Content marketing is an essential tool in the digital marketing world, but how do you know if your published content is helping or hindering your company’s success? A content audit can answer that question. A proper content audit can help you spot trends and missed opportunities, identify content gaps, and make recommendations for content and site structure updates. In this article, we will discuss the importance of a content audit, how to conduct it, and what to be aware of when doing so.
What is a content audit?
A content audit is a systematic review of your existing content across your website and social media platforms. This review helps assess the quality of your content in terms of relevance, accuracy, and user engagement. The audit enables you to understand the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy and come up with actionable insights to improve the overall user experience.
The Purpose of a Content Audit: To Improve Success
The purpose of a content audit is to evaluate and improve the overall performance of your content marketing strategy. The main objective is to identify any gaps or missed opportunities in your current content, spot trends, and analyze your website’s structure. Understanding any underperforming pages or posts can help you to redevelop or remove them, ultimately improving your website’s engagement rates with your audience.
Conducting the Content Audit: Spotting Trends and Missed Opportunities
To conduct a successful content audit, you need to have a well-defined methodology. A good place to start is by creating a list of the pages and posts you currently have on your website. You should also consider the content on any social media platforms on which you are currently active. The next step is to analyze each page and identify any trends or missed opportunities. You can use a content audit tool to simplify the process and gain accurate insights into the user behavior of your website’s pages.
Example: Discovering Content Gaps and How They Were Filled
During a content audit carried out by our company, we discovered three separate blog posts covering the same overarching topic, which split traffic from people interested in learning about the subject in three ways. As a result, we identified a content gap and filled it by creating a comprehensive guide for the topic. We combined the best content from the three separate blog posts. Within five months, the revitalized blog post generated more than 7,600 views, 32 form submissions, and 26 new leads. It even influenced a sale.
Beware of Vanity Metrics During a Content Audit
When conducting a content audit, it’s important to be aware of “vanity metrics.” These include likes, shares, and comments that don’t necessarily relate directly to your brand’s objectives. While metrics such as views, sessions, and click-through rates are essential, it is important to drill down and track the numbers that matter for your campaign’s objectives. For instance, an increase in social shares is good for brand awareness, but ultimately, it does not directly impact your revenue or bottom line.
Examining Long-Term Effects: Why Recent Content Shouldn’t Be the Sole Basis for Evaluation
Your content audit looks at the long-term effects of your content marketing strategy, so you should avoid analyzing any content published within the last 60 days. Content that has been recently published may not have had enough time to gain enough traction to make a material difference to your overall content marketing strategy. Start by auditing content that has been present for some time, as this will help you to understand the bigger picture.
Target personas and customer journeys do not need to be delved into
While understanding your target audience is a crucial part of your marketing strategy, it is not necessary to delve into target personas or customer journeys during a content audit. Instead, the focus should be on the current content you have available and how it aligns with your desired objectives. However, understanding your audience is beneficial when creating new content for the most value-added analysis during the audit.
Identifying Goals for Effective Evaluation Later on in a Content Audit
As with any audit, it is necessary to set clear and tangible goals to establish the efficiency and effectiveness of your content marketing strategy. Setting clear objectives can help you measure your success accurately, so that you can adjust your strategy accordingly. For example, the goals of your audit could be to improve website performance, increase engagement with prospects, or drive sales. Each goal will have its corresponding KPIs, which can be measured using specific metrics.
The Importance of Technical Setup for Content Pages
Instead of relying on content scores, make sure that your pages are well-designed from a technical perspective as this can impact user experience. Site speed, mobile-responsiveness, and website architecture are all factors that can help your website perform better. Conducting a website audit report can provide insights into these technical aspects and assist in identifying areas of low performance.
In summary, a content audit is a vital activity in the content marketing sphere. It helps assess the effectiveness of your content marketing strategy, identifies trends and missed opportunities, and can guide recommendations for new content initiatives that will improve your overall conversion rates. Ensure that the metrics you track are aligned with your goals, and that your pages are technically set up for success. By conducting a thorough content audit, you will ultimately remove the unnecessary content and ensure that you are focusing only on what counts for the success of your business.