Content audit

Last updated

In website governance, a content audit is the process of evaluating content elements and information assets on some part or all of a website.

Contents

Description

A content audit is "an accounting of all currently published web content" [1] and a "cornerstone of content strategy". [2] It is a qualitative analysis of information assets on a website; that is, the assessment of content and its relationship to surrounding information assets within specified website content analysis parameters.

A related term, content inventory, is a quantitative analysis of a website. It simply logs what is on a website. A content inventory will answer the question: “What is there?” and can be the start of a website review. [3] A content audit will answer the question: “Is it any good?” [4] [5] Specifically, Slater states that the content audit can answer five questions: What content do we already have?; Who is making this content?; How do people find it?; How is it performing?; and Is the content current (accurate) or outdated? [6]

Performing a content audit has been called "tedious", [7] "boring", [8] and "intimidating, time-consuming, and chaotic". [9]

Types

Different types of content audit have been described. Deciding on audit goals before beginning the audit is an important part of process planning. [10] [11]

As the name implies, a full content audit is a complete and comprehensive accounting of website content. A partial content audit focuses on a subcategory of the site, often one among the top site hierarchy. Content sampling merely examines samples of content. [10]

Bloomstein describes a rolling content audit as a means to "monitor and maintain" the initial scan. A content manager may go through the audit process at some agreed-upon time – weekly, monthly, or quarterly – to scan for changes. [12]

Value

A content audit is "the only way to fully understand the structure and quality of the content" on a website. [13] It can help: develop a content strategy; manage content quality; prepare content for a migration or for the development of a new site IA or design; evaluate content against business goals, editorial style guidelines, and templates; establish a common language among team members; evaluate content for removal or revision; and pinpoint gaps in content. [8] [11] [14] [15]

Methods

Because a content audit is a qualitative analysis, methods used will vary from auditor to auditor, by type of audit being performed, and by available tools. While some tools have been developed to help in the content auditing process, human oversight and interaction is essential. [16] A content inventory sheet is used for tracking purposes and typically includes categories for links, format, keywords, content owners, and more. [1] [6] [15]

Methods used to perform a content audit include content ROT (redundant, outdated, trivial) analysis, [17] social media analysis, [18] [19] SEO analysis, competitive analysis, content analysis heuristics (including information scent, differentiation, completeness, consistency, and currency), [20] [21] heat map analysis, [9] among many others.

See also

Related Research Articles

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design ; authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software; user experience design ; and search engine optimization. Often many individuals will work in teams covering different aspects of the design process, although some designers will cover them all. The term "web design" is normally used to describe the design process relating to the front-end design of a website including writing markup. Web design partially overlaps web engineering in the broader scope of web development. Web designers are expected to have an awareness of usability and be up to date with web accessibility guidelines.

<i>The Register</i> British technology news and opinion website

The Register is a British technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's masthead sublogo is "Biting the hand that feeds IT." The publication's primary focus is information technology news and opinions.

A heuristic or heuristic technique is any approach to problem solving that employs a pragmatic method that is not fully optimized, perfected, or rationalized, but is nevertheless "good enough" as an approximation or attribute substitution. Where finding an optimal solution is impossible or impractical, heuristic methods can be used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution. Heuristics can be mental shortcuts that ease the cognitive load of making a decision.

Heuristic reasoning is often based on induction, or on analogy[.] [...] Induction is the process of discovering general laws [...] Induction tries to find regularity and coherence [...] Its most conspicuous instruments are generalization, specialization, analogy. [...] Heuristic discusses human behavior in the face of problems [...that have been] preserved in the wisdom of proverbs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge management</span> Process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization

Knowledge management (KM) is the collection of methods relating to creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. It refers to a multidisciplinary approach to achieve organizational objectives by making the best use of knowledge.

A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content . A CMS is typically used for enterprise content management (ECM) and web content management (WCM).

Marketing management is the strategic organizational discipline that focuses on the practical application of marketing orientation, techniques and methods inside enterprises and organizations and on the management of marketing resources and activities. Compare marketology, which Aghazadeh defines in terms of "recognizing, generating and disseminating market insight to ensure better market-related decisions".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant)</span> American computer scientist and usability professional (born 1957)

Jakob Nielsen is a Danish web usability consultant, human–computer interaction researcher, and co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group. He was named the “guru of Web page usability” in 1998 by The New York Times and the “king of usability” by Internet Magazine.

Relative to some web resource, a backlink is a link from some other website to that web resource. A web resource may be a website, web page, or web directory.

Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results.

Web accessibility, or eAccessibility, is the inclusive practice of ensuring there are no barriers that prevent interaction with, or access to, websites on the World Wide Web by people with physical disabilities, situational disabilities, and socio-economic restrictions on bandwidth and speed. When sites are correctly designed, developed and edited, more users have equal access to information and functionality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Website wireframe</span> Visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website

A website wireframe, also known as a page schematic or screen blueprint, is a visual guide that represents the skeletal framework of a website. The term wireframe is taken from other fields that use a skeletal framework to represent 3 dimensional shape and volume. Wireframes are created for the purpose of arranging elements to best accomplish a particular purpose. The purpose is usually driven by a business objective and a creative idea. The wireframe depicts the page layout or arrangement of the website's content, including interface elements and navigational systems, and how they work together. The wireframe usually lacks typographic style, color, or graphics, since the main focus lies in functionality, behavior, and priority of content. In other words, it focuses on what a screen does, not what it looks like. Wireframes can be pencil drawings or sketches on a whiteboard, or they can be produced by means of a broad array of free or commercial software applications. Wireframes are generally created by business analysts, user experience designers, developers, visual designers, and by those with expertise in interaction design, information architecture and user research.

A web content management system is a software content management system (CMS) specifically for web content. It provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools that help users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages create and manage website content. A WCMS provides the foundation for collaboration, providing users the ability to manage documents and output for multiple author editing and participation. Most systems use a content repository or a database to store page content, metadata, and other information assets the system needs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Progressive enhancement</span> Web design strategy putting emphasis web content first

Progressive enhancement is a strategy in web design that puts emphasis on web content first, allowing everyone to access the basic content and functionality of a web page, whilst users with additional browser features or faster Internet access receive the enhanced version instead. This strategy speeds up loading and facilitates crawling by web search engines, as text on a page is loaded immediately through the HTML source code rather than having to wait for JavaScript to initiate and load the content subsequently, meaning content ready for consumption "out of the box" is served immediately, and not behind additional layers.

A web presence is a location on the World Wide Web where a person, business, or some other entity is represented.

Social media measurement, also called social media controlling, is the management practice of evaluating successful social media communications of brands, companies, or other organizations.

Content strategy guides the planning, development, and management of content. It is a recognized field in user experience design, and it also draws from adjacent disciplines such as information architecture, content management, business analysis, digital marketing, and technical communication.

Website governance is an organization's structure of staff and the technical systems, policies and procedures to maintain and manage a website. Website governance applies to both Internet and Intranet sites.

A content inventory is the process and the result of cataloging the entire contents of a website. An allied practice—a content audit—is the process of evaluating that content. A content inventory and a content audit are closely related concepts, and they are often conducted in tandem.

The web content lifecycle is the multi-disciplinary and often complex process that web content undergoes as it is managed through various publishing stages.

Website audit is a full analysis of all the factors that affect a website's visibility in search engines. This standard method gives a complete insight into any website, overall traffic, and individual pages. Website audit is completed solely for marketing purposes. The goal is to detect weak points in campaigns that affect web performance.

References

  1. 1 2 Halvorson, Kristina; Rach, Melissa (Feb 2, 2012). Content Strategy for the Web (2nd ed.). New Riders. ISBN   978-0321808301.
  2. ↑ Lieb, Rebecca (2011). Content Marketing: Think Like a Publisher - How to Use Content to Market Online and in Social Media. Que Publishing. p. 164. ISBN   978-0789748379.
  3. ↑ "Conducting a website review and implementing results for increased customer engagement and conversions". GOSS Interactive. October 2011. Archived from the original on 2 November 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  4. ↑ Baldwin, Scott (January 2010). "Doing a content audit or inventory". Archived from the original on 27 March 2010. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Marsh, Hilary (March 2012). "How to do a content audit". Archived from the original on 1 September 2013. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  6. 1 2 Slater, Derek (2013). Online Content Marketing In 30 Minutes: A guide to attracting more customers using the Web, email, and social networking. i30 Media Corporation. p. 5. ISBN   978-1939924001.
  7. ↑ "What Is a Content Audit?". wisegeek.com. n.d. Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  8. 1 2 Sevilla, Vincent (23 July 2013). "Content Auditing: the Basics" . Retrieved 5 September 2013.
  9. 1 2 Cushing, Annie (5 November 2012). "Craziest Audit Checklist on the Internet" . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  10. 1 2 Anameier, Christine (19 April 2012). "Auditing Big Sites Doesn't Have to Be Taxing" . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  11. 1 2 "Content audit guide and template". 4syllables.com. n.d. Archived from the original on 30 August 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Bloomstein, Margot (2012). Content Strategy at Work: Real-world Stories to Strengthen Every Interactive Project. Morgan Kaufmann. p. 76. ISBN   978-0123919229.
  13. ↑ Bowles, Cennydd; Box, James (2010). Undercover User Experience Design (Voices That Matter). New Riders. ISBN   978-0321719904.
  14. ↑ Detzi, Christopher (20 March 2012). "From Content Audit to Design Insight: How a content audit facilitates decision-making and influences design strategy" . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  15. 1 2 Kadlec, Tim; Gustafson, Aaron (2012). Implementing Responsive Design: Building sites for an anywhere, everywhere web (Voices That Matter). New Riders. ISBN   978-0321821683.
  16. ↑ "Website Content Audits". content-insight.com. n.d. Archived from the original on 27 August 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  17. ↑ Allen, Rick (13 April 2011). "ROT: The Low-Hanging Fruit of Content Analysis" . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  18. ↑ Kellet, Nick (15 July 2013). "What Can a Content Audit of 22 Top Blogs Teach You?". Archived from the original on 11 September 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  19. ↑ Kellet, Nick (15 July 2013). "What Makes Content Social? Social Networks vs Content Networks" . Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  20. ↑ Jones, Colleen (3 August 2009). "Content Analysis: A Practical Approach" . Retrieved 10 September 2013.
  21. ↑ Leise, Fred (12 March 2007). "Content Analysis Heuristics" . Retrieved 10 September 2013.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.