Approach to content audit method

[pglevy]

When reviewing for what templates might be appropriate, I realized the steps outlined in the content audit method are pretty different from what we or the content strategists actually do. So let's figure out what we want this method to be.

[pglevy]

Some input from Andrew and Susan for reference:

That is interesting. I guess it depends on what the purpose/scope of the audit is, but when I've done them it's been less "task" focused and more about getting a general sense of the quality of content on the site. I guess one evaluation criteria you could include in an audit is how well content addresses specific use cases, I just haven't seen it recommended this way. Maybe the intention is to define the scope?

I've certainly never done this for an entire website audit. The data for #3 and #4 is not often available at that granular level. (That's a big analytics challenge.) Also perhaps overkill for an entire site audit.
I have done something similar to this for an iterative improvement or perhaps new product or service in a commercial context - where the content is supporting a sale or uptake of a particular process.
Then you are dealing with a much smaller universe and more targeted questions. A task focus works well where this is a specific engagement you are driving - i.e. donate, register, join, buy - and where the goals align with key KPIS.
For me this is tailored well to content marketing, for example, a situation where you have a full content strategy in play including online adds, automated communications - nurture/lifecycle - campaigns, social, events tracked and scored through connected systems like Salesforce with the website, website site behavior tracking, etc. For example, tracking the engagement of potential customer through various decision making stages before they do something, like applying and enrolling in school program. Content from communications and website etc were all being tracked through Salesforce/Marketo etc - so there is a a full feedback loop.
For full site audits, I tend to focus on value based on whether content on the page substantively meets the general expectations, quality of the content based on best practice and performance if possible.