B2B Content Audit: Ultimate Guide

What is a B2B content audit?

A B2B content audit is a systematic examination of all your B2B marketing content. This includes things like blog posts, white papers, case studies, and even videos. The goal is to assess the performance, relevance, and overall impact of this content on your marketing goals.

There are two main parts to a strong B2B content audit: data analysis and qualitative assessment.

Data Analysis:

• Metrics: This involves looking at website analytics and other data sources to see how your content is performing. Key metrics include page views, dwell time, bounce rate, organic traffic, and keyword ranking.
• Content Inventory: You’ll need to create a comprehensive list of all your B2B content assets. This should include details like format, topic, publication date, and author.

Qualitative Assessment:

• Content Relevance: Is the content still up-to-date and relevant to your target audience’s needs and industry trends?
• Content Quality: Is the content well-written, informative, and engaging? Does it meet the standards expected by B2B buyers?
• Alignment with Goals: Does the content effectively support your overall marketing goals? Is it optimized for lead generation or brand awareness?

By combining these elements, you get a clear picture of your content’s strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to make informed decisions about what content to keep, update, optimize, or remove altogether.

In the fast-paced world of B2B marketing, where well-informed buyers make complex purchasing decisions, having a strong content strategy is crucial. This is where a B2B content audit comes in. It’s a critical tool that helps you understand how effective your existing content is in achieving your marketing goals.

Here’s why a B2B content audit is important:

• Avoid Wasting Resources: Imagine creating great content that nobody sees because it’s buried on your website or irrelevant to your audience’s needs. A content audit helps identify these underperforming pieces so you can optimize or remove them, freeing up resources for content that will resonate with your target audience.
• Boost ROI: By understanding what content converts and what doesn’t, you can focus your efforts on creating high-performing content. This ensures you get the most return on investment (ROI) from your content marketing efforts.
• Stay Ahead of the Curve: Industries and buyer needs constantly evolve. A B2B content audit helps ensure your content stays relevant and up-to-date with current trends. This keeps you ahead of the competition and positions you as a thought leader in your B2B space.
• Improve Lead Generation: Effective content attracts qualified leads. A content audit helps you identify content gaps and areas for improvement, allowing you to create content that addresses your target audience’s pain points and guides them through the buyer’s journey.
• Build Brand Credibility: Outdated or inaccurate content can damage your brand reputation. A B2B content audit ensures your content is trustworthy and reflects your brand expertise. This fosters trust with potential B2B buyers.

Overall, a B2B content audit is an investment that pays off in the long run. It helps you optimize your content marketing strategy, maximize its impact, and achieve your B2B marketing goals.

What are key elements in a B2B content audit template?

A strong B2B content audit template should incorporate elements that assess both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of your content. Here are the key elements to consider:

Content Data:

• Page Title: Capture the title of the webpage or content asset.
• URL: Include the web address where the content is located.

Technical Data:

• Meta Title: This is the title displayed in search engine results pages (SERPs).
• Meta Description: This is the brief summary that appears under the title in SERPs.

Targeted Audience:

• Buyer Persona: Identify the ideal customer profile (ICP) this content is targeting.

Performance Data:

• Organic Traffic: See how much traffic this content receives from search engines.
• Page Views: Track the number of times this page has been viewed.
• Bounce Rate: Measure the percentage of visitors who leave after viewing only one page. Ideally, this should be low.
• Dwell Time: This shows the average time users spend on the page, indicating engagement.
• Conversions: Track how many leads or sales this content generates (if applicable).
• Social Shares: See how much this content is being shared on social media platforms.
• Backlinks: Track the number of other websites linking to this content, which can impact SEO.

Qualitative Assessment:

• Content Relevance: Is the content still up-to-date and relevant to your target audience’s needs and industry trends?
• Content Quality: Is the content well-written, informative, and engaging? Does it meet the expectations of B2B buyers?
• Content Accuracy: Verify that the information presented is factually correct and free of errors.
• Call to Action (CTA): Does the content have a clear and compelling CTA that encourages users to take the desired action?
• SEO Optimization: Is the content optimized for relevant keywords and search engines?

Action Plan:

• Action Needed: Based on the data and qualitative assessment, determine what action needs to be taken for each piece of content (e.g., keep, update, remove, optimize).
• Priority: Assign a priority level to the action items, considering factors like impact and urgency.
• Due Date: Set a target date for completing the recommended actions.

By incorporating these elements into your B2B content audit template, you can create a comprehensive and data-driven analysis of your content. This will empower you to make informed decisions about your content strategy and achieve your B2B marketing goals.

What is a B2B content audit checklist?

A B2B content audit checklist is a step-by-step guide to ensure a systematic evaluation of your B2B marketing content. It helps you assess the effectiveness of your content in achieving your marketing goals. Here are the key elements of a B2B content audit checklist:

Preparation:

1. Define Goals: This involves setting clear objectives for the audit. Do you want to improve SEO, generate more leads, or identify content gaps? Knowing your goals helps determine the data and aspects to focus on.
2. Gather Resources: Compile the tools you’ll need, such as website analytics tools (e.g., Google Analytics), SEO tools, and a spreadsheet program to organize your findings.

Content Inventory:

3. Identify All Content: Create a comprehensive list of all your B2B content assets across different formats (blog posts, white papers, case studies, social media content).
4. Content Details: Include details for each piece such as title, URL, format, publication date, and author.

Data Collection:

5. Website Analytics: Gather data on key metrics like organic traffic, page views, bounce rate, dwell time, and conversions (if applicable) for each content piece using analytics tools.
6. Social Media Performance: Track social media shares and engagement for your content to understand its reach.
7. Backlink Analysis: Use SEO tools to check the number of backlinks each content piece has, which can impact search engine ranking.

Qualitative Assessment:

8. Content Relevance: Evaluate if the content is still relevant to your target audience’s needs and current industry trends.
9. Content Quality: Assess the writing quality, information accuracy, and overall user experience of each content piece.
10. Content Alignment: Ensure the content aligns with your brand message, marketing goals, and buyer journey stages.
11. Call to Action: Check if the content has a clear and compelling call to action (CTA) that guides users towards the desired action.

Action Planning:

12. Action Recommendations: Based on the data and qualitative assessment, determine the recommended action for each content piece (e.g., keep, update, remove, optimize).
13. Prioritization: Assign priority levels to the action items, considering factors like potential impact and urgency.
14. Timeline & Ownership: Set due dates for completing the recommended actions and assign ownership for each content piece.

Reporting & Follow-up:

15. Document Findings: Organize your audit results in a clear and concise report for easy reference and future tracking.
16. Schedule Re-audit: Establish a timeframe for revisiting your content audit (e.g., annually or biannually) to monitor progress and adapt your strategy.

Following this checklist ensures a well-organized B2B content audit that provides valuable insights to optimize your B2B content marketing efforts.

What is an example of a B2B content audit?

Here’s an example of a B2B content audit conducted by a company called Contently, a SaaS company specializing in content marketing solutions:

Challenge: Contently, like many companies, had a vast library of content built up over time. However, they weren’t sure how effective this content library was in achieving their goals. They suspected a significant portion of their content might be underperforming.

B2B Content Audit Process: Contently decided to conduct an internal content audit to identify areas for improvement. Here’s what they did:

• Content Inventory: They created a comprehensive list of all their content assets, including blog posts, ebooks, case studies, and webinars.
• Data Analysis: Contently used website analytics tools to examine key metrics like page views, bounce rate, dwell time, and social media shares for each content piece. This helped them understand how users were interacting with their content.
• Qualitative Assessment: They reviewed the content for factors like:
  • Relevance: Is the content still up-to-date and relevant to the current needs of their target audience?
  • Quality: Is the content well-written, informative, and engaging for B2B buyers?
  • SEO Optimization: Is the content optimized for relevant keywords to improve search engine ranking?

Results: The audit revealed some surprising findings:

• A significant portion of their content (around 22%) had very low traffic and engagement, indicating it wasn’t resonating with the audience.
• However, they also discovered some high-performing content pieces that were driving valuable leads.

Impact: Based on these insights, Contently took strategic actions:

• Content Revamp: Instead of creating entirely new content, they focused on revitalizing existing high-performing pieces. This involved updating information, improving SEO optimization, and potentially refreshing the format for better engagement.
• Content Removal: For low-performing content, they decided to remove it from their website. This helped declutter their content library and avoid confusing visitors with irrelevant information.
• Content Repurposing: They identified opportunities to repurpose successful content formats into different formats like infographics or videos to reach a wider audience.

Effectiveness: By focusing on optimizing existing content and removing underperformers, Contently achieved significant results:

• Cost Savings: Revamping existing content proved to be more cost-effective than creating entirely new content pieces.
• Improved Content Performance: The revamped content saw a significant increase in user engagement and lead generation.
• Streamlined Content Library: By removing irrelevant content, they created a more focused and valuable content library for their target audience.

Contently’s B2B content audit demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach. By taking a data-driven and qualitative look at existing content, companies can identify hidden gems, optimize what’s working, and remove what’s not. This allows them to maximize the return on their content marketing investment and achieve their B2B marketing goals.

What are B2B content audit questions?

Here are some key questions to consider when conducting a B2B content audit, categorized into different sections:

Content Inventory and Data Analysis:

• Content Inventory:
  • What types of content do we have (e.g., blog posts, white papers, case studies, infographics)?
  • Where is this content located (website, social media, other platforms)?
  • Who is the author/owner of each content piece?
  • When was each content piece created or last updated?
• Data Analysis:
  • What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) for our content (e.g., page views, organic traffic, bounce rate, dwell time, social media shares, leads generated)?
  • Which content pieces are performing well based on these KPIs?
  • Which content pieces are underperforming?
  • Are there any content gaps based on our target audience and marketing goals?

Content Relevance and Quality:

• Relevance:
  • Is the content still relevant to our target audience’s needs and current industry trends?
  • Does the content address the pain points and challenges faced by our B2B buyers?
  • Is the content aligned with the different stages of the buyer’s journey (awareness, consideration, decision)?
• Quality:
  • Is the content well-written, informative, and engaging for B2B audiences?
  • Is the content visually appealing and easy to understand?
  • Are there any grammatical errors or outdated information?
  • Does the content accurately reflect our brand voice and messaging?

SEO Optimization and User Experience:

• SEO Optimization:
  • Is the content optimized for relevant keywords that our target audience is searching for?
  • Are meta titles and descriptions compelling and informative?
  • Does the content have internal and external links to other relevant resources?
• User Experience (UX):
  • Is the content mobile-friendly and easy to access on different devices?
  • Is the content formatted for readability with clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points?
  • Does the content have a clear call to action (CTA) that guides users towards the desired action?

Action Planning:

• Based on the data and qualitative assessment, what action needs to be taken for each content piece (e.g., keep, update, remove, optimize)?
• What is the priority level for each action item (high, medium, low)?
• Who is responsible for taking action on each content piece?
• When should each action be completed?

Additional Considerations:

• Does the content comply with current accessibility standards?
• Does the content align with our overall content marketing strategy and goals?
• Are there any legal or compliance considerations related to the content?

By answering these B2B content audit questions, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your content and create a data-driven plan for improvement. Remember to tailor the specific questions to your unique business goals and target audience.