Let’s just put our cards on the table from the beginning...we know content audits can be a long, painful process and you might have cringed just reading the title, however, you’ve clicked into this blog for a reason so let’s talk content audits!
You can have a website with a slick design and flawless functionality, but if users can’t find the content they desire your website is really just a pretty shell. You know we’re all about metrics that matter and meeting the KPIs that are important to our clients and we firmly believe that your digital marketing strategy comes first...and your website second (we even wrote a blog about it here), but the content on your site plays directly into this.
The first thing you’ll want to consider when beginning your content audit is the importance of content with your overall digital strategy.
Your digital strategy really boils down to the goals you want to achieve and the plan of action you put in place to do this. Your content should directly inform your strategy so start by asking yourself 2 principle questions:
- What type of business are you, transactional (helping users get something specific done as quickly and easily as possible) or engagement driven (encouraging users to “stick around” and spend time on your site)?
- What are the overarching goals you want to achieve with your site?
Once you’ve answered these questions you should be able to reflect on your content to ensure it matches both the type of business and the business goals.
The next part of your content audit should look at your brand. I’ll save my spiel about the importance of a strong brand for another day (although if you’d like to read about questions to ask before undertaking a branding or rebranding exercise you can do so here), but nevertheless it’s important to ensure your brand remains consistent. Reflect on the tone of voice you use within your content, is it in line with your brand to be matter of fact or witty or perhaps your brand uses data to convey their messages...the aim here is to make sure your audience immediately recognises you. The goal of a brand is to ultimately build awareness and develop loyalty and meaningful, well-thought-out, consistent content will go a long way in achieving this.
The next step is to find your “hidden gems”. In other words, what type of content do you put out that keeps making users come back...what’s your niche? Maybe this is a monthly blog or a newsletter...this could even be something as simple as weekly poll you do on your social media platforms, whatever it is, find it and uitilise it within your content strategy.
Once you’ve found what makes your content stand out, switch gears and find the gaps. The point of an audit is to look at the good, the bad and the ugly so it’s important to go from one extreme to the other. Your gap may be that you don’t consistently update your content or that you maybe don’t produce enough content in your niche area...once you identify where your content gaps are there are easy, quick steps you can take to fill these.
Lastly, you’ll want to increase efficiency. A good place to start is with salespeople; find out why content you are producing goes unused within the sales process. Like we mentioned earlier, ultimately your content needs to help you to reach your overarching web goals and if this isn’t the case start asking why.
Now, let me ask the looming question...when was the last time you did a content audit? If you’re racking your brain to come up with a year then maybe it’s time to take the plunge.
