Content audit

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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Who is making this content?; How do people find it?; How is it performing?; and Is the content current (accurate) or outdated?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 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 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

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Business model Rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value in economic, social, cultural or other contexts

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A content management system (CMS) is a computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content.

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Social media measurement

Social media measurement, 'social media monitoring' or social listening is a way of computing popularity of a brand or company by extracting information from social media channels, such as blogs, wikis, news sites, micro-blogs such as Twitter, social networking sites, video/photo sharing websites, forums, message boards and user-generated content from time to time. In other words, this is the way to caliber success of social media marketing strategies used by a company or a brand. It is also used by companies to gauge current trends in the industry. The process first gathers data from different websites and then performs analysis based on different metrics like time spent on the page, click through rate, content share, comments, text analytics to identify positive or negative emotions about the brand.

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers. Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, enabling companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone."

Content strategy refers to the planning, development, and management of content—written or in other media. The term has been particularly common in web development since the late 1990s. 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 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. 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" . 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

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