Content Audit

Why Perform a Content Audit?

Why perform a content audit? A content audit helps you determine if your content is relevant — both to users and to your departmental goals.

A content audit and content mapping will help you determine:

  • What content is the priority?
  • Which pages need copywriting / editing?
  • Which pages need to be updated?
  • Which pages should be consolidated?
  • Which pages are no longer needed?
  • Does your content align with the needs of your users?

Evaluating Your Current Content

A content audit is the cornerstone of your content strategy. It is a qualitative analysis of all of the published content on your website. It allows you to catalog and analyze that content on a page-by-page basis.

It also helps you evaluate your current content by answering some key questions: Is this content accurate and consistent? Does it speak in the voice you want to project?

You will also use it to complete the content mapping task later in the process.

Completing Your Content Audit

A content audit may not be thrilling, but it is critically important to your website’s success.

When you think about starting your content audit, it’s easy to find yourself getting overwhelmed. Just take it one step at a time and you will be done before you know it.

Content Audit Example

Content Audit Template (Excel)

Step 1: Find your content

  • If you have a way to pull up all the published pages on your site, then use this to complete the audit.
  • If you do not, go through each page and write down that URL and the URL of every link on the page that goes to a different page on your website.

Step 2: Enter all the URLs on the spreadsheet in the “Page URL” column

Step 3: Evaluate the content on each page

When reviewing current content, consider these questions to help you evaluate your content.

  • What type of content is it?
  • What topics are covered?
  • Who is the page’s primary intended audience? 
  • What is the purpose of the page?

Step 4: Fill in the content type

  • Ask yourself what is the set-up of the page - Examples: homepage, informational text page, story page (content that gets added frequently like news or blogs), list of links, staff directory, webform, tables, graphic element, calendar of events, photo gallery, etc.

Step 5: Fill in the topic

  • Ask yourself what the topic of the information is on the page — this helps you group pages that have related topics.

Step 6: Fill in the audience

  • Ask yourself who needs this information — Examples: current students, prospective students, faculty, staff, public, alumni, etc.

Step 7: Fill in the purpose

  • Ask yourself why you have this page — Examples: general information, introduction to a program, attend an event, join a group, fill out a form