The Go Mobile process begins with a content audit. I’m here to share with you what that involves and how it informs everything that follows.
The audit process
We start by taking an inventory of all the pages on a site. One of our web content officers systematically goes through it to collect information for each page, such as:
- the page title
- its level in the site structure
- when it was last updated
- its overall content quality (measured against our content standards)
- whether there’s any content embedded or being fed in from elsewhere
- whether it’s linked from the menu
- if it links to any documents
We make an assessment of each page and recommend whether it should be retained, improved or deleted.
For pages marked for improvement we’ll also provide some context, or a recommendation for how the page could be built using the new content types.
The resulting spreadsheet is a riot of colour…
Acting on the audit
When the audit is finished, the auditor sits down with the project manager to go through the findings.
The project manager uses the outcome of the audit to work with the site’s owners and editors to agree the next steps.
The information gathered in the audit helps us to:
- restructure sites
- inform work needed before migration into T4
- identify where we can improve content
The audit also provides a snapshot of the size and complexity of a site at a specific point. Having this information gives us a benchmark we can compare the new site to after it’s been through Go Mobile.
How you can help
Editors of websites due to go through the Go Mobile process can help us out with a bit of spring cleaning.
For tips, read Lisa’s post ‘Decluttering Your Website: How to Prepare for Go Mobile’
