It’s important that your audit delivers actionable outcomes. So as well as scoring against the criteria, you need to make a judgement about what to do with it.
On this page...
The four categories for your content
In most cases, I’d suggest breaking it down into four categories:
- Keep as is
- Improve
- Delete
- Archive
You’ll need to choose which criteria qualify a piece of content as keep, improve, delete, or archive. I’ve included a recommended approach that you can use or adapt for your content.
Keep as is
I would judge a piece of content as ‘keep as is’ if it’s getting a perfect score across the board. That means it needs to meet each of the criteria in the list below.
In practice, this means that not much content gets marked as ‘Keep as is’. Depending on what’s important to you, you might want to relax your ‘Keep as is’ criteria a bit.
- Does it reflect your strategy? = Yes
- Does it work towards a business/organisation goal? = Yes
- Goal completion rate = acceptable
- Will the page help the reader with something they want to find/learn/do? = Yes
- Do the H1 heading, standfirst, and sub-headings feature words and ideas that match the user’s goal? = Yes
- Does the page contain essential information that the organisation needs to communicate? = Yes
- Is the page up to date? = Yes
- Is the information accurate? = Yes
- Are facts and claims evidenced? = Yes
- Is there too much or too little information? = Just right
- Is the information in the right order? = Yes
- Are there typos, grammatical mistakes, etc.? = No
- Is the information structured clearly with sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets, tables, etc.? = Yes
- Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and/or Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease = acceptable
- Do all images have appropriate alt text? = Yes
- Do all videos/audio have subtitles? = Yes
- Is there good colour contrast? = Yes
- Does this page work for a screenreader? = Yes
- Is the link text specific? (For example not ‘more information’, ‘click here’, ‘find out more’, ‘read more’) = Yes
- Are there mid-sentence links? = Yes
- Does it use sentence case? (‘This is a title’, not ‘This Is A Title’ or ‘THIS IS A TITLE’) = Yes
- Is language inclusive and empowering when it comes to race, age, gender, sexuality, faith etc.? = Yes
- Does the content represent a wide range of people when it comes to race, age, gender, sexuality, faith etc.? = Yes
- Does the content have an appropriate title tag and meta description? = Yes
- Would someone who doesn’t know how to use this site be able to find this page from the homepage without using site search? = Yes
- Does this page show up on page 1 of Google if you search for the key search term? = Yes
- Does the H1 heading represent the page in an accurate, engaging way? = Yes
- Does this page show as well as tell? = Yes
- Are the images high quality and relevant? = Yes
- Does the content speak about the reader, or to them? = Yes
- Is there a relevant call to action or next step? = Yes
- Is the brand voice recognisable? = Yes
- Is the tone appropriate to the subject matter and context? = Yes
- Is the house style being followed? = Yes
Improve
I would judge a piece of content as ‘Improve’ if:
- it’s useful to the user
or
- it meets a business/organisation goal
or
- it contains essential information
and
- it’s up to date
but
- it has less than perfect scores for any of the other criteria
This means you’re likely to end up with a long list of content to improve. We’ll talk about how to prioritise this module 12.
I would mark old news stories, press releases, reports, etc. as ‘Improve’ as this is content with a date.
- Does it work towards a business/organisation goal? = Yes, Somewhat
or
- Will the page help the reader with something they want to find/learn/do? = Yes, Somewhat
or
- Does the page contain essential information that the organisation needs to communicate? = Yes, Somewhat
and
- Is the page up to date? = Yes, Somewhat
and if any of:
- Does it reflect your strategy? = Somewhat, No
- Do the H1 heading, standfirst, and sub-headings feature words and ideas that match the user’s goal? = Somewhat, No
- Is the information accurate? = Somewhat, No
- Are facts and claims evidenced? = Somewhat, No
- Is there too much or too little information? = Too much, Too little
- Is the information in the right order? = Somewhat, No
- Are there typos, grammatical mistakes, etc.? = Yes, Somewhat
- Is the information structured clearly with sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets, tables, etc.? = Somewhat, No
- Do all images have appropriate alt text? = Somewhat, No
- Do all videos/audio have subtitles? = Somewhat, No
- Is there good colour contrast? = Somewhat, No
- Does this page work for a screenreader? = Somewhat, No
- Is the link text specific? (For example: not ‘more information’, ‘click here’, ‘find out more’, ‘read more’) = Somewhat, No
- Are there mid-sentence links? = Somewhat, No
- Does it use sentence case? (‘This is a title’, not ‘This Is A Title’ or ‘THIS IS A TITLE’) = Somewhat, No
- Is language inclusive and empowering when it comes to race, age, gender, sexuality, faith etc.? = Somewhat, No
- Does the content represent a wide range of people when it comes to race, age, gender, sexuality, faith etc.? = Somewhat, No
- Does the content have an appropriate title tag and meta description? = Somewhat, No
- Would someone who doesn’t know how to use this site be able to find this page from the homepage without using site search? = Somewhat, No
- Does this page show up on page 1 of Google if you search for the key search term(s)? = Somewhat, No
- Does the H1 heading represent the page in an accurate, engaging way? = Somewhat, No
- Does this page show as well as tell? = Somewhat, No
- Are the images high quality and relevant? = Somewhat, No
- Does the content speak about the reader, or to them? = Somewhat, No
- Is there a relevant call to action or next step? = Somewhat, No
- Is the brand voice recognisable? = Somewhat, No
- Is the tone appropriate to the subject matter and context? = Somewhat, No
- Is the house style being followed? = Somewhat, No
Delete
I would judge a piece of content as ‘Delete’ if:
- it’s not useful to the user
and
- it does not meet a business/organisation goal
and
- it does not contain essential information
and/or
- it’s not up to date
and/or:
- it’s getting less than 20% of pageviews of the average page or in that section
- it’s getting less than one pageview per week
These are crude formulas but can be useful for highlighting pages with minimal traffic. Use your best judgement to determine if it's the right way to go for your site and content.
When choosing content to delete, I would also factor in what’s happening for the rest of the section. For example, if you have a section of inter-connected content about a topic, it might not make sense to delete some pages and keep others purely based on traffic.
Delete: News and blog posts
You might also want to treat news stories differently. In most instances, you probably only really need the last 12 months’ worth of news stories (unless you’re a news-driven website). Blog posts can also fall into a similar category (unless the whole site is a blog).
If you have old news stories and blog posts that still get a lot of traffic, look at whether you can repurpose the content into an evergreen format.
Archive
Archiving is for content that’s still business critical but doesn’t need to be public. By archive, I mean store the content somewhere other than your website. This might apply if you’re in a regulated sector. Other examples are old annual reports, meeting notes, etc.
The benefits of deleting content
Deleting content might sound scary, but it’s great for these five reasons:
- It’s good for users: Less content on the site should make it easier to search and browse.
- It’s good for you: A smaller site is easier to manage and keep up to date.
- It’s good for reducing risk: Old, outdated, unloved content can represent a risk for some sectors. If you’re hoarding old content, it might contain outdated, inaccurate information that puts you at risk of doing harm to your users, and your reputation. It could even mean a lawsuit in a worst-case scenario.
- It’s good for the environment: The servers, data centres and other infrastructure it takes to operate a website all use energy and create carbon (unless you’re using a green provider). Plus, page views create carbon. According to Website Carbon, The average web page produces 1.76 grams CO2 per page view. For a website with 10,000 monthly page views, that’s 211 kg CO2 per year. Just keeping content online uses energy, so if that content isn’t being used, or isn’t relevant anymore, that’s a waste. Stop hoarding and get rid of it.
- It’s good for SEO: Getting rid of low-quality content can have a positive impact on your organic search performance. Removing low-quality content means the chance that someone will have a poor user experience is lower. Google uses user experience indicators as a ranking factor, and the quality score of your domain should improve.
World Wide Waste, Gerry McGovern
How digital design affects the climate.
Estimate your web page carbon footprint.
How to determine if a page is "low quality" in Google's eyes, Rand Fishkin
What are the factors Google considers when weighing whether a page is high or low quality?
Whether or not to delete content, Lauren Pope
Whether or not to delete content is one of those ‘big’ content questions. What’s the right answer?
Before you move on...
Draw up your criteria for keeping, improving, deleting, and archiving content. Think about how you might need to treat specific content types or site sections differently. See section 5 in your planner.
(The planner is linked on the content audit toolkit homepage.)