Content Audit Scope of Work Template

Content audits are one of the most requested — and most under-scoped — SEO deliverables.

A client asks for a "content audit." Your team exports a URL list, starts reviewing pages, and three weeks later you've assessed 800 pages, built a scoring matrix, and written strategic recommendations for every content cluster. The client expected a spreadsheet with keep/kill/redirect decisions. Nobody scoped the gap.

The problem isn't the audit itself. It's that "content audit" means wildly different things depending on who's asking.

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Depth level	What's included	Typical effort (per 100 URLs)
Inventory audit	URL list, status codes, metadata, word count, traffic	2–4 hours
Performance audit	Inventory + traffic, rankings, conversions per page	4–8 hours
Quality audit	Performance + content quality scoring, E-E-A-T assessment	8–16 hours
Strategic audit	Quality + gap analysis, recommendations, content briefs	16–30 hours

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• URLs included in audit (by section, template type, or full site)
• Maximum URL count for assessment (e.g., "up to 500 pages")
• Content types in scope (blog, landing pages, product pages, resource pages)
• Audit depth level (inventory / performance / quality / strategic)
• Date range for performance data (e.g., "trailing 12 months")

• Google Analytics 4 (organic traffic, engagement, conversions)
• Google Search Console (impressions, clicks, average position)
• Crawl tool export (Screaming Frog or Sitebulb)
• CMS export (publish dates, authors, categories, metadata)
• Rank tracker data (if available)

• Organic traffic (trailing 12 months)
• Keyword rankings (number of ranking keywords, positions)
• Content freshness (last updated date)
• Content quality indicators (word count, readability, E-E-A-T signals)
• Conversion contribution (if tracking is in place)
• Internal link equity (number of internal links pointing to page)

• Content inventory spreadsheet with all assessed URLs
• Scoring matrix with action recommendations per page
• Summary report with key findings and priority actions
• Category-level analysis (which content types perform, which don't)
• Walkthrough meeting ([X] minutes)

• Keep — performing well, no changes needed
• Update — good topic, needs content refresh or optimisation
• Consolidate — merge with similar/competing pages
• Redirect — low value, redirect to stronger page
• Remove — no traffic, no rankings, no strategic value (noindex or delete)
• Create — gap identified, new content needed (strategic audit only)

• Content writing or rewriting
• Implementation of recommendations (redirects, updates, deletions)
• Ongoing content monitoring post-audit
• Competitor content strategy or detailed competitive analysis
• Keyword research beyond existing page-level data
• CMS migration or restructuring

• Access provision: Within 3 business days of kickoff
• Audit execution: [X] business days from access confirmation
• Deliverable: [X] business days after audit completion
• Walkthrough meeting: Within 5 business days of delivery

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Auditing every URL on the site. Set a URL cap. If the site has 10,000 pages, audit the top 500 by traffic + a sample of the rest. Full-site audits at quality depth are rarely cost-effective.

Mixing audit with strategy. An audit tells you what you have and what to do with it. A content strategy tells you what to create next. These are separate workstreams with different inputs and effort levels. Scope them apart.

No scoring methodology agreed upfront. If the client doesn't know how you'll score pages, they'll question every recommendation. Define criteria and thresholds before you start.

Forgetting to scope the deliverable format. A spreadsheet with colour-coded actions is different from a 30-page report with per-page recommendations. The format changes the effort by 3–5x.

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Content audit scope varies by site size, audit depth, and deliverable format — but the combinations are predictable. The same agency runs the same 3–4 audit types repeatedly.

With RuleDox:

• URL count and depth level drive hours — effort estimates adjust automatically
• Deliverable sections populate from audit type — strategic audits include gap analysis; inventory audits don't
• Exclusions are consistent — "content writing not included" appears every time
• Scoring criteria are standardised — your methodology is baked into the scope, not reinvented per proposal

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Should a content audit include keyword research? Not by default. A content audit assesses existing content against existing performance data. If the client wants gap analysis (what topics they're missing), that requires keyword research and competitive analysis — scope it as a separate line item.

How do I handle sites with thousands of pages? Set a URL cap in scope and use sampling. Audit the top 200–500 pages by traffic, plus a representative sample from each content type. Full-page-by-page review of 5,000+ URLs is rarely justified unless the site is being migrated.

What's the difference between a content audit and a content strategy? An audit is diagnostic: what do you have, how is it performing, what should change. A strategy is prescriptive: what should you create, for whom, in what order. An audit often informs a strategy, but they're different deliverables with different effort levels.