{"id":2614,"date":"2026-05-19T23:23:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T23:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joannaralston.net\/portfolio\/?p=2614"},"modified":"2026-05-20T15:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T15:24:16","slug":"content-auditing-a-hypothetical-how-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joannaralston.net\/portfolio\/content-auditing-a-hypothetical-how-to\/","title":{"rendered":"Content auditing: A hypothetical how-to"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"2614\" class=\"elementor elementor-2614\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-9026249 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"9026249\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-8fbc18d\" data-id=\"8fbc18d\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a63ba75 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"a63ba75\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div>Discovery of a content audit in Excel. A hypothetical how-to.\u00a0<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><div>One of the first things a UX or content writer can do when they onboard is conduct an audit. Conducting audits can help you learn about the company in a shall we say, more intimate way. Conducting audits gives us a great way to learn the voice and tone of the company you&#8217;re working for, but also how they adhere to a style guide (AP, Chicago, a mishmash?).<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><div>Let&#8217;s go over how we may approach conducting a content audit from a strategic, UX perspective.<\/div><div>We&#8217;ll pretend we work for a fictional insurance company and want to conduct a general audit, as well as a specific discounts audit.\u00a0<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><h2>What we want to discover:<\/h2><div>Overarching message category (payment, enrollment, activation, account settings, etc.)<\/div><div>What&#8217;s the purpose of the message, and how can we communicate it using the least amount of words possible? Brevity is key.<\/div><div>What action caused the message, for example: Account, User Action, User or Backend Error, etc.<\/div><div>Highest level content description<\/div><div>Examples are confirmation, action request, remediation, welcome, etc.<\/div><div>General level of messaging importance: high, medium, or low.<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><div><strong>What we&#8217;ll audit:<\/strong><\/div><div>Subject Line<br \/>Message Headline<br \/>Message Description<br \/>Action <br \/>Hierarchy<br \/>Character count<br \/>Succinctness<br \/>Reading Level<br \/>Accessibility Rating<br \/>Accessibility Notes<br \/>Clarity<br \/>Voice<br \/>Tone<br \/>Overall Quality<br \/>Strategic Recommendations<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><h2>Situational audit<\/h2><p>This next section, we&#8217;ll work through a user experience discovery. Let&#8217;s imagine we&#8217;re tasked with finding out how long it will take to learn about a certain discount a user may want to know about.\u00a0<\/p><h2>Discovery of discounts<\/h2><div>Questions to keep in mind<\/div><div>What terms do you use or look for?<br \/>What path\/links\/pages do you choose to discover this insurance offering?<br \/>Do you notice any promotion about this discount as you peruse the pages?<\/div><h2>What are the goals?<\/h2><div>To see how a business will promote new offerings\/content.<\/div><div>How easily are discounts made discoverable?\u2003<\/div><div>\u00a0<\/div><h2>How to conduct a content audit<\/h2><p>This type of audit requires you to dig into the user journey of discoverability. If we want to learn how long it takes for a user to discover a discount.\u00a0<\/p><div>Work with design partners in Figma, Miro, or other collaborative software.<\/div><div>Map out the project roadmap.<\/div><div>Map out the customer journey.<\/div><div>Make updates based on feedback from several stakeholder sessions.<\/div><div>Iterate and reiterate based on the business and the customer&#8217;s needs. Find a middle ground that incorporates best practices, especially with accessibility and overall user experience in mind.<\/div><div>Create mock-ups of updated content. Send any update suggestions to user testing.<\/div><div>Continued iterations with partners based on findings.<\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Discovery of a content audit in Excel. A hypothetical how-to.\u00a0\u00a0One of the first things a UX or content writer can do when they onboard is conduct an audit. Conducting audits can help you learn about the company in a shall we say, more intimate way. Conducting audits gives us a great way to learn the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Content auditing: A hypothetical how-to - Joanna Redmond Portfolio<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joannaralston.net\/portfolio\/content-auditing-a-hypothetical-how-to\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Content auditing: A hypothetical how-to - Joanna Redmond Portfolio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Discovery of a content audit in Excel. 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