A short guide to content audits

It comes up on almost every project, usually later than it should. Everything we would tell a client about content audits in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

Content is the part of a project most likely to be underestimated and most likely to delay a launch. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

What it costs to ignore

Most sites have pages nobody has read in years. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

Where to start

Consolidate, update, or remove. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

Warning signs

Thin content drags down the pages around it. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. If two people in the business would answer this differently, that gap is the actual problem.

In practice

Pages that answer a real question outlive pages written to fill a slot in a sitemap. Three things worth confirming about content audits before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Consolidate, update, or remove — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.