Limited content audit features: Semrush does not offer comprehensive SEO content audit and optimization like Outranking.
• Difficult to know how bad problems are: The SEMrush site audit tool does not compare the results of different SEO audits, making it difficult to determine the severity of an issue.
• Requires SEO expertise: It can be difficult to understand the detailed results of an SEO audit with so many categories and subcategories listed.

Pricing

• Semrush starts at $129.95 monthly for 10,000 results per report, 3,000 reports per day, and support for up to five websites.

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.

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.

Ahrefs has one major issue: it requires you to become an SEO expert. Unlike Outranking, you can’t just start writing improved content. Ahrefs has a technical focus, which is overwhelming for some. With no built-in content management system, Ahrefs is not an ideal tool for improving your website content. 

It’s also got a credit system that can be frustrating for some, based on this G2 review:

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

• Almost no information on your content: Does not offer comprehensive SEO content Audit
• Costly: Ahrefs is more expensive than Outranking AI, which may deter some users.
• Recommendations for fixes aren’t always immediate: 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 lite version starts at $99 a month, supporting a limit of 500 credits for audits and up to 5 keyword lists.  

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 attract the most traffic, and which ones are causing people to bounce (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.

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can help you monitor rising or declining traffic, which channels are most prosperous, and which pages people view most. The best part? 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: Google is the number one search engine, so you know you can trust their work. 
• Helps your funnel: 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.
• Better understand your visitor’s journey: You can analyze entry and exit points to understand what content generates more engagement.

Cons

• A bit overwhelming: Its information can be in-depth and overwhelming for beginners.
• Requires technical work: You’ll 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 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 every page indexed by Google: The tool generates customized audit reports to show you which pages are being indexed and which aren’t.

Ranking information: It can also help you find pages that might have user experience issues that are impacting their ranking.

Cons

• 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

Grammarly improves the quality of your writing by eliminating grammar and punctuation mistakes, poor word choice, passive voice overuse, and other grammatical errors that slip through our brain’s filter. By auditing your textual content, Grammarly provides content producers with all kinds of tips and indicators to produce better writing.

By eliminating unnecessary words, you can make your text much easier to read and understand. This can increase dwell time (the time users “dwell” on a page) on your website—a ranking indicator for Google.

Pros

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

Cons

• Only for text-based audits: If you’re not a content writer, 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.
• No SEO Information: While it’s a great auditing tool for content quality, it provides no information on keywords or other SEO factors. 

Pricing

• Grammarly offers a free version but has feature restrictions. The premium plan with advanced features starts at $12 per month for one person. 

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. Making content easy to read is a major part of Google’s recognition of good content. If you’re content is hard to read, people won’t stay on your websites.

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

Pros

• 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, ensuring it’s concise and comprehensible.

Cons

• Discourages complexity: The 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.
• Not useful for search engine optimization: It does not score your SEO optimization.

Pricing

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

Why you should consider Outranking for your content audit needs 

In a nutshell, SEO content audit tools are friendly companions for website owners—they help spot and fix issues with your content so it’s in top shape. These tools also help gauge how changes in your content affect your search engine rankings.

While any of these tools can help improve your content, not all are created equal. A good SEO content audit tool should keep its focus on the content itself. That’s where Outranking shines as the go-to choice for digital marketers! ✨

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 to ensure that it’s as optimized as possible.

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

It can also help you optimize your content for better organic search traffic by scoring your article’s on-page SEO elements and providing tips for improving them according to Google’s guidelines. Need proof? Read how one company doubled their traffic with Outranking.

Whether you’re an individual content creator or part of a digital marketing team, Outranking provides the resources you need to optimize your content, strengthen your SEO strategy and achieve tangible results. 

Try Outranking today with a seven-day money-back guarantee to see how it can transform your website’s success!