Sonja
In business, there are certain things that everyone does (or, at least, should do). Everyone has onboarding, training, internal memos, and so on. A content audit is (or, again, should be) one of these “business-must-do’s”. These reviews of content can be the difference between staying on top of the search results or fading into obscurity.
Today, we’re here to help both business owners and business blog writers get the most out of their content audits.
What Is a Content Audit?
Before you begin a content audit, you need to know what it is! In the simplest terms, a content audit is a review of the entirety of your site’s content. This includes everything from web pages to blog posts. Ideally, everything on your site can be easily indexed and searched. Depending on the scale of your business, this may be done manually or with prepackaged software.
What’s the Purpose of a Content Audit?
purpose of a content audit is to comb through the material on your website and determine whether or not it meets current SEO and content standards. Obviously, older websites will likely encounter far more issues (and content) than newer, fresher counterparts.
It’s worth noting that content audits aren’t always restricted to online. Physical media, such as printed documents and reports, are also subject to content audits. We’ll be focusing on digital audits. However, regardless of what you’re auditing, the reasoning and goals will always be the same.
Cataloguing & Archival
In both print and digital mediums, there will be content that you’ll no longer want to or be able to use. Don’t throw it out! Instead, keep a copy on hand for later. You may be able to repurpose the material. Even if you cannot do so, it’s never a bad idea to have information on hand about how things used to be.
When doing a content audit, you may even find material that you had forgotten about. In a digital sense, this often takes the form of old blog posts or delisted web pages. Again, it’s important that you not discard this material and archive it instead.
Quality Control
When sifting through content, you’ll also find that some material, though relatively new or important, may no longer meet your current standards. When dealing with digital media, there are four primary reasons that this may be true:
- Content may no longer have the right tone or style that you want
- The material doesn’t reflect current business practices (for instance, you may no longer offer a service referenced on a page)
- Information has gone out of date and is no longer relevant or useful
- Critically, your webpage may not meet current SEO standards, which will decrease your chances of being found
Efficiency
Finally, a content audit will increase your efficiency. On websites, a large chunk of defunct content can be repurposed with a few smart tweaks. By doing a content audit, you can easily collect all of these “duds” into a singular space, which allows for a quicker, more efficient reworking of your site’s material.
How To Perform a Content Audit
Now that we’ve nailed down the “what” and “why” of a content audit, it’s time to get into the “how”! There are a few different ways to perform a digital content audit. The exact specifics of how you do the audit will vary depending upon your method, and your method will depend on the size and budget of your company.
In some cases, you may wish to perform your content audit by purchasing or utilizing a pre-made software package. These tools are designed to automatically comb through content and produce a workable report.
In other cases, you may opt to or be limited to a manual content audit. In these instances, a human will perform the same job as the aforementioned software. When done manually, a content audit may be accompanied by as-needed revisions to the content to update it. For the best results, you’ll want to utilize the expertise of professional blog writers.
1. Define Goals
Every audit needs a goal. Both physical and virtual audits need a goal. A manual audit without a goal is a waste of time, and an automated audit without a goal is a waste of resources.
When performing a virtual audit, your goals will vary. Everyone has different reasons for doing an audit, and no two companies will be doing an audit for the exact same purpose. While we’ve already discussed why you’d do an audit, a goal is different from the reason for the audit. When determining a goal, you want to have a few specific, concrete requirements for the audit and its results.
Some examples of content audit goals include:
- Increasing SEO
- Boosting audience engagement
- Improving and unifying overall tone
- Adding or removing new or discontinued services
- Building on conversion rate
2. Compile Content
After you’ve outlined your goals, it’s time to compile and gather the content. This is where an automated tool is handy because this step can get pretty involved! Obviously, smaller sites will have a much easier time doing this than larger, older ones.
When you gather your content manually, it’s good practice to use a spreadsheet template. Within this document, you’ll want to list the following key information:
- The webpage, post, or content’s URL on your site
- The title of the webpage
- Information about what the webpage contains and/or its purpose
- The date of publication and editing
- (For eCommerce sites) The funnel stage
- Any relevant metadata
To optimize the process for future editing, you’ll also want to consider your goals. As you do this, you’ll likely need to tweak the information each entry on the template contains. However, to help you out, we’ve provided a few useful examples of what you may want to have on the spreadsheet:
- To boost efficiency for future professional blog writers: Include the page’s purpose and what you want to be added, removed, or edited
- To increase SEO: Run titles, subtitles, content, and even the URL through SEO tools to determine the overall effectiveness
- To amp up engagement: Include information on page shares and views
- To create more sales from simple visits: Add information about the SEO and product the page refers to
These fields will not be filled out right away, but it’s important that you have them prepared for the next step.
3. Gather Data
After you’ve created a good base for your content audit, it’s time to consider the actual content. The next step is data gathering. Hopefully, you already have the basics defined. The URL, title, and file location are all ready for deeper study. Now, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty.
When you’re analyzing the data and content, your precise strategy will depend upon your goals. Someone seeking to increase social media engagement will have a different mindset than someone who wants to improve their SEO. Nonetheless, everyone will want to make sure they cover a few key points.
Check Organization
An organized website is a happy and effective website. Users love nothing more than a functional, easy-to-use site. In many cases, this boils down to having a well-organized site with a defined funnel. You want your website to be top of the line in usability and navigation. As such, you’ll want to look for some of the following issues:
- Loading speed
- Defunct, broken, or otherwise problematic links
- Dead-end webpages (pages that lead to no other page on the site)
- Improper URL organization
Polish Content
In addition to the usability and organization, all content audits, regardless of their goals, should make sure that the content on each page is up to snuff. While the obvious points of interest will often revolve around SEO and keyword optimization, there are certain areas that every site will benefit from. These include:
- Fixing broken or missing images
- Correcting spelling or grammar
- Ensuring all information is up to date and accurate
- Providing accurate and high-quality descriptions of services and products
- Checking that every page has a compelling and relevant call to action (CTA)
Compile Data
At this point in the content audit process, you’ll also be gathering relevant data. Of course, what qualifies as relevant will be based on your goals. However, as a general rule, some of the most useful categories to consider when gathering data are:
- Conversion and eCommerce information
- Site analytics
- Page statistics
- (If applicable) Data on social media sharing
4. Analyze Data
All of the tedious gathering is done. You’ve foraged for information, and you’re now ready to work on the part that will get results: data analytics. In this step, your approach to your data and how you interpret it will determine your outcome. Moreover, the outcome you want will guide your choices and how you act upon the data.
This stage can be broken down into a whole array of steps, subsets, and categories. We don’t have enough time for all of that here, though, so we’ll just present you with some of the most common scenarios.
Keep or Delete
On larger sites especially, you’ll often run across pages that may no longer be relevant at all. They may advertise a service you no longer offer or promote an aspect of the business you don’t wish to call attention to. In these cases, you’ll need to decide whether or not you want to keep a webpage.
Now, when you choose to delete any webpage, it’s a good idea to keep a copy in an archive. One of the most reliable ways to keep a record of the old material is to create a copy on a cloud and a local storage device. These copies may be used again one day. Perhaps you reintroduce an old product or service or someone returns to the company. In these situations, it’s far easier to return to the old material and edit it than it is to create entirely new content.
Update
During a content audit, you’ll also find yourself presented with a fair number of pages that will need updating. The reasons for this may range from organizational changes to new SEO practices, but the results will always be the same: editing.
For this content, it’s best to work with a professional business blog writer or content creator. These individuals will take the content you have and rewrite, edit, or create entirely new content to convey the message you want to display to the world.
Regardless of the actions that are needed, you don’t want to act on them yet! Instead, place all of this critical information in the template.
5. Finalize Your Game Plan
Now that you know what needs to be done, it’s time to prioritize and plan your approach. This step helps you optimize the process of performing a content audit. More importantly, a well-planned plan will help you avoid disrupting your website’s overall performance and availability to customers.
We can’t tell you how to do this step. You’ll need to determine what is the most important thing to fix and what can be left for later on your own. However, we can give you a few tips:
- Identify low effort, high reward tactics: Steps such as adding internal links on dead-end pages can decrease bounce rate without eating up too much time.
- Prioritize based on necessity: There are some pages that a website can’t be without. If something like this, such as a home page, needs extensive reworking to meet current standards, you’ll want to start working on it ASAP.
6. Execute the Plan
The final step is what most people are excited about. At the end of a content audit, it’s time to implement all of the data and information. This step may take some time and planning, but it’s well worth the reward. To truly get the past results, you always want to work with an expert. Be sure to consult with relevant and knowledgeable content writers and available resources, such as SEO analysis software.
Moreover, if you really want to get the most out of your content audit, then it’s time to hire a professional! The expert writers at Content Cucumber can help you get your audit on track. Ready to revamp your content? Then schedule a demo with us!
