Workshop: Content audits - looking back to look forward

Content Audits Looking back to look forward

Hilary Marsh, Chief Strategist & PresidentContent Company, Inc.

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Organizations publish a LOT of content

What don’t we publish??

•  Product data•  Reports•  Press releases•  News stories•  Customer success

stories•  Executive bios

•  Event information•  Course details•  Policies•  FAQs•  Mission statement•  Job listings

Content is the way our work is manifested in the world

h$p://research.vtc.vt.edu/news/2014/jun/17/stephen-laconte-earns-college-engineering-deans-aw/

h$p://www.technologist.eu/the-mindfulness-movement-connec@ng-body-and-mind/

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Just because…..

Because the boss said soBecause the committee asked us toBecause the committee told us toBecause we have this programBecause we do this thingBecause we created the informationBecause we have no way to say “no” to the requestBecause we think we have toBecause everyone else isBecauseBecause

h$p://www.amazon.com/Have-Always-Done-That-Way/dp/184728857X/

Start with the problem•  What are we facing that we think a content

audit will help us solve?•  What makes us think that?

Discuss!

Content strategy challenges•  Findability•  Voice•  Ownership•  Policies•  Practices

Worst practices•  Language/jargon•  Prioritized promotion•  Content hoarding•  Bad editorial processes•  New content missing•  Different content in different channels

Content is

political

Content is…Event ProductClass ProgramResearch

Content is…My Event My ProductMy Class My ProgramMy Research

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Department

Message

Audience

Department

Message

Audience

Department

Message

Audience

Department

Message

Audience

Old thinking

Organization: Programs, offerings

Audience

Messages

Audience Audience Audience

New thinking

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Content strategy is

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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User experience is

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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Digital is

CHANGE MANAGEMENT

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•  What’s here?

•  Is it useful?

•  If I was looking for something specific, could I find it?

h$p://blog.hostelbookers.com/travel/how-to-pack-your-backpack/

•  Is anything here relevant?

•  Does this meet my current needs?


ß2008

ß2008

ß2012

ß2012ß2012

ß2014ß2013

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The content I was really looking for


2004

2007

2010

•  290-page PDF•  Updated every year

•  Where is the member handbook?

Why Websites Get Cluttered

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Your content may be valuable, but how will visitors know to dig for it if they don’t know it’s there?

10. “That information is valuable!”

http://www.tuppersteam.com/relocation-information/colorado-outdoors/42-funniest-ski-outfits/

You may have paid a lot for this outfit back in 1982, but you don’t even ski anymore!

9. “I spent a long time creating that”

More reasons for clutter8. Last-minute rush7. No process for reviewing6. “The Internet is free”5. Changing leadership4. Moving too fast to look back3. Understaffed2. No understanding of negative impact


“I removed the link, so the content must have disappeared from the system”

#1 reason

Excuses for Keeping Content“Imightneedtorefertoitsomeday.”

“Imightneedtocreatesomethinglikethisagain.”

“Noonehasgivenmepermissiontoremoveit.”

“Thepersonwhocreateditdoesn’tworkhereanymore.”

“Imightbreakalink.”

•  Less is more

•  See what you have

•  Enjoy and use it all

•  Stay organized

•  Cull and replace as necessary

The Beauty of a Cleaner Site

Empathy-Based Audience Personas

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•  Shared focus on the audience

•  Shared understanding of the audience

49h$p://www.slideshare.net/est3ban/empathybased-personas-gaining-a-deeper-understanding-of-your-audience-presen

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Anthony Susan

Allen

Maggie

Other ways to bring in audience knowledge

•  Customer feedback•  Customer service information•  Satisfaction surveys•  Direct contact – by you and/or your

colleagues/client

Business Knowledge and Goals

•  Strategic goals, mission statement•  Stakeholder interviews

– Management– Content owners– Site and content managers–  IT

http://www.bluefroglondon.com/queerideas/the-fundraising-paradox/

http://xkcd.com/773/

Content goalsEach piece of content needs a clear, explicit reason to exist

Example content goals•  Bring in revenue•  Encourage joining or renewing membership•  Inspire more people to register for the event•  Increase the number of articles each visitor

reads•  Raise the quality of job applicants

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5 Whys

h$ps://www.pinterest.com/pin/86483255319117458/

Keep asking “why”•  Why are you publishing this content?•  Why?•  Why?•  Why?•  Why?

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The real goal is in there somewhere

Making the goal measurable

How will you know it’s successful?•  Reached the audience in the channel that

matched their expectations•  Users took the step you wanted them to take•  They were more satisfied with your organization•  They called customer service less•  They bought more stuff from you•  They shared your information

An example

•  Site redesign required a news article for each update on the home page

•  Volume of news articles they published overwhelmed the staff

•  Viewership to each article was relatively low•  Would fewer articles mean fewer views?

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Turning goals into KPIs1. Benchmark where you are now

–  Content performance–  Pain points–  Tie back to business

2. What will constitute success?–  Envision the desired goal–  Make it measurable!

Group Exercise•  Who•  What•  When•  Where•  Why•  How

Who?•  What roles needed?

– Content strategist– Organizational stakeholders (management/

goals focused)– Analytics– SMEs (content creators)

Who?•  Who would use or be affected by:

– Content creators– UX team– Visual designers– Front-end and back-end developers– Management

Who?•  Who would use or be affected by:

–  Stakeholders–  Hidden stakeholders (who’s impacted by content –

e.g., customer service, assistants of content owners)–  Managing decisions about publishing or keeping

content–  Those managing analytics/business intelligence–  Marketing and branding

What?•  (UW example – produced by Marketing)•  Business goals for someone applying

– Do they actually apply? Does the site help or hinder the process

•  End user goals: does the university meet their needs, should they consider it?

What?•  Different content types on the site (colleges, hospitals,

etc. – each dept/program has different content)•  Make sure internal people can access our

documentation and use it? Excel? PPT?•  How do we remember? Build in the goals/actions to the

content workflow (e.g., tagging)

When?•  Yesterday•  Before a redesign, after a transition or CMS move•  When the org has new strategy or business goals•  Not sure how often

When?•  Ongoing, ideally, as part of content curation (sharing,

keeping content)•  If you create content that you don’t end up using, it’s a

waste of resources•  CMS update, web redesign, new strategic direction or

goals

Where?•  Data sources:

– Analytics (chartbeat, Google Analytics)– CMS – Commercial tools

•  Qualitative data– User feedback

Where?•  Data sources:

– CMS Excel file with all URLs, or dev team can crawl the site

– Social media sites– Customer feedback– Search and site analytics

Where?•  Where to store the audit:

– Somewhere shareable (but maybe not editable)

•  Where do you get the resources to do the audit?– Making it a priority for the organization

Where?•  Where to store the audit:

– Team wiki accessible to all stakeholders– Wherever the org stores long-standing reports

•  Where do you get the resources to do the audit?– Making it a priority for the organization

Why?•  So we don’t have information overload•  To determine relevant content•  To identify what’s fresh, accurate•  To consider what might be missing•  Does it reflect current research/strategy (market

segmentation, customer feedback, branding)

How?•  What can be automated: if large, inventory through a tool•  What junior people can do: assess content for ROT after

more senior people create criteria•  Break down large website into sections, have SME

responsible for smaller part•  Establish offline archive or intranet for content that needs

to be “parked” offline, so it can still be retrieved in the future

How?•  Automated with tools – high-level analytics•  Also, go through the sitemap and look at the

high-level pages to identify where to dig in•  A junior-level person can do some of the deep

dive, a senior person makes the decisions

Content Audits

Content InventoryQuantitative data gathering

Gather what you need to accomplish your goal

Automate as much as possible

Bring together information from multiple sources

Don’t underestimate the level of effort!

Inventory data elements•  Content elements

– Page title– URL– CMS template– H1 tag–  Images, docs

– Word count– Metadata (description,

keywords)– Taxonomy tags

Inventory data elements•  Publish information

– Date created– Date last updated– Content owner– CMS publisher– Access level (public, password-protected, etc.)– Word count

Inventory data elements•  Analytics

– Unique page views over a one-year period–  (or average visits per month)

Become an Excel wizard•  Concatenate•  Bring multiple data sources together

Google Analytics expertise•  De-duplicate capital/lowercase URLs•  Remove parameters

(may need admin account access)

Inventory sources•  CMS report•  Google Analytics•  Screaming Frog <https://

www.screamingfrog.co.uk/>•  CAT <http://www.content-insight.com/>•  Blaze <https://www.blazecontent.com/>•  Trim <https://www.gettrim.co/>

“comparison”Content elements

Publish info Analytics data (included or integrated)

CMS report xGoogle Analytics x xScreaming Frog xCAT x xBlaze x xTrim x x

What can we learn from the inventory alone?

Document your observations•  What can you see from the inventory

– URL structure– Docs vs HTML*– Age and use– Metadata (page title, description, keywords)– Word count*–  Images

Let’s look at some real examples

Now, on to the audit•  Qualitative•  Roll up your sleeves

What might we assess?•  Description•  Topic•  Audience•  Is it on-brand?•  Content quality•  Content effectiveness•  Goal achievement

What might we assess•  Feedback categories

– Editorial – Metadata – Design – Strategy– Goals/CTAs

Potential assessment outcomes

•  Notes •  Recommended action (keep, revise,

archive, delete, other)•  Client override, if any, with rationale

Before you decide, ID criteria•  What does content quality mean?•  When should content expire?•  What are your readability standards?•  Who will own the taxonomy?•  What is the relationship between content

types and CMS templates?

Start to develop theories•  What content types exist •  Lifecycle rules•  Skill gaps•  Governance needs

(Almost all) content should follow a lifecycle

h$p://bit.ly/content-lifecycle-worksheet

http://www.contentstrategyinc.com/how-to-audit-for-content-quality/

Content Quality Audit Template

http://bit.ly/content-assessment-scorecard

An assessment shortcutInvest time up front to create scorecards for qualitative areas: editorial quality, readability, degree to which the content is on-brand, etc.

What will you have when you’re done?

•  Findings and recommendations report– Themes– Successes– Areas for improvement

•  Content matrix with lots of comments and numbers

Next steps•  Present findings to content owners, let

them review the audit in detail and request modifications

•  Gap analysis – topics, customer journey stages, audiences, goals

Comparative Content Analysis

Who?•  Competitors•  Peers•  Similar offerings•  Other industries

What to look atSimilar to your assessment, but less depth

– Quality– Audience-centricity– Voice and tone– Credibility– Accuracy, timeliness

OutcomeComparative audit findings report

– Formal report– Presentation– Scorecard spreadsheet– SWOT analysis

What about the other approach?

•  Figure out the new site•  “Shop” for content in the existing site •  Create the rest

•  At launch, your content will be awesome, but will it still be good over time?

•  You may have to $ for content creation – will it be consistent and accurate?

•  Not training your content owners or managers to create better content

Resources•  Audit spreadsheet template

http://bit.ly/content-audit-spreadsheet•  Content lifecycle criteria worksheet

http://bit.ly/content-lifecycle-worksheet•  Content quality audit template

http://www.contentstrategyinc.com/how-to-audit-for-content-quality/•  Content assessment scorecard

http://bit.ly/content-assessment-scorecard•  Content Audits and Inventory Handbook by Paula Land

https://www.amazon.com/Content-Audits-Inventories-Paula-Ladenburg/dp/1937434389/

•  Lessons Learned from a Massive Content Audithttp://www.mindalee.com/2014/12/lessons-from-a-massive-content-audit/

Thank you

Hilary Marsh@hilarymarsh

[email protected]