What is a content audit?
In a content audit, you review everything you’ve published to make sure it’s accurate, relevant, and accessible. The audit process we recommend here focuses on:
- Redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) content
- Broken links
- Accessibility issues
- Creating a “backlog” of potential content improvements
A content audit is not a redesign
In a redesign, you imagine and design content that better meets the needs of your audience. An audit is more of a cleanup. Audits make redesigns easier by reducing the amount of content you manage.
Note: This guide assumes you’re auditing a website. However, you could adapt it to other forms of published information, such as paper letters or documents.
Who should run a content audit?
Your organization should run an audit if you:
- Want to redesign or reorganize content
- Have heard complaints that constituents find your content hard to navigate
- Want to update their content to reflect a major change (e.g. a new service, new organization name, new policy, etc.)
You may not need an audit at all if your content is managed well. If you have a team that regularly fixes broken links, updates old pages, and reviews feedback, then you’ve likely avoided problems that audits reveal.
Step 1: Gather your team
Most organizations will need to set up a cross-functional team that includes:
- Someone who knows how to use the systems your content is managed in
- Expertise in content accessibility
- Subject matter expertise
Large audits benefit from a project manager to coordinate work and navigate complex approval processes. Smaller audits may be able to get by with a single content manager who consults with subject matter expert colleagues.
Step 2: Create an inventory of the content your auditing
A content inventory is a list of content that your audit will cover. If you’re auditing your Mass.gov content, you can export a CSV of all your pages or documents.
For each item on your list, track:
- If there are broken links. This is relevant for more than just webpages: Documents can list URLs that no longer point at the right location (or at any location).
- If there are accessibility issues. For Mass.gov audits, use the Editoria11y report to help find issues.
- Redundant, obsolete, trivial (ROT) content. This is content that needs to be updated, removed, or combined.
- Notes or other issues. Anything else you want to track, including questions for SMEs, other data or metrics you have access to, etc.
Step 3: Refine the inventory
You probably don't need to audit everything in an inventory. For example, an inventory of your webpages might include things like news items or old events. You can remove these from your inventory.
Step 4: Create a “content backlog”
We recommend making a content backlog. This is a place for you to track issues that you want to fix but that are beyond the scope of the audit. (Remember, the audit focuses on fixing ROT, broken links, and accessibility issues).
For example, you might notice that a page is a huge, intimidating list of links. You’re fairly sure nobody can easily navigate this page. You can add “Fix link dump” to your backlog.
You can use a spreadsheet for your backlog or some other work tracking software. The backlog should include the following information:
- Task: What needs to be done
- Details: An extended description of the task, including any details you might need later when you set out to do it, such as URL(s).
- Priority: How important is it (e.g. “low,” “medium,” “high”)
- Level of effort: How easy will it be to do?
- Who added this: Teams of more than 1 person should keep track of who added what. This helps you know whom to ask for more information when you return to address a task later.
The backlog helps keep work manageable. Adding something to a backlog sets an intention to address it. It also keeps the audit moving, since you don’t pause every time you need to address an issue. Teams that don’t use backlogs can easily get distracted trying to fix every issue they encounter.
Step 5: Run the audit
In this step, we evaluate each item in our inventory for ROT, broken links, and accessibility. We’re done with this step when we’ve collected this information for everything in the inventory.
Step 6: Fix what you found
Finally, go through your inventory and address all the issues.
Broken links
Mass.gov authors can use Siteimprove to locate and fix your broken links. You may need a similar tool if auditing documents or webpages hosted somewhere else.
Accessibility issues
Mass.gov authors can use Editoria11y to find and fix accessibility issues. If you’re auditing content on another platform, use another web accessibility tool like the WAVE browser extension.
Move issues that take a long time to fix to your backlog
Some issues may require more time, effort, or coordination to fix. For example, if you find 4 documents that contain overlapping content, you may want to combine them. This kind of rewrite can take weeks. Add this kind of item to your backlog and assign an appropriate priority and level of effort.
Addressing ROT: Unpublishing or removing items
Your ROT evaluation will likely turn up things you want to get rid of. Be aware that unpublishing or deleting content also affects other, connected content. If you need to unpublish a webpage:
- Find out what links to that webpage. Update or remove these links. (If you’re working in the Mass.gov CMS, you can use Pages Linking Here to help.)
- Find out if other channels link to the webpage. Your call center might direct traffic to it. A paper letter might send traffic. You’ll need to revise these, too.
- Redirect the webpage you’re removing to another page. This will help search engines stop showing the old page faster.
Next steps: Set up a routine quality assurance process and work on backlog items
Once you’ve finished your audit, set up processes that will help avoid conducting another one. For example, you can:
- Conduct regular quality assurance checks for broken links and ROT
- Set up a review process for all new items that ensure they are accessible. Providing accessibility training to anyone who publishes for you can help, too. (It’s more efficient to design accessibly than remediate later.)
- Set up an editorial process where, when new content is published, you verify that all related content is updated