How can you audit your B2B content for maximum engagement?

Start by defining clear objectives & KPIs. Review the existing content inventory, categorizing it by type, topic, and stage in the buyer’s journey. Analyze performance metrics such as traffic, engagement rates, conversion rates, and SEO rankings. Identify gaps & opportunities by comparing your content against competitors and industry benchmarks. Gather feedback from sales and customer service teams for frontline insights. Use customer surveys and feedback for direct audience insights. Prioritize content updates based on performance data & strategic goals, focusing on high-impact areas. Lastly, develop an action plan to refresh underperforming content and leverage successful themes or formats.

Here are three key steps to conduct an effective content audit: 1. Evaluate Content Relevance: Assess whether your content aligns with the interests, needs, and pain points of your target audience. Ensure it addresses their questions and offers valuable insights. 2. Analyze Performance Metrics: Use analytics tools to review engagement metrics such as page views, time spent on a page, bounce rates, and conversion rates. Identify high-performing content to understand what works and areas for improvement. 3. Review SEO and Usability: Check that your content is optimized for search engines with the right keywords, meta descriptions, and titles.

Write to one person. I know it seems counter-intuitive since it's for a B2B audience, but it really is the only way your content will resonate. Executives aren't gathering around a single computer to read a content piece. They consume the content just like you and me. On a single screen. So, humanise your content and write to one person.

This is where you double-check to make sure you are tracking everything. Are your Google Tags set up appropriately? Is your social monitoring optimized for all the channels you post on? Does your email management system talk to your other systems? Make sure every last piece of content is tracked in the most optimal way.

E-E-A-T is important regardless of your content's subject matter, but this is especially true for B2B. Where your offering centres around expertise in a particular niche or your unique in-house expertise or services, this has to come through in the content too. Factoring in E-E-A-T analysis at URL level (starting with key product pages) enables you to go beyond simply well-written, optimised content - which let's face it, should be the bare minimum - and puts your expertise front and centre.

As a B2B content strategist, one of the biggest things I analyze for clients that isn’t mentioned here is their messaging. Often, businesses, as they grow and evolve their services, buyer personas, goals, price points, and mission forget to align the words they use to match. This includes not just website copy, but the words used in content and the language used to guide the buyer’s through their journey. Unchecked, the wrong messaging leads to: -longer sales cycles -misaligned leads -poor client experience -low conversions This also informs the rest of the content strategy from keyword research to content planning.

Implement the actions identified in your categories and this might include optimising for better SEO, creating fresh content where you see gaps, or even removing outdated content or low-performing content.

There should be a community driven article generation system instead of these AI induced hallucinations. Auditing only tells you what's working and what isn't. Maximizing engagement isn't an "audit" issue. That's like saying you can lose weight by staring at the weighing machine.

Compare your engagement metrics with those of your competitors. What are they doing differently? Identify gaps or opportunities for improvement.

A content audit can tell you what you have, what you don't have, and what's working in terms of content. But despite what this article tells you, it can't necessarily tell you why. Not on its own. Because content success is often influenced by factors outside the content strategist's control, such as promotion, core messaging, brand strength, etc. So you may need to examine data from outside your silo. Remember that.