How to Do a Website Content Audit?

In this article, we will discuss and explain how to do a website content audit, why this is very useful, and how a content analysis tool can decrease your time and effort. But we will start first by answering the question “What is a content audit?”

What is a website content audit?

A content audit is a process that includes looking at all the content (data) in the website or a marketing funnel and determining the strong and weak points of it in order to maximize the marketing activities. This process is sometimes confused with a content inventory, which is just a list of all items on your website. When done in an effective way, a great content audit will help answer questions about which parts of the site an audience likes more and dislikes as well. It will give clear insight on potential issues that must be fixed in order to enhance the productivity of your website.

Why is the purpose of a website content audit?

Well, there are several reasons that you would want to conduct a website content audit, but usually there are two main ones. SEO and Content Marketing.

• SEO – When a website content audit is done for SEO purposes, the process will help understand the weaknesses of the site’s SEO. By dividing the different content into different categories associated with the site and using metrics, you are able to understand what updates the site needs to enhance it's SEO performance.
• Content Marketing – A content audit can be used by a content marketer to understand how the website audience is accepting the content and what changes to content types and delivery must be done to better improve the site's performance.

How to conduct a website content audit?

1. Create a spreadsheet consisting of all the content assets. Before doing a content audit, we must find the content we want to audit. There are two options to do that, either by manually searching through the site for URLs or by using a tool to compile your content inventory. Combining all of you URLs manually into an Excel or Google Doc spreadsheet could be a very time consuming project for a large website. They using DYNO Mapper's content analysis tool because it can automate the entire process of compiling your content inventory. 
   
   
2. Find all the asset data, depending on the objectives of the content audit. Now we will use the columns we left in the step #1. Find data points of the pages and the site and paste them into the your Excel or Google Doc spreadsheet or just open up DYNO Mapper after you have crawled your website. 
   
   
   1. SEO data points
      • Page Title
      • Phrase Keyword
      • Meta Description
      • Heading
      • Images
      • Audience visits
      • Broken links
        
        
   2. Marketing data points
      1. Number of words
      2. Content type, be that article, blog, or info-graphic
      3. The topic
      4. Number of shares on social media
      5. Number of comments done by audience

1. 1. Other data points
   1. 1. Page performance (determined by content effectiveness)
      2. Status (Active, to be updated, to be removed)
      3. Notes

Evaluate all of the points, or just the ones that you have available. To find these points automatically you can use DYNO Mapper, which is integrated with Google Analytics. After evaluating these points, give them a grade from A to F. Those pages that receive a lower grade should go on a list of pages that must be updated.

1. Analyze data and draw a conclusion. In large sites, this will take long time. The DYNO Mapper content analysis tool will help you accomplish this within minutes. When the inventory is compiled with data points and info, then you have what you need to do an analysis. A set of actions and steps that must be taken to improve the site should be established and followed afterwards. Observations must be made on differences between pages such as average time spent on the site, conversion rates, social media shares between sites, and other data that might be helpful.
   
   
2. Take action.
   1. Either rewrite or remove all content pages that had a grade of D or less in the process.
   2. Use your time wisely and spend it more on pages with high traffic and pages that are being shared or liked on social media organically.
   3. Try to publish video and other multi-media as often as possible.
   4. Create content pages similar to those that scored a good grade.
      
      

Is there an easier way to do a content inventory?

Yes! I would hesitate attempting to do a content inventory manually. Use a tool that will help you create a content inventory without human error. DYNO Mapper's can perform a content audit that will automatically create inventories in detail for your entire website and sub-domains. It has a very easy to use interface, and allows webmasters to manage several content inventories at one time. It is mobile accessible as well. This tool is especially helpful for content administrators who are managing many websites at the same time. 

A content audit is a process that should be conducted routinely to influence content inventories and architecture decisions.  With a wining content inventory you can easily improve the overall quality of the website, and increase its effectiveness.