Content Audit

Overview

Content strategists work along with designers and engineers and their focus is on the content that appears on a site or product. Content strategy entails the planning, development, and management of content typically in digital media (e.g., websites, social media, etc.), so relevant content is displayed to the right audience at the right time. For example, with a website, they might help clients define the story they want to tell and then help them prioritize positioning that content so it resonates with their visitors best. To do this well, content strategist engage the client/stakeholders to understand them, their goals, and their users in order to craft the right content.

Content strategists are professionals who work at a macro level to plan, design, and manage content that meets organizational needs. These professionals are responsible for issues such as adapting an organization’s message to its ethos, planning and organizing information storage and dissemination, monitoring the internal and external reception of content, and coordinating delivery and maintenance of content over time. Content strategy positions are new, growing, and available across a wide-range of industries. In this project, you will get practical experience with one important aspect of content strategy: auditing existing web content for an organization. Content strategists address everything from research, business goals, the engagement process, target personas, user flows, information architecture and more but they start with a content audit.

Some advice from professionals about content audits:

What Am I Supposed to Learn Through This Assignment?

In Monster.com, the list of skills required for content strategists include writing, marketing, communication, strategic planning, analysis, presentation/verbal skills, team player, time management, social media, and leadership. This assignment aims to help you cultivate some of the important skills you will need to work as a content strategist in high-tech, mid-tech, or low-tech contexts, with a focus on analysis. Even if content strategy is not likely a long term goal for you, this project will help you build marketable skills that will inform your future work as a social media writer, a technical communicator, or a copyeditor in the future. 

The Deliverable

For this assignment, you will turn in a link to a Google Sheets Document that identifies, categories, and evaluates all existing web content for your internship organization. In class, we will discuss the descriptive and evaluative categories that you should use in your spreadsheet, and you will have time to set up your initial spreadsheet and to practice using it. Your deliverable should also be well designed and readable with attention to issues such as font, style, and usability for a professional setting where others will be using your work in the future.

Each author will be responsible for a report that focuses on an analysis of the site for which they created an inventory. Your sections should begin by answering general questions about your inventory: How many pages does the website have? How many and what type of content assets are there (images, videos, documents) and what pages are they associated with? How many pages link to or out of each page?

After answering questions regarding amount and type of content, please provide an overview of what your content audit reveals about the qualitative aspects of the website. What is working well and what could use improvement? You should answer the following questions: What audiences are addressed through the content? Are there multiple audiences that are addressed?  What knowledge level is assumed for these readers? Is the content readable? Is the content usable? What are some issues that might cause usability problems? Is the content consistent and relevant for the audiences that these websites are trying to target? Is the content (both visual and written) with the organizations strategic goals?

Format

Submission