Web Content Audit

Web Standards and Guidelines

What is a content audit?

“A content audit is the process of taking a complete inventory of your site and identifying how to improve it in terms of site structure, SEO and overall content quality” Liendgens (2012) “Conducting a content audit is the best way to optimize all your current and future content to serve your audience better.” Smart insights (2014) “One of the more underrated benefits of a content audit is that it can empower your contributors to create better, more targeted, more valuable, and more effective content.” Liendgens (2012)

Why do a content audit?

• Better user experience whisch can improve engagement • Better service to site users so that users can find what looking for • Refreshes your site • Improve your content quality • Improve your page SEO • Increase in traffic and visitor loyalty • Helps you understand the true scale of the site • Identifies opportunities for repurposing • Helps generate ideas for new/future content • Improves the structure of the site (information architecture) • Helps you identify where to focus your efforts • Potential changes to Identify ways to improve organic search performance • Determine which content type your audience prefer • Migrate content into a content management system or new design • May help inform the overall content strategy

“It’s easy to forget about your website’s old content, especially if it’s getting buried under your newer posts and pages.” Smart insights (2014)

Considerations

• Why am I conducting an audit?

• What resources are available for my content audit?

• What do I hope to get out of the exercise?

• What are the goals of audit?

• What are the audit factors and their measurement criteria?

• What is the scope of the audit (what areas of the site and why)

• How are you going to rate the quality of each factor (A to F / Traffic Light)

• Review content structure – relevant categories

• How big should the sample size be? - small sample

- 50% of top 70% pages

“You need to start by understanding the context in which your content is created, published and maintained” Alexander (2013)

How to choose pages to audit

• Identify the main pages / sections of the site / microsite

• Get a page list (content inventory) - Create a spreadsheet of all your content assets

- Gather asset data e.g. page title, keywords, etc.

• Tackle the pages that you know need improving (pain points)

• High performing pages (high page views)

• High impact pages (messages that have high impact on students)

• Look at your search terms

• Determine content gaps

• Identify prominent entry and exit points on your site

• Once you have chosen the page to start with work through it methodically - If that page has sub pages list and repeat the process

“When performed correctly, a good content audit will help you to answer questions about the content pieces on your site that are performing best and which subjects your audience is most interested. ” Single Grain Team

Page Navigation Audit Factors

Audit Factor Measurement

Primary and secondary

• Break up pages into clearly defined areas • Ensure that labels are descriptive of their destination • Use conventions – e.g. alphabetical order, popular

order

Links (total) Too many can cause confusion; too few and the user may not get to the information they really need.

External links • Use if the add value to your content • Name the site the link will lead to • List the best quality external sites

Link descriptions

• Use keywords in links • Start with a verb • Don’t use URls e.g. www.sheffield.ac.uk/history • Avoid links with similar names • Launch and land on same name

Broken links Any broken links on the page

Page Content Audit Factors

Audit Factor Measurement

Page Title • Descriptive of the page content • Using site visitors keywords

Page subject / topic The page relates to a single subject

Page summary • 30 words or fewer • Sell: encourage the reader to read more • Quickly cover who, what, when, where, how

Sub headings • Put your headings in order • Have a good heading style (e.g. questions, statements, etc.)

Target audience, Conversational style and Voice and tone

• Writing in the active voice • Engaging with the audience - use "you" and "we" • Be positive • Use of plain English

Word count (page and paragraph)

Words on page / reading speed vs google analytics time on page

Chunking (length of paragraphs)

• Sentence: 20 words or fewer • One point per sentence • Paragraphs: 70 words (roughly 4 sentences) • Start sentences with keywords • Start paragraphs with strongest sentence • Start paragraph by setting the context

Page Performance Audit Factors

Audit Factor Measurement

URL • Accessible to search engines • Descriptive of the page content

Page views Google analytics annual page views

PDFs Single version documents published on the site

Page size (load speed) Google analytics

Images use and count • Limit the use of images • Use images only when they are critical to the success

of a web page

Image format / size

• Photograph of people are good (if they're real people) • Feel-good images are largely ignored • Make sure images do not severely decrease download

speeds

Date last updated CMS

Reporting the results

• A summary of overall conclusions and recommendation • A description of each audit factor • Data summaries per factor • Graphic depiction of results • Factor based themes with examples if possible • Key findings:

• Out of date • Duplicated • Badly written • Unused

• Establish a set of recommended actions (5-10 actions) • After the Audit

• Create an editorial calendar • Considering a rolling audit (annually?) • Develop a publishing workflow • Offer web writing training

References

Halverson K and Rach M (2012) “Content Strategy”, New Riders, 2nd edition Rockley A (2003) “Managing Enterprise Content”, New Riders Why and How To Do a Content Audit, Thursday, May 10th, 2012 at 11:00am -- Kat Liendgens

http://www.hannonhill.com/news/blog/2012/why-and-how-to-do-a-content-audit.html

Content auditing: Why, When and How? June 17, 2014 http://www.smartinsights.com/content-management/content-marketing-creative-and-formats/content-auditing/

How to Conduct A Content Audit - Posted on October 16, 2014 by Donna Spencer http://uxmastery.com/how-to-conduct-a-content-audit/

The Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Content Audit by Single Grain Team http://singlegrain.com/blog/the-step-by-step-guide-to-conducting-a-content-audit/

Content audit guide and template http://www.4syllables.com.au/resources/content-audit-template/

• Beyond the content audit written on June 18th, 2013 by Dey Alexander • http://www.4syllables.com.au/2013/06/beyond-content-audits/