In recent years, there’s been a lot of talk about the role of data and analytics within the marketing world. That can sound a little daunting, a little technical—but here’s what it all boils down to: When you spend money to send marketing content out into the world, you need some way of assessing whether or not it’s working. You need some way to measure your ROI. Only then can you make revisions and course corrections as necessary, ensuring your marketing efforts are lean and efficient.

That’s what all the data talk boils down to—but even if you’re not a data gathering pro or an analytic monster, you can still take some basic steps to ensure that your online marketing efforts are bearing fruit.

Something that many content marketing professionals recommend is a content audit—something you can do once per year. The goal is basically just to take a step back, evaluate what is and isn’t working in your marketing, and make changes as needed. You can do this any time, of course, but since we’re still in the early days of 2016, maybe the right time for your content audit is now.

It Starts with Goals

Before looking at individual content structures, it’s helpful to assess your content goals. That provides you with the necessary reference points for your content audit and your ongoing marketing efforts. Just ask yourself: What exactly are you trying to do with your marketing efforts? How do you define success?

Consider some possible goals:

• Driving traffic to your website;
• Building thought leadership within your industry;
• Improving SEO and Google rankings for your website;
• Discovering the best forms of content for engaging your social media followers;
• Continuing to send traffic to your old content even while developing new content.

Think about what you want to achieve, and let that direct your content audit.

Additional Tips for a Content Audit

Once you have a clearer picture of what you are trying to do, take some of the following steps:

• Wrap your head around all the content you’ve produced. Think about all the places your content might be published—your blog, your website, platforms like LinkedIn Pulse, press releases, and guest posts on external blogs. If possible, create a spreadsheet or database to keep tabs on all your content.
• Actually lay your eyeballs on individual pieces of content—all of them, if you can. Check to see if your posts are still relevant, or if they need to be updated. Make note of obvious formatting errors or areas where you’re missing out on SEO opportunities—pages without meta descriptions, without some good internal and external links, etc.
• Proofread your content—not just for obvious grammar and spelling errors, but also for broken links. Make corrections and revisions as needed.
• As you read through old content, write down any ideas you have for new content—spin-offs, expanded posts, or new takes on older topics.
• If you have an analytic dashboard set up—even something fairly simple, like Google Analytics, or Facebook’s built-in metrics—spend some time reviewing the content that has performed best and worst for you. Use that information to brainstorm future content, and to make a strong content creation plan going forward.

If you want to have a more in-depth conversation about ways to improve your marketing, of course—you can always contact us. We’re more than happy to assist.

Check out our recent article on Why Content Is King.