Website Content Audit/Review

People expect to find accurate information and working links on our site途 they don鈥檛 want broken links or content that is old, incorrect or doesn鈥檛 meet their needs.

Our goal is to provide user-颅focused, concise information in a clear, organized way.

Keeping content fresh and accurate requires regular maintenance and review. Neglect has caused many departments/groups to have redundant, outdated or irrelevant content on their websites.

If you're responsible for your department/unit website, you must regularly review, reassess and refresh content. 

Remember: Less (content) is More!

Less content:

  • improves communication, findability, usability and usefulness.
  • is easier to maintain.
  • is easier to measure.

Webpages with excessive, irrelevant information provide the opportunity for a search engine to return the wrong result and for a user to end up on the wrong page.

  1. Generate a Content Audit

    Contact Us for a content audit. Our office will generate a content audit for you to review your site

  2. Review each page, keeping in mind

    Is this relevant to the audience?

    • Determine who the audience is (it cannot be 鈥渆veryone鈥) and ask: What are they looking for? What do they need? How will they use this information?
    • Our website exists for the end user.
    • Always keep the end user in mind when creating and posting content.

    Is this the most accurate, up-颅to-颅date information available?

    • Review all content, paying close attention to old events or news listings, newsletters, guides, policies, department and academic program information, faculty/staff listings, contact information, photos, video.

    Is this content unique? Can it be consolidated?

    • Avoid duplicating identical or similar content. It hinders search, usefulness, usability and relevance, and is harder to maintain.
    • Don鈥檛 have two pages on your site with identical/almost identical content.

    Can this be simplified? Is it written and structured appropriately for the web?

    Is this communicating clearly?

    • Does the content meet your communication goals. If not, remove it. When content doesn鈥檛 communicate, it confuses.

    Is this in an appropriate format?

    • Evaluate the types of content on your site 鈥 text, video, photos, slideshows, interactive guides, PDFs, social media 鈥 and consider whether the format is appropriate for the topic and the audience.

  3. Clean out your OU folders

    Delete all old webpages, photographs, documents and anything else you don鈥檛 or won鈥檛 need from your OU folders. Some items are visible only on the production server, so check there, too. 

    If you鈥檙e uncomfortable deleting information forever, create an archive document (Word/Google doc) and move the content there. It will still be accessible to you, but it will be out of the way of search and public audiences.

  4. Create new content

    Once you have thoroughly reviewed and updated your content, create any new content you feel your audience needs.