Do you know what’s going on with your website’s content? If not, you’re in for a surprise. A content audit is a strategic analysis of all the content on your website. It can help you figure out how well your current content is performing and identify areas where you could improve. In this blog post, we will walk you through the 7-step process for conducting an effective content audit.
What is a content audit, and why do you need one?
In short, it is an inventory of all the content on your website. This includes everything from blog posts and product descriptions to images and videos. Conducting a content audit can be a time-consuming process, but it is essential for ensuring that your content is up-to-date, accurate, and aligned with your organization’s goals.
There are several benefits of conducting a content audit. First, it helps you take stock of what you have and identify any gaps in your content. Second, it allows you to assess the quality of your content and make sure that it is meeting your customers’ needs. Finally, a content audit provides valuable insights that can help you to improve your content strategy going forward.
When you take the time to evaluate your content, you can make sure that it’s working hard for you and your organization versus feeling static and outdated.
The 7-step process for conducting an effective content audit
Step One: Define your goals
The first step in any content audit is to define your goals. What do you want to achieve with this audit? Are you trying to improve your content’s performance? Are you trying to identify gaps in your content strategy? Once you know what you’re hoping to achieve, you can tailor the rest of the process to fit your needs. Typical goals include:
- Improving content quality
- Identifying content gaps
- Evaluating content performance
Step Two: Choose your metric
The second step is to choose a metric by which you will measure your content. This could be website traffic, social media engagement, or conversion rate. Once you have selected a metric, you can begin to collect data. Don’t depend just on pageviews to determine whether your content is successful. Consider other factors such as time on the page, social media interactions, and whether users are taking the desired action (e.g., subscribing to your newsletter, downloading a white paper, etc.).
Step Three: Collect data
There are a few different ways to collect data for your content audit. One is to use Google Analytics. You can also look at your website’s logs and use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl your website or survey your audience. What these tools won’t tell you is your audience’s behavior and how they react to your content. This is an important point to consider when you’re trying to improve your content strategy.
Step Four: Analyze your data
Once you have collected all of your data, it’s time to analyze it. Look for patterns and trends in the data. What content is performing well? What content is not performing so well? Is a particular piece of content popular during a specific time of year? Are you being penalized by the search engines for content your organization doesn’t have established authority on? Try to identify areas where you could improve by looking around outside of your website, and you may even have to get into the technical weeds.
Step Five: Create a content inventory
A content inventory is a list of all the content on your website. This includes everything from blog posts and articles to images and videos. Once you have created a content inventory, you can assess which pieces of content are working and which ones are not. Do you have too many PDF documents? Where is your content thin and could use some fleshing out? This is also an excellent time to start thinking about how to repurpose or reuse content that is already performing well.
Step Six: Evaluate your content
Now that you have a content inventory, it’s time to evaluate your content. Ask yourself questions like:
- Is this piece of content aligned with my organizations goals?
- Is this piece of content performing well?
- Does this piece of content need to be updated?
- Can this piece of content be repurposed?
- Is this piece of content in the right part of the navigation of our website?
Step Seven: Create a content plan
The final step in conducting an effective content audit is to create a content plan. This plan should include everything from your goals and objectives to your metric and timeframe. By creating a content plan, you can ensure that your content audit is successful and that your content strategy is on track.
How to use the results of your content audit
Once you have completed your content audit, you will have a wealth of data and information at your disposal. But what do you do with all of it? How can you use the results of your content audit to improve your content strategy?
Here are a few ideas:
- Use the data to identify gaps in your content. If you find that you’re missing certain types of content, you can create a plan to fill those gaps.
- Use the data to improve your content’s performance. If you find that certain pieces of content are not performing as well as you’d like, you can brainstorm ways to improve them.
- Use the data to inform your future content. By understanding what content has worked well in the past, you can create similar content that is more likely to be successful in the future.
By conducting a content audit, you can gain valuable insights into your content strategy. With those insights, you can make informed decisions about your content to improve your overall marketing efforts.
Takeaways
A content audit is the first and most important step in creating a successful content plan. It allows you to look at your current content and see what’s working, what needs improvement, and what can be scrapped altogether. Once you have an accurate understanding of your content, you can begin developing a strategy to help you achieve your organization’s goals. Have you ever done a content audit? What tips would you add to this process?
If you’re looking for a content audit for your website, don’t hesitate to reach out to DJG.
