Strategic Solutions for B2B Success: How to Conduct a Website Content Audit in 5 Easy Steps

A company’s website is often the first point of contact for potential clients, investors, future employees, vendors, and partners. Beyond aesthetics and functionality, a website reflects a company’s brand, values, and Unique Value Proposition (UVP).

A website should be an extension of a strategic communications strategy that reflects the story of your business. But how do you know if your company’s website is hindering or helping your online presence?

You need data, and that starts with a website content audit. By examining and assessing critical elements like engagement and content quality, you can understand what’s working and create a strategy to fix what’s not.

1. Inventory Categorization

A logical flow of the right website content in the right order reinforces a company’s UVP.

• Create a comprehensive inventory of all existing content on your website, including pages, blog posts, articles, and multimedia elements.
• Categorize content based on themes, topics, or product/service offerings.
• Identify any outdated or redundant content that may need to be removed or consolidated.

Remember, you need more information to ensure the effectiveness of your communication efforts. If the audience needs clarification about your company’s core identity and offerings, they will be fine moving on to your competition. 

2. Quality Assessment

Content can’t be king if the quality isn’t there.

• Evaluate the quality of written content, ensuring it is accurate, relevant, and aligns with your brand’s tone and voice. 
• Check for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and formatting issues. 
• Assess the readability of content, considering the target audience and industry standards.

Remember, above all else, that the tone, voice, and content of a company’s website are more than stylistic choices – they are strategic decisions that convey the brand’s personality and resonate with the target audience.

While there are a plethora of tools to help with content creation, it’s best to proceed with caution. Grammar tools, like Grammarly, can misalign tone and voice in an attempt to achieve clarity, making your content too corporate. Likewise, poorly written or jargon-filled content (I’m talking to you, ChatGPT) will leave visitors with a fragmented understanding of the brand. Remember, customers want solutions – not drivel.

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Content cannot do its job if you neglect SEO and forget to include keywords – the words your customers use to search for solutions to their pain points.

• Review each piece of content for keyword optimization and relevance to your target audience. 
• Ensure meta tags, meta descriptions, and header tags are appropriately used for search engine optimization.
• Identify opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords and improve on-page SEO elements.

However, do not go overboard with keyword use and commit the cardinal sin of keyword stuffing. Google considers this akin to spam, and your site will drop in search rankings. Instead, be strategic in your SEO efforts:

• Use long-tail keywords or synonyms for variety.
• Keyword tools like Google’s Keyword Planner can provide insights if you get stuck.

Query platforms like Answer The Public give you insights into keywords and potential content ideas.

4. Engagement and User Interaction

MeDM prides itself on creating data-driven strategies, so we recommend looking at your data for insights into what’s working and what’s not.

• Analyze user engagement for each piece of content, including bounce rates, time on page, and social shares – Google Analytics is a great tool.
• Identify high-performing content and analyze what elements contribute to its success.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of Calls-to-Action (CTAs) within the content and optimize where necessary.

If the data is not significant (as in, there isn’t enough traffic to generate relevant data), that speaks to the need for a deeper dive so you can create a cohesive communication strategy.

5. Content Gap Analysis and Strategy

Gone are the days when content could be relentlessly churned out by copy monkeys… or even the days when people intrinsically understood a decent Simpson’s references (“It was the best of times.. it was the blurst of times?! You stupid monkey!”) 

Today’s customers and search engines are savvier, prioritizing quality over quantity. Content must be tied to a strategy that serves a greater purpose (e.g., solving customer pain points) – it cannot be AI-generated nonsense whose only purpose is to fill an empty content bucket.

• Identify gaps in your content coverage, ensuring the most relevant topics and customer pain points are addressed.
• Develop a content strategy based on the findings, outlining plans for creating new content, updating existing content, and removing obsolete material.
• Consider how the content aligns with your overall business goals and marketing objectives.

Don’t forget about visuals and design

Remember, assessing content is just one side of the coin when analyzing website performance and quality. On the other side are visual and design criteria, which include everything from site performance elements like responsive design and load speed to image and colour palette choices to the User Experience (UX).

Effective business websites must marry compelling content to user-friendly design and functionality to be successful

Your Online Presence, Refined: Unleash the Power of Improvement with Our Expert Content Audit

MeDM offers a courtesy audit for any company looking to up its digital game. Let us assess your online presence and reveal the untapped potential in your messaging, tone, and content strategy. 

Remember, your website is not just a digital storefront – it’s a reflection of your brand’s essence, and together, we can make it speak volumes.

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