As we learned yesterday, the first step down the road of better web content is the content audit.
So, what are the next steps? How does one get started on auditing content?
Well, first let’s talk about the two questions we posed yesterday:
- Do I have the content my user is looking for?
- Does that content accomplish what it needs to?
These two questions are the starting point for what we call the Quantitative Audit and the Qualitative Audit.
A Quantitative Audit is designed to identify holes in your content and to answer the question: do I have what my user is looking for? To start with your quantitative audit, here are a few first steps:
- Create a Word or Excel spreadsheet to keep track
- Fill in your spreadsheet’s first column with your new site map (if you’re doing a new website)*
- Go down this spreadsheet like a check list: do you have all the content for the pages in your new site map?
- Once you’ve identified the holes, you can start to organize your content for upload into a new website or you can start to ask the harder question posed by the Qualitative Audit: does this content accomplish what it needs to?
* If you are doing the audit after you’ve already launched your website or before you have a new site map, use your current site map and take a look at any industry standards that are available (for economic development, IEDC spreadsheets fit this bill). From the IEDC spreadsheets (or other standards), you can identify whether there are pages of information that your current site map is missing–add these to your document.
Let’s pause here so that you can collect your thoughts and your content. Watch for the Qualitative Audit soon.