What are the key steps to optimizing your content distribution channels with a content audit?

1 Define your goals and metrics

The first step to optimizing your content distribution channels with a content audit is to define your goals and metrics. What are you trying to achieve with your content? How will you measure your success? Depending on your objectives, you may want to focus on different metrics, such as traffic, engagement, conversions, retention, or revenue. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, you may want to track metrics like impressions, reach, and social shares. If your goal is to generate leads, you may want to track metrics like click-through rate, landing page views, and form submissions.

2 Inventory and categorize your content

The next step is to inventory and categorize your content. This means creating a spreadsheet or a database that lists all the content you have published or plan to publish, along with relevant information, such as title, URL, format, topic, keywords, channel, date, and author. You can use tools like Screaming Frog, Google Analytics, or Content Audit to help you with this task. Categorizing your content will help you identify the types, topics, and formats of content that you have, and how they are distributed across different channels.

4 Identify gaps and opportunities

The fourth step is to identify gaps and opportunities . This means comparing your content performance with your goals, your audience's needs, and your competitors' strategies. You can use tools like AnswerThePublic, BuzzSumo, or Content Gap to help you with this task. Identifying gaps and opportunities will help you discover the areas where you need to improve or create new content, and the areas where you can leverage or repurpose existing content. For example, you may find that you need to create more content around a specific topic that your audience is searching for, or that you can repurpose a successful blog post into an infographic for social media.

5 Prioritize and plan your actions

The fifth step is to prioritize and plan your actions. This means creating a roadmap or a calendar that outlines the actions you need to take to optimize your content distribution channels. You can use tools like Trello, Asana, or Content Calendar to help you with this task. Prioritizing and planning your actions will help you allocate your resources, time, and budget effectively, and ensure that you execute your content audit recommendations. For example, you may decide to update or delete outdated or low-performing content, optimize or redistribute high-performing content, or create or acquire new content.

6 Monitor and measure your results

The final step is to monitor and measure your results. This means tracking and reporting the impact of your actions on your content performance and your channel performance. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Data Studio, or Content Dashboard to help you with this task. Monitoring and measuring your results will help you evaluate the effectiveness of your content audit, and identify the areas where you need to adjust or improve your strategy. For example, you may find that your content audit has improved your traffic, engagement, or conversions on a specific channel, or that you need to test different content formats or topics on another channel.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?