Content Inventories and Audits | Glossary

What Are Content Inventories and Audits?

A content inventory and audit is a two-step process that reveals what assets your business uses online – such as blog posts, social media posts, and landing pages.

During the content inventory phase, you create a complete list of your digital content and each item’s characteristics. You can keep this information organized by putting it into a spreadsheet.

During the content audit phase, you evaluate your assets to determine which pieces of content perform well and which fall below expectations. The audit phase also gives you opportunities to identify gaps in your content marketing strategy. You perform the audit so you know which assets to keep as they are, which items you should update for better performance, and where you can add content to improve your marketing funnel.

Steps to Conduct a Content Inventory and Audit

A comprehensive content inventory and audit can take days to complete. It’s a bit time-consuming but not as challenging as it might seem at first. You can make the job much easier by taking each step in order instead of trying to rush ahead of yourself.

Step 1: Identify Your Content Assets

Make a list of every content asset you own. More often than not, this involves going through every page on your website. Reading that likely gave you a sense of dread. Going through every page?! That sounds like a nightmare.

Ideally, you have a sitemap that will make this step straightforward.

If you don’t have a sitemap, your CRM might have a feature that can do the hard work for you. Several tools can also automate the process for you. Try well-known options like:

• XML-Sitemaps
• Inspyder Sitemap Creator 5
• DYNO Mapper

If any of this feels intimidating, set a daily time limit so you spend a reasonable amount of time identifying your content assets without neglecting other tasks.

Step 2: Add Attributes to Your List

Content inventories and audits should lead you to insights that improve your content strategy’s performance. You will need to collect data about your content to reach that goal.

For each piece of content listed on your spreadsheet, try to find information about its:

• Current URL
• Format (video, landing page, PDF, etc.)
• Most recent update
• Metadata (meta description, SEO title, alt text, etc.)
• Author or owner

You should also add a column that describes the content’s primary content. For example, if you manage a website about recovery options for substance use disorder, you might include the substance or recovery method discussed in the article.

Step 3: Look for Duplicates

You don’t need duplicate content on your website. If you have similar content, review it to determine which one you will keep. Alternatively, you could combine them to create one impressive page for your site.

Step 4: Find Opportunities for Improvement

What topics haven’t you covered yet? Scripted Pro Monthly users have access to keyword research tools that help them identify trending topics. If you don’t have content on your site about those topics, you can plan to order them soon to improve your site’s performance.

You can also find opportunities for improvement by identifying content that doesn’t perform as well as expected. Scripted Team Monthly users gain access to performance tools that make analytics a breeze.

If you don’t want to sign up for a Scripted Team Monthly subscription, you can analyze individual pages with a free plan.

Keep in mind that all Scripted features come built into the platform. You don’t have to bother switching between tools or juggling multiple screens simultaneously. Scripted puts everything in one dashboard so you can research and order content as easily as possible.

Benefits of Content Inventories and Audits

Even when you use tools that automate steps for content inventories and audits, you can still plan to spend quite a bit of time working on your project. Is it actually worth the effort?

Yes!

Some benefits you might experience after conducting content inventories and audits include:

• Improved SEO that moves your content closer to the top of search engine result pages (SERP)
• Better organic search visibility that improves your content marketing ROI and reduces the amount of money you need to spend on pay-per-click (PPC) ads
• More persuasive, engaging content that teaches readers important information or encourages them to reach out to you for help
• Higher conversion rates that can improve revenues, brand reputation, and word-of-mouth advertising
• More efficient and effective content structures (for example, you might discover places in a blog post where it makes sense to include links to other materials)

The truth is that you never know what opportunities for improvement you might find. That’s the point of listing all your content assets and KPIs. You don’t know what you’re missing until you get an overhead view of your site.

If you need new content to improve your site, just ask Scripted’s headline idea generator to give you ideas. It will give you a list of headlines and titles. Then, just click “start order” to have AI or subject matter experts create content for you.

We"ve streamlined every aspect of the content ideation and creation process so you get the content you need as soon as possible.

Recommended Readings

A Step-by-Step Guide to Conducting a Content Audit in 2023

What Is a Brand Audit, Why It’s Important, and How to Perform One

Why the Smartest Marketers Have External Writing Teams

Content Audits: How, When, and Why You Need Them