Once again or always?

When I first started the Content Strategy Master program, I thought I knew a lot. When a new semester or subject started, I was amazed at how many resources were available and how many things I still had to learn.

It was during the first semester that I encountered Content Audit. As I recall, it was one of the most difficult things I had to learn and master a year ago.

As my studies near the end and as me and my colleagues prepare for our Master’s thesis, Content Audit crosses again.

I will describe shortly the steps on how to conduct a Content Audit in this article

First, what is a Content Audit regarding Paula Land?

A content audit is a qualitative evaluation of a set of content. When you audit content, you assess it against a variety of measures depending on your context and goals. Typical audit tactics and criteria, as discussed in this book, range from editorial issues (the content’s consistency with the brand and messaging guidelines, for example, and its quality, depth, and breadth) to audience appropriateness to performance against competitors’ content to effectiveness as measured by analytics data.

When should we perform a content audit?

The majority of businesses think of conducting a content audit when they need to relaunch their websites so that they can see what content they currently have and how to improve it. The inventory provides the information necessary to scope the project and set the baseline against which the future state will be measured. The audit should address issues of content currency and quality as well as inform a gap analysis, whether you are assessing the content against the organization’s goals, against competitor sites, or both.

Other reasons are: Before Migration — If you plan to outsource the migration and implementation work, accurate knowledge of your content helps simplify the scoping and RFP (request for proposals) process and aids in evaluating systems against your content needs.

Steps:

Defining goals and metrics:

To begin, you should determine your business’s goals. What can you expect to gain from a content audit? Which results do you hope to achieve? They can include: Improve Conversion Rate, Increase Audience Engagement, and so forth.

Start with a Content Inventory

It is important to decide what kind of content you will review before creating a catalog of URLs and metrics. Your internal content such as blog posts, news, educational materials, product descriptions, and landing pages, or your external publications can be audited.

You need to start your inventory by collecting all the URLs of web pages you want to analyze. The most effective way to get these is to use an online content audit tool like Screaming Frog. This tool can quickly audit your content based on your sitemap data, and provide you with a list of URLs and their associated metrics

Additionally, it is very useful to collect metadata (title, meta description, h1) for each piece of content so that you can update all metadata in one location.

Prioritize and set up Auditing Criteria.

Prioritize what is actually important and decide what to keep for the next phase.

Business Purpose and Value

Purpose -Does the content have a clear reason for being? Can it be tied to a business objective?

Brand -Do the overall look and feel and content of the page reflect well on the brand?

User Value

Audience -Is it clear who the audience is for the content? Is the information and presentation style appropriate for the audience?

Context -Is the content available when and where they need it?

Relevance -Is it immediately obvious what the topic is and how it is relevant to this audience?

Usefulness -Does the content support a user task? Is it available where needed?

Language/tone -Is the language and tone of voice appropriate for the audience?

Help -Is help content available where needed?

Content Quality

Accuracy and currency -Is the information accurate and up to date?

Readability -How easy is it to read and understand the content? Do text formatting and layout support easy scanning?

Engaging -Does it capture user attention and interest? Is the language easy and enjoyable to read?

Depth and breadth -Is there sufficient high-quality content to support the user’s information needs? Is there too little content? Too much?

Consistency -Does the content present a unified message? Is it written and formatted in a consistent style? Does it feel like it all came from the same company/organization?

Uniqueness -Is the content unique? Are there other pages that contain some or all of the same content?

Usability, Performance, Interaction

Usability -Are there too many choices on the page? Are navigation and links clear, descriptive, and directional? Do interactive elements behave as expected?

Shareability -Are there ways for readers to easily share content? Does content lend itself to sharing (format, style, imagery)?

Performance -How effective is the content? Is it being read? Are calls to action being taken?

Discoverability -Can the content be found? Does it have elements that support SEO? Does it link to other related content?

Accessibility -Does the content follow accessibility best practices? Is the content consumable by all users? Is the reading level appropriate? Is there jargon average users wouldn’t know?

Actionable -Are there clear and intuitive calls to action? Are the user’s next steps obvious and easy to follow?

Trustworthy -Does the site seem secure and safe for entering personal or financial information?

Define the metrics

Example:

0 = didn’t meet the criteria at all

1 = met minimal criteria

2 = met most of the criteria

3 = excellent, meets all criteria

Conduct the audit

Then, once all the steps have been completed, we need to audit what we have found and recommend the next steps.

Conclusion

In the end, auditing is not always fun but is necessary if we want to archive success in the business.

As part of my master thesis, I will conduct a Brand driven Content Audit for Youspi the company I am currently working for as a Social Media Strategist. The objective for this project was to conduct a content audit of the homepage of Youspi in order to find out, how the content performs. If improvements are necessary and if yes, based on which criteria should the content change and most importantly how should it change.

The aim is to identify gaps, understand the needs of the target audience, and deliver information to them in a structured and easily accessible way.

Resources:

Book — Paula Land — Content audits and inventories_P.1–82.