Conducting the Audit & Arriving at a Conclusion
How to Conduct a Content Audit
According to chapter 25 of Paula Land’s book Content Audits and Inventories, content audits are about “gathering data, processing information, and arriving at conclusions.” I am now at the stage of my coursework where my teammates and I must process the information we gathered from our content inventory audit and arrive at a conclusion. Part III Conducting the Audit helped me determine specific metrics, explained how to structure an audit, and how to interpret the results of metrics.
Specific Metrics
Rather than trying to evaluate everything, my team and I focused on four key areas mentioned in the textbook:
Business purpose and value
User value
Localization
Usability and interaction
Having these categories gave us a direction and helped us stay focused instead of getting overwhelmed by all the content we were reviewing. This chapter was most helpful because I did not have prior experience auditing content or interpreting findings, especially not for an established company. I felt a little over my head and unqualified for the task, however, I now feel like the process is more intentional. What stood out most was the idea of identifying themes and patterns from an audit instead of listing every individual issue. For example, if a large percentage of content has editorial problems, it can indicate a larger issue with how the content is being created.
Connecting the Audit to Business Goals
The entire content audit process asks whether content serves a clear purpose, meets the needs of a defined audience, is readable and accessible, consistent, and aligned with brand messaging. After determining how well content performs, the biggest takeaway I gathered from this chapter was the importance of explaining why the findings matter. It’s not enough to simply say there are errors or something is wrong; you must also connect your findings to business goals to maximize to probability of your findings being acted upon. It was also recommended to create an editing hierarchy to reduce guesswork for a business. Categories that I believe are most relevant to my own team project are:
Editorial - typos, rewrites, and/or consolidation
Technical - something isn’t functioning properly such as links, QR codes, etc.
Creative - incorrect fonts, poorly formatted images, etc.
This concept is why I can understand the importance and asking many questions and truly understanding your client before beginning the work. If you don’t already have a strong understanding of business goals, you may unintentionally produce an audit summary that a business finds unhelpful.
Final Thoughts
Since I am not a fan of content creation or audits altogether, I have a hard time seeing how I can transfer the knowledge I am learning to my own goals. However, for the purposes of my coursework I feel that I am gaining a greater understanding of concept I previously felt were over my head.
