Have you ever been on a project that required content to be created and managed, but you weren't sure where to start?
Or maybe you've worked in an organization that has a lot of content, but there's no way to tell what's still relevant and what needs updating.
In this article, we'll cover how to conduct a content audit (and why it's important), show some examples of how other organizations have done their audits, and discuss best practices for conducting one yourself.
What Is a Content Audit?
A content audit is a way to analyze the content on your site. It helps you identify gaps in your content strategy and understand what topics resonate with your audience and what aren't.
While conducting a content audit, it's important to understand that you don't have to do everything at once.
Doing so can be overwhelming -- but if you break down the process into manageable chunks, it becomes much more achievable.
What Are the Benefits of Doing a Content Audit?
A content audit will help you understand what topics work for you, identify areas to improve and prioritize which topics to write. It also helps identify gaps in your content.
And as a bonus, it will give you an understanding of your audience so that when they come back to visit your website -– they’ll find exactly what they need from the site.
How Do You Do a Content Audit?
A content audit is a systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and reviewing all the content you’ve created across all channels.
It’s a deep dive into your current assets, looking for common threads and patterns that will help inform what you create.
To conduct one, first, gather all the content you have available to you in one place -- we recommend using an editorial calendar so that it's easy to track what you've already published (and when).
Then start by analyzing each piece of content based on its objective: what was its purpose? What problem did it solve? Was it successful?
From there, look at patterns among different types of content you've produced: do certain types tend to have more success or engagement than others?
Do stories tend to perform better than blog posts? Are there gaps in coverage that you can fill with new pieces of work?
To get the most out of this analysis phase, consider enlisting someone who isn't familiar with your brand or industry so they can help identify opportunities for new ideas and angles based on their fresh perspective.
How Do You Define the Pillars of Your Brand for Content Delivery?
When it comes to your brand, you don't want your content strategy to be scattered and unfocused. You should consider what makes your brand unique and define the pillars upon which you should build your content.
Fortunately, there’s a simple way to figure out which activities matter most: ask yourself what's important to customers who use or buy from you.
It can be as broad or specific as you like. For example, if a customer buys something from me because they want to save money on their monthly bills, the first step in my audit would be determining how much money I could save them.
Once you've figured out who these customers are and how they're interacting with your products or services (or not), it's time for another crucial step: ensuring that everything we create aligns with these priorities.
It means setting up checkpoints throughout your content process so that every piece of work impacts our goals for each pillar identified during Step 1 above -- and I'll explain why this matters in just a second.
Determine Your Target Customer Personas
The first step in conducting your content audit is to determine your target customer personas. These are the specific groups of people that you want to reach with your content and marketing strategy.
It's important to remember that you can't base them on the stereotypical -- a person who uses my product.
Instead, you should be able to describe each persona in a few sentences (or even a single sentence) that highlights their goals and interests.
If not sure how many personas to include, start by creating three at a minimum: one for current customers or past clients, one for prospects, and one for new customers or potential clients.
If these types of people exist within your business model—or if there are others types of individuals who would benefit from your products/services -- it's okay to add more than three as needed.
Choose Your KPI for Measuring Success
The first step to a successful content audit is choosing your key performance indicator (KPI).
A KPI is a metric you use to measure progress, success, and improvement of your content. Without an established KPI, it's hard to know what you want to improve or change in your content.
The best KPIs should be specific and measurable. They should also directly tie back to business goals; they need to show how well you're reaching those goals by quantifying how much time people spend on the site, how many social shares they generate, etc., depending on the type of website you run.
As you begin to outline the types of content your business needs, you should also consider the metrics most important to tracking success.
What do you want to measure? How do you know if your content is successful? What are key performance indicators (KPIs) will help you measure success?
Here are some great starting points:
- Audience engagement
- Traffic
- Conversion rates and sales lead generated from blog posts or infographics on your website
Export an Analytics Report for All of Your Blog Posts
You'll want to export a report of all your blog posts. The easiest way to do this is by creating a new custom report in Google Analytics, selecting Entire Site as the scope, and checking View All Pages.
Once you've got that set up, create an Excel spreadsheet or text document where you can identify each post using its title.
Then add up all of the numbers for each post so that you have overall metrics for every piece of content on your blog (ex: total number of visits, total sessions).
Gather All Your Blog Posts Into One Spreadsheet
Once you have your blog posts, it's time to gather that data into a single spreadsheet. The easiest way to do this is by importing from your website's blog section or from within Google Analytics (if you have an account).
If you don't have access to either of these tools, there are other options --you could use an RSS feed reader and import the RSS feed into spreadsheet software such as Excel or Google Sheets.
Or if none of those options work for you, plenty of third-party tools allow users to do just that.
Calculate Basic Performance Numbers
Once you have some basic data about your content, the next step is to determine which posts are performing best. What does it mean for a post to perform best? That depends on your goals for the blog and your business. Some metrics might include:
- Reach (number of people who saw the post)
- Engagement (number of comments, shares, and likes)
- Conversion rate (no-sale conversions such as email signups or social media follows)
Figure Out Which Blog Posts To Delete
After going through your blog posts, you'll have a list of which to keep and which to delete.
Some things you might consider when deciding what to do with a post:
Are the traffic stats high enough? If the post has fewer than five views per month, it may be time to say goodbye.
Does the content still make sense for your target audience? For example, if you're writing about how blogging is a marketing tool for small businesses, but your business has grown beyond just being small, then maybe it's time for this particular article to go away so that newer ones can take their place.
Is there anything else similar already on your blog (or elsewhere)? If another piece covers what this one does as well or better than it does -- and if no one will notice or care that both are available -- consider letting this one go in favor of something new and different.
Is it clear and concise? If not, make some edits before sending it out into cyberspace again.
You want people who come across your site to understand what they're reading without getting lost along the way due to poor grammar or unclear writing style choices.
Identify Opportunities by Mapping Your Content
As you map your content to the topics you've already covered, look for gaps in your strategy. Are there topics where you have an abundance of content?
If so, how can you expand on that topic with more information or a new angle? Where are there topics that are under-covered and in need of more attention?
For example, if your analytics show people using Google to search for marketing content but the pages on search are low compared to other keywords (like marketing automation software), this would be a good indicator that there's room for improvement in this area and an opportunity for growth.
What an Effective Content Audit Looks Like
An effective content audit should represent a snapshot of your content performance and provide insight into how to improve it.
It should be based on your goals and objectives, brand pillars, target customer personas, and KPIs (key performance indicators).
A content audit can be a useful way to change or improve your publishing strategy
A content audit can be a useful way to change or improve your publishing strategy. It helps you understand what's already published on any given topic and how it's performing.
This makes it easier to decide where to focus your efforts when creating new content—for example, if there are gaps in the information customers are looking for, or topics that need further explanation.
When deciding on a course of action after conducting a content audit, consider what aspects of your current content marketing strategy you can improve.
Focus on areas where there's room for improvement: maybe you're not sharing enough educational articles with prospective clients, or there are too many images with poor quality, or people aren't reading enough blog posts about industry news in their industry sector.
A good place to start is by asking yourself questions like these: What do I want my client experience (or users' experience) to look like? How can I provide better value? How can I ensure my brand voice is conveyed consistently across all channels?
Conclusion
Remember, every part of a content audit is about identifying opportunities. You can use this process to change or improve your publishing strategy and identify new content that will resonate with your audience. That could mean finding more ways to connect with them or even creating entirely new blogs they find interesting. Whatever the outcome, you must take the time to do it right.
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