How To Do A Blog Content Audit For More Traffic & Income (Step-By-Step)
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*A big thanks to Travelpayouts for sponsoring this episode on doing a content audit
Want to learn how to do a blog content audit—the right way?
You’re in luck, as this guide goes over how to audit and update old blog posts for more traffic and income!
Our guest is travel blogger Lana Sitler of Adventures by Lana, who has strategically used content audits to double her affiliate income, grow her blog traffic, and scale to $10,000 per month in passive income.
After just 3 years, Lana was able to match her salary as an engineer and quit her job to become a full-time travel blogger. Today, she’ll be sharing her best tips to help you do the same.
By the end, you’ll understand:
- What a content audit is & when you should do one
- How to update old posts for SEO & Google ranking boosts
- Tips for updating blog posts for more affiliate & ad income
- Improvements to make for the fastest wins
- How to organize your blog posts to streamline your workflow
- And more!
Lana also shares specific examples of how she improved her content to see big results—including the 5-minute update that led to thousands of dollars.
💻 Bonus: This episode of The Profitable Travel Blogger Podcast includes options for learning through audio, video, or a text guide below!
💡Quick content audit tips:
-Adding affiliate links and opt-in freebies to posts already bringing in traffic can drive the quickest wins
-Updating old posts by topic cluster can help you streamline the auditing process
-Aim to review every post for inaccuracies and missed opportunities at least once per year
🎁 Bonus: Grab my free Travel Blogger Resource Library, which includes a Content Audit Cheat Sheet based on Lana’s tips! You’ll also get access to 75+ resources that can help you grow your traffic, email list, and income.
🎁 Join the Travelpayouts affiliate platform with code “JESSIE” for a $25 bonus on your first payout (new users only) and get access to their free Content Analytics tool for easier content auditing!
How To Do A Blog Content Audit [Audio & Video]
How To Audit Your Content Step-By-Step [Guide]
The following is a summary of the podcast episode sharing how to do a blog audit. It is transcribed as best as possible, with paraphrasing included. For the full strategy, make sure to listen to the audio or video version of the podcast above.
Every travel blogger has older posts quietly collecting dust—and leaving money on the table.
That’s why doing a blog content audit can be a game-changer for uncovering opportunities to drive more traffic and income.
To help, Lana Sitler of Adventures by Lana is sharing how to tackle a content audit the right way.
Before we dive into the strategy, let’s discuss a tool that can help make auditing content for affiliate income music easier:
Auditing Tool: Content Analytics from Travelpayouts
Travelpayouts is an affiliate platform designed to help travel content creators increase their income and monetize their content.
Along with giving creators access to 90+ travel brands, they also have tools that can help you audit your content to maximize your earnings, like Content Analytics.
This free feature gives you page-level insights, dynamic conversion funnels, and detailed booking reports so you can see exactly which articles and affiliate tools are bringing in income — and which ones might need a refresh.
It’s like having a monetization-focused version of Google Analytics right inside your dashboard.
➡️ Click here to join Travelpayouts & start using Content Analytics! ← Enter code “JESSIE” at sign up for a $25 bonus added to your first payout (new users only).
1) Thank you so much for taking the time to share your tips! Please tell us more about your blog and how you discovered the content audit strategy you’ll be talking about.
I’m Lana, the travel blogger behind Adventures by Lana. I bought my domain during the pandemic in 2020, but I didn’t start travel blogging seriously until 2023.
By then, I’d grown from just 10 blog posts to more than 150—and quickly realized that posts get outdated over time.
After that, I sat down with a color-coded spreadsheet to track every post and how it was performing, then created a game plan to update them. Some posts were more than two years old and hadn’t been touched since I first hit publish, so I knew it was time to give them fresh attention.
It wasn’t long before I realized how powerful these audits could be for increasing your blog’s traffic and affiliate income, and improving Mediavine RPMs too and added them to my content strategy.
2) What is a content audit? And can you walk us through the first step of your framework—the short-term audit?
A content audit means reviewing old blog posts to see how they can be improved for SEO, monetization, and accuracy.
My short-term audit focuses on quick wins. Every month, I check my top 10 posts in Google Analytics. If a post hasn’t been updated in a year, I refresh it—fixing affiliate links, adding freebies, or updating details like closed restaurants or new tours.
This simple habit once paid off when a Paris itinerary suddenly started ranking at the top of Google. I went back to that post, swapped a plain tour link for an affiliate link, and in just a couple of months it was booked over 50 times, earning me thousands of dollars that summer!
By the way, if you need help navigating Google Analytics, here is a GA4 tutorial:
3) When reviewing those high-traffic posts, what specific monetization or affiliate opportunities should bloggers look for to uncover hidden gems?
Affiliates are my biggest win because the barrier to entry is so low. Start by making sure every affiliate link works and that you’re linking through a partner program—not directly to the company site. Even one broken or missing link can mean lost income.
I also recommend strengthening internal links. As we publish new content, we often forget to go back and connect older posts. If a top-ranking post doesn’t mention other articles in the same cluster, readers finish that one post and leave.
Interlinking keeps people on your site longer, builds authority with Google, and increases page views, ad RPM, and affiliate conversions.
4) After conducting a short-term audit, how should bloggers approach a full, long-term audit of their entire blog to boost overall performance?
Here is a little website content audit checklist:
Step 1) Export all your posts into a spreadsheet and organize them by destination or content pillar. I include columns for Last Updated, Affiliate Updates, and Content Updates, and link directly to each post so it’s easy to open.
Step 2) Check how every post is ranking using Google Search Console or Keysearch. Then sort them into three tiers:
- Top Tier – Ranking 1–3 or solidly on page one. These need only small tweaks, maybe adding a new affiliate link or a freebie.
- Middle Tier – Bottom of page one or page two. They need stronger updates and are usually where I spend most of my time.
- Low Tier – Barely ranking or invisible to Google. These may require major rewrites, a merge, or even deletion.
➡️ Reminder: Get 30% off Keysearch with code “jessieonajourney30”.
Step 3) Then work by cluster—as in, all posts about one destination or topic at a time. Updating a cluster keeps related details (like a restaurant closing or a tour update) top of mind and makes it easier to refresh multiple posts efficiently.
5) Once they’ve identified top-performing posts, what strategies can help bloggers scale their income without hurting existing SEO rankings?
If a post is ranking in the top five on Google, I avoid major rewrites, but I’m not afraid of small improvements. I’ll:
- Add or refine affiliate links.
- Insert a freebie or opt-in box.
- Add personal experience—like a photo of me on the tour—to build trust and increase conversions.
These tweaks rarely hurt rankings, and if a change ever does, that’s more of a Google issue than a you issue. The goal is to enhance what’s already working without overhauling the structure.
🎉 Also, don’t forget to grab access to my FREE Travel Blogger Resource Library. Get access to 75+ resources that can help turn your blog into a profitable business—including a Blog Content Audit Cheat Sheet based on today’s episode!
6) How do you evaluate and upgrade middle-performing posts to help boost their rankings and income?
Middle performers are where I spend the most time. First, I read the post with fresh eyes and ask, “If I searched this keyword, what would I want to find?”
You need to match the true search intent. For example, if the keyword is “itinerary,” readers typically expect a clear day-by-day plan, not just a general guide.
Then I analyze the top results on Google. I don’t copy them, but I look for value adds I might have missed—maps, comparison charts, or structural elements that make the post more helpful.
I also:
- Add new or better-compressed photos (showing myself in the experience when possible).
- Strengthen internal links to other related posts.
- Provide extra details that genuinely help the reader, not just more words.
7) What’s your process for deciding whether a low-performing post should be updated, merged with another, no-indexed, or deleted altogether?
I rarely delete a post unless it’s truly unsalvageable or off-niche—maybe something I wrote before I knew SEO that has no real value. If it can be saved, I’d rather rewrite or merge it with another post and set up a redirect.
For posts I can’t update soon, I might temporarily no-index them so they don’t drag down site authority, but I never no-index large batches at once.
For brand-new blogs, wait at least six months—ideally a year—before making these decisions so Google has time to index and rank your content.
And don’t forget to manually request indexing in Google Search Console for new or updated posts; it helps Google “see” them faster.
8) After completing the audit, how can bloggers create a sustainable check-in system to keep their content and income growing? And how often do you recommend auditing content?
I alternate between writing new content and auditing old clusters. My goal is to review every post at least once a year.
Sometimes I focus on one destination until every related post is updated; other times I follow my travels. If I revisit Paris, for example, I’ll refresh those posts right after the trip while details are fresh.
The key is to create a schedule that fits your workload so you never end up with a huge backlog of outdated posts and broken links.
9) What are a few of your favorite quick affiliate, ad RPM, or other updates that often deliver immediate income results?
A few of my favorite quick win content updates include:
Highlight key links: Put important affiliate links on their own line, add a background color, or an emoji so skimmers can’t miss them.
Top-choice boxes: For roundups, add a box at the top with your #1 recommendation. Readers who don’t have time to read an entire article or who just want an answer quickly often book that one without scrolling.
Comparison charts: At the start of a post, create a chart comparing tours or hotels with quick details like prices and best audience (solo, family, couples, etc.).
Group text for ads: Use Gutenberg to group sections so ads don’t break up affiliate widgets or key sections. This keeps readers from confusing ads with your links.
These small, visual tweaks consistently raise my affiliate conversions and ad RPM.
10) Thank you so much for sharing your content auditing tips! Can you let everyone know where they can find you?
- Adventures by Lana (website)
- Content Audit Spreadsheet (freebie)
- Affiliate Income Accelerator (course)
Powerful Tools For Auditing Content
Content Analytics from Travelpayouts. This free tool gives you deep page-level insights into how your content performing so you can make strategic data-driven decisions to increase your affiliate income.
Keysearch (snag 30% off with code “jessieonajourney30”). Along with helping you do keyword research for better SEO, the Rank Tracker feature allows you to track your rankings!
Travel Blog Prosperity (currently on a flash sale!). Get access to 100+ blogging workshops—including Lana’s “How To Do A Website Content Audit” workshop—as well as live calls, monthly trainings, weekly opportunities sent to your inbox, and 24/7 community support.
➡️ Click here for my full list of recommended tools for bloggers!
Grow Your Blog Traffic & Income With These Helpful Past Episodes:
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Auditing Blog Content: Final Thoughts
Doing a content audit gives you a clear picture of your blog’s health.
You’ll spot quick wins, uncover hidden opportunities, and gain confidence in your content strategy. The time you spend reviewing old posts now can lead to long-term growth.
🎉 Don’t forget: You can grab my free Blog Content Audit Cheat Sheet inside the Travel Blogger Resource Library, which walks you through the exact steps to audit and update old content for new traffic.
➡️ Click here to access the free Travel Blogger Resource Library!
