What are the most important questions to ask when auditing content?

1 Purpose and goals

The first question to ask is why are you auditing your content???? What are your objectives and expectations from the audit? How will you measure the success of your content audit? These questions will help you define the scope, criteria, and methods of your audit, and align your content strategy with your business goals. For example, you might want to audit your content to increase traffic, conversions, engagement, or authority, or to optimize your content for SEO, user experience, or accessibility.

3 Content inventory and analysis

The third question to ask is what content do you have and how is it performing? What are the types, formats, topics, and sources of your content, and how are they organized and categorized? How do you track and measure your content performance, and what are the key metrics and indicators of success? These questions will help you create a comprehensive inventory of your content and analyze its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. For example, you might want to audit your content to identify gaps, redundancies, inconsistencies, or errors, or to improve your content quality, usability, or effectiveness.

5 Content governance and maintenance

The fifth question to ask is how do you manage and maintain your content? What are the roles, responsibilities, and workflows for creating, reviewing, approving, publishing, and updating your content? What are the tools, systems, and processes for storing, accessing, and editing your content? How do you ensure the quality, consistency, and compliance of your content? These questions will help you establish a content governance and maintenance framework that supports your content strategy and operations. For example, you might want to audit your content to define your content standards, guidelines, and policies, or to implement a content management system or a content calendar.

6 Content audit report and presentation

The sixth question to ask is how do you communicate and share your content audit results and recommendations? What are the key findings, insights, and suggestions from your content audit? How do you present your content audit report and persuade your stakeholders to take action? How do you monitor and evaluate the impact of your content audit and improvement actions? These questions will help you create a clear, concise, and compelling content audit report and presentation that showcases your work and value. For example, you might want to audit your content to highlight your content achievements, challenges, and opportunities, or to propose your content priorities, goals, and actions.

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?