In most organizations, a great deal of time and energy is devoted to the development of content. Whether it’s your blog, your online courses, or another area of your website, keeping things fresh and up-to-date is an important part of your success.
However, with the constant production of new content, the content you’ve already worked hard to create and share can often slip through the cracks. There are important lessons to be learned from your past content, as it shows you what resonates with your audience and what tends to fall flat. And, these previously shared ideas and information bites can often be repurposed into new, valuable content — all while saving your team some time and money on creating something entirely from scratch.
Conducting thorough audits of your company’s content can help you avoid missing out on opportunities to revamp your strategies and give old material new life. This process sorts through your website to identify and analyze your content from top to bottom, giving you needed tools for success in areas like SEO and content marketing.
Here are a few steps you can take to ensure a successful content audit. Tip: If you don’t have time to do a content audit yourself, we can help! Click here to schedule your free content audit from Allarium.
Establish your goals
Whether your primary objective is to launch a new campaign, consolidate existing content into categories, or boost SEO, it is important to understand what you are looking to gain from your content audit. This will help you to take your results and convert them into actionable steps toward meeting your goal.
If you hope to consolidate your content, a key step in your audit would include identifying overlapping categories that two or more pieces of content fall into. Similarly, an audit aimed at improving SEO would focus on tasks such as ranking page performance, taking stock of keywords, and checking for broken links and other areas in need of upkeep.
Setting clear expectations for your content audit is the first step toward achieving your ideal outcome. The resulting insights are a powerful tool for change in your company, if you have determined what it is you hope to achieve.
Assess your content
Analyzing content during an audit can be done manually or using one of several available software tools. But regardless of how you choose to complete this step in the process, the next task for your company is to use the gathered data to assess each piece of included content for what to keep, what to remove, and what to update.
Older content that performed well may just require a quick refresh using updated links, statistics, or other information. However, there may be other pages that detail services you no longer offer, or that could be consolidated somewhere else. It is important to take note of these pages and carefully organize them so needed changes don’t go unattended to.
Take action
Once you have completed your audit and categorized your content accordingly, the final — and perhaps most critical — step in the process is to take action. The purpose of the content audit is to help your company reach your goals, and with its results, you have the tools to develop a focused plan.
Beyond your to-do list of updating, deleting, or keeping your existing content, your audit can help you create an ongoing strategy. Now, there is no need to spend precious time on producing content that underwhelms your audience. And, knowing what does resonate with your audience will allow you to write blog posts, design web pages, and introduce campaigns that exceed expectations.
Your content leaves a lasting impression. With a comprehensive, action-oriented content audit, you can ensure it’s a good one. Ready to get started? You’re in luck. Schedule your free content audit from us. We’ll give you actionable insights to improve your digital marketing performance.
