The User Experience Blog for Website Architecture Planning

Throughout this article we are going to talk about the importance of content inventories and content audits, especially when it comes to the success of your website as a whole, its maintenance and overall management.

It’s not uncommon for new (and quite often established) website owners to forget all about content inventories and how valuable they can be, particularly when it comes to the success of a website.

Regardless of how old or new your website is, if you have inherited the site or you are ready to migrate your website from Drupal 6 to Drupal 7, a website audit is imperative to the success of your website and business. A site audit will help you learn the ins and outs of your website, what content is on the site, how it’s structured and frankly, if the content you do have is working in your favor (i.e. doing what it’s supposed to; convert!).

It is the desire of every webmaster to own a website that can meet their needs, serve and engage his/her visitors. Every webmaster has to develop a positive stance towards competition which many people dread. Competition should be given the right perspective and proper interpretation as you should learn from it in order to improve on personal services and products. Content auditing is aimed at auditing your website as a defense against competitors. It helps you to examine the effectiveness of your contents as well as bridging any technical flaws and gaps.

A content inventory is one of the most important phases during content management system changes, upgrades or website redesigns. The inventory also doubles as a useful long-term content management tool. Without a clear understanding of why you are undertaking a content inventory, your expected results and who your target audience is, it is quite easy to find the exercise confusing.  Here are some of the considerations you need to make before embarking on the process.

You know you need a content audit when you realize that your organic search traffic has been going flat in the recent past or the ranking of your keywords in vital search terms has been falling.  A content audit is an assessment that examines the web content assets of your company for SEO value, relevance, messaging and quality.  Taking a comprehensive approach towards examining the nature of your website’s content goes a long way in enhancing your website for significantly better results. An audit can be time-consuming and boring especially because you are not spending your time on content creation and promotion. However, when done appropriately, it can be very effective in revolutionizing your online presence.