When I sat down to write last week’s newsletter in honor of my 40th birthday, my original thought was to share my 40 most popular articles…

… but then shame snuck in.

What if I didn’t actually like the list? What if it was full of posts that really shouldn’t be on my site?

That’s right, even though I live in WordPress, I occasionally feel some website shame. But after 2 decades of doing this work, I know we don’t have to live with those feelings. Which means it's time to audit my blog.

I’m going to spend the summer (+ maybe the rest of the year) implementing what I uncover so that I’m ready to share my 41 most popular posts this time next year. 😉

If you haven’t peeked at your blog content in a bit, I invite you to follow the same steps I going to use.

BLOG AUDIT CHECKLIST

[ ] Gather all data
​Export all published posts (title, URL, publish date, category)
Add last 12 months of site visit data to each post

[ ] Define foundational articles
​List the core questions I want to answer in blog posts (1-3 per category)
Flag these posts in the spreadsheet from step one

[ ] Categorize every post
​Categorize each post as keep, update, merge or delete

[ ] Audit audience fit
​For each keep or update post, ask 'are they written for my ideal audience'

[ ] SEO health check + AI search visibility (GEO / generative search)
​Review foundational articles for clear keywords + meta information

[ ] Improve lead generation
​Add inline CTAs to popular content
Link between posts + services pages

Most blogs + sites don’t fail because of lack of content, they fail because of lack of review. This audit will give you insight into what's working, but also keep you moving towards where you want your business to go.

If you have any questions about specific steps in this audit, ask them!

After finishing this email, I’m going to use a simple timer + spend no more than 30 minutes exporting all blog posts into a spreadsheet using WP All Export. Then I’ll layer in GA4 data so I can see which articles are actually bringing in traffic right now.

Separate from that spreadsheet, I'll make a list of the foundational articles my ideal client needs to read. I’m using foundational articles as my compass, which is the approach of having 8-10 articles that relate to your core offering. These posts help you play the “long game” with SEO + lead generation.

After that, I'll quickly sift through all of my existing content for an initial reaction of keep, improve or delete. If something stands out as one of my foundational articles, I'll star it during this scan.

Next week I’ll share just how many posts I deleted from my archives + if I have my core 10 posts ready or if a writing retreat is in my summer plans (because it’s ok for things to take some time.)

- Alison