How can you conduct a comprehensive content audit?

Before starting a content audit, ensure you know your goals. Set your goals, decide how to measure success, and establish criteria to prioritize actions and recommendations for an effective audit.

Starting with the “why” is most important! I like to take a deep dive and interview the thought leader first. Then, I read everything that I can about them, and ask their peers for feedback on their impact. Finally, I look at the competition to see where the white space is - the things that others aren’t talking about.

In my opinion, critical is to know the clear goal of doing the audit. and doing conducting a comprehensive content audit involves systematically reviewing and evaluating all the content and setting the prioritization.

The point is, a content audit is an ongoing process. It is important to align it with changing in business goals and audience requirements. And the process may also needs to be changed cased for effective results. standard process is to Inventories : gather the list of existing setup Categorization or re-labeling : based on type format etc. Relevance : asses it based on your goals, target audience and strategy. Performance review, SEO prospects, quality, content ownership, consistency check, future content strategy.

Crafting valuable, captivating content requires aligning with trends, sparking interest, and maintaining readability. Use compelling headlines and openings, weaving personal anecdotes and metaphors. Engage readers with questions and calls to action. Balance text and visuals, reflecting a unique voice. Eliminate fluff, simplify explanations, and add a punchy last line. Deliver value, meet needs, and leave a lasting impression.

Create a common taxonomy and category system first (if you are using social media management tools like Sprout Social, this could be your tagging structure). Then categorize all content based on the tags and taxonomy. This will help later in the process too to align content performance data to the tags.

- Hojas de Cálculo: Para un enfoque más manual, puedes usar hojas de cálculo de Google o Excel. Puedes registrar cada pieza, incluyendo URL, título, fecha de publicación, tipo de contenido y cualquier métrica relevante. Yo es una de las que utilizo. - Google Analytics te permite rastrear y analizar el tráfico de tu sitio web. - Herramientas de Auditoría SEO: SEMrush, Ahrefs o Moz ofrecen capacidades muy útiles para evaluar la visibilidad de tu contenido. - ContentWRX Audit o Screaming Frog extraen datos de tu sitio web y proporcionando informes detallados. - Si parte de tu contenido está en redes sociales, herramientas como Hootsuite pueden ser valiosas para entender cómo está funcionando tu contenido en estos canales.

Use tools like Screaming Frog or Google Analytics to make a detailed inventory of all website content assets. Get info on URLs, titles, formats, and metadata to fully understand the content's quantity, structure, and organization.

In my experience, analyzing content involves a methodical assessment of its quality, relevance, and performance once you've compiled your content inventory. It's a multi-faceted process where you consider various criteria and metrics to gauge its effectiveness. I usually evaluate the content type, format, and style. Ensuring accuracy is paramount; hence, I scrutinize if the content is factual and reliable. Optimization is another key factor – does the content use keywords effectively to enhance discoverability? To obtain a comprehensive view, I rely on analytical tools to provide valuable data on content performance, helping me identify strengths and areas for improvement.

La evaluación de calidad del contenido en una auditoría implica examinar cada pieza de contenido para su relevancia, precisión y calidad de redacción y optimización SEO. Para esto podemos utilizar herramientas como Grammarly, Hemingway App y Yoast SEO. Es crucial medir el engagement y rendimiento a través de herramientas de análisis como Google Analytics. Y debemos asegurarnos de que el contenido sea coherente con la marca y el mensaje de la empresa. Además, es importante comparar el contenido con el de los competidores para identificar oportunidades de mejora y diferenciación, asegurando que cada pieza de contenido contribuya efectivamente a los objetivos y la estrategia general.

The content audit should be part of your content calendar strategy. Whenever a piece of content is requested, also capture the content's purpose and a date to review, refresh, and retire it. Of course, some content may remain live and never be refreshed - for instance, content that is purely educational or historical (e.g., go-live announcements, cultural celebrations, etc.). If the audit is an ongoing process, it's not such a heavy lift. Include the content's keyword focus. Then as part of the review, ascertain how the article is ranking toward that keyword and whether or not that is still a goal for the company. Now is a good time to make those shifts.

2 Simple approaches to audit your social media content as a solopreneur: [Approach 1] Look at your published content and identify whether you’ve used certain phrases/language, shared particular key points or perspectives, or discussed specific topics that no longer resonate with you. For each of these parts, why does it no longer feel resonant with you? Then, make a conscientious effort to not repeat these particular phrases, points, or topics. [Approach 2] Look at your content and ask yourself: If you were to rewrite this post right now, what would you keep and what would you change?

During the content audit process, think of it as upcycling rather than discarding your past efforts. Why lose the value you've already created when you can repurpose it to stay relevant for the next timeframe or campaign? Integrating reminders in project management tools you're already utilizing provides an effortless way to automate this aspect of the workflow. This ensures that your work doesn't conclude once a piece of content is published but encourages regular improvement and optimization over time. It's a strategic approach to maintaining content quality and relevance throughout its lifecycle.

We use ten proven methods to evaluate our AIs content production including Toulmin, Vroom-Yetton, Bias analysis. Those methods help me to reduce AI and human bias. We have been using these methods to improve the AIs outputs. The result now means that content us improved and what is left are dilemmascthat need human decision making or suggestions to add more information.

Content can be vast, so you need to prioritize your actions. Identify content that needs immediate attention, like outdated info, broken backlinks, or low performing pages. After that, categorize the remaining content, and you can always update or refresh some old gems.

See four above. We use the AIs content evaluation to further improve its knowledge and objectives. This vastly improve the AIs outputs.

Google Search Console (GSC) is essential for content audit. After publishing, wait for some time and check for impressions on your targeted keywords. Impressions signify relevance and visibility. For older or outdated content, you can always try to find opportunities, especially when you have keyword(s) ranking around 7th - 20th positions. For action, consider reoptimizing or repurposing the content to enhance its performance and improve the organic rankings. Try to incorportae these techniques in your content audit strategy.

A quick and creative content audit strategy is to deploy a “tag and score” system. First, use an automated tool like Screaming Frog to gather basic content data. Then, rapidly tag each content piece based on type (e.g., blog, product page), purpose (awareness, conversion), and performance (high, medium, low). Develop a simple scoring system reflecting the importance of each content type and purpose for your business. Finally, sort your content by these scores to identify priority areas. This method combines automated data collection with strategic scoring, enabling efficient categorization and prioritization of content for detailed review.

Another important element of your content audit is to understant what role each piece plays in your buyer's journey. For example thought leadership pieces like research and whitepapers are important at the top of the funnel, whereas case studies are more important at the bottom of the funnel. One of your objectives is to understand how many pieces do you have at each stage of the funnel and are they performing well enough to advance your buyers to the next phase.

What is your reason to do an audit? I have conducted over 100 content audits in my career, invented a content audit method in 2007, and ran a practice around it at the world's largest technology media company. Assets are viewed as property by their creators. They protect them and hold a never-let-it-die mentality. As the guest columnist for Chief Content Officer in the early 2010s, I saw people given responsibility but little authority. Is your organization the same? To succeed, don't call it an audit. The term feels punitive. Call it an assessment. Second, internal selling demands you explain how it empowers the creator. (prevent malicious compliance) Old assets never want to die, but they'll kill confidence in your offering.

Pay close attention to how your audience interacts with your content. Comments, shares, and feedback can provide invaluable insights into what truly resonates with your audience. This engagement often offers clues about the topics or styles that captivate your followers, guiding future content creation. Also, ensure that your content consistently reflects your brand's voice and message across all platforms. Consistency in tone, style, and messaging helps reinforce your brand identity and enhances your credibility as a thought leader.