Last updated on March 6th, 2016 at 06:48 pm
Why not present your next content audit program as a problem solving exercise? You’ll not only find solutions to your immediate content problems, but you’ll also find solutions to problems faced by some of your B2B colleagues in other departments.
Problem: A content/audience mismatch
You may producing a ton of online content for your B2B audience, but are you sure it’s the right content for them? A content audit helps you identify content for your actual target B2B audience and not just the one you think is reading.
How to solve it
Develop B2B audience personas if you don’t have any.
Assign a priority to each persona.
Determine how engaged each persona would be with your content based on the medium used, their knowledge of the topic, their interest in the topic, and anything else relevant for your B2B brand.
Create content based on the persona priority and their engagement level.
Problem: An unclear B2B site structure
An unclear, confusing site structure can turn off any reader, even if they really want to read what you’re producing. They can’t read it if they can’t find it.
How to solve it
Create a list of your website’s pages and assign them a number based on their hierarchical position on the site. For example:
| Home pageMain product page
Product 1 Product 2 Blog Blog post 1 Blog post 2 Blog post 3 Resources White papers: White paper 1 White paper 2 Quick reference cards Quick reference card 1 Quick reference card 2 |
Now look at the list. Are you lost in the path to find resources or the blog? Or anything else? Well, if you’re confused, you can be sure your readers are as well.
Reorganize the pages and content, ensuring that your best content is easily accessible.
Bonus: You’ll also be able to see any gaps in your website or online content, and can better plan to fill those gaps in the future.
Problem: Low (or no) social shares
Marketers like to harp on social media shares, saying they’re THE most important thing out there right now, but that’s not always the case. Your social media goals should be tailored for your B2B market and your organization’s growth plan.
What is the same for everyone though, is the tracking of social shares, especially if you’re serious about creating and connecting with a community.
How to solve it
Map your social media and business goals to your content marketing KPIs and other trackable stats.
Look for positive correlation between the numbers of social shares and links to each type of marketing content (blog post, website page, landing page, sign up page, etc.)
Analyze which of your audience members seems most and least engaged on social media. Do they match up with your B2B audience personas?
For the ones that are very engaged, note what type of content and topics seem to resonate most with them, then be sure to produce more of it.
For the least engaged groups/personas, see if you can determine why they’re not very engaged. Is it because they’re on a niche platform you’re not aware of, or perhaps they’re not typically active on social media, but prefer getting their content another way?
Based on your findings, adjust your B2B content production and publication accordingly.
Problem: Few (or bad) backlinks to your content
By this point in your content audit and analysis, you’ll have a good idea of what content gets your audience excited and sharing. A high rate of backlinks to your B2B website could signal a problem, especially if they’re coming from a spammy site. Plan on retooling/revising your content to eliminate those backlinks. If you don’t have a backlink strategy, then you can use your audit to see which content you’d like to promote and get backlinks to in the first place.
How to solve it
List the sections/pages of your B2B website you believe should be getting quality backlinks. This includes resource materials like case studies or white papers, web pages like your About Us or main Product page, blog posts, and more.
Count how many backlinks the content received, noting in particular which ones are underperforming and which have a high number of backlinks.
Looking at the underperforming content, evaluate why your audience doesn’t consider it link-worthy. Is it the topic, the format/medium, or something else?
Test changes to the underperforming content until you get the results you want. That may mean a complete overhaul, a slight revision, or even retirement until you can create something else they’ll like better.
Map out the people/sites that link to your B2B content and see what conclusions you can draw from them. Again, is it the topic, the format/medium, the fact it had a high share rate on social media, or something else?
Looking at the high-performing content, are the backlinks from high- or low- quality sites and people? If they’re from spammy sites, you’ll want to distance yourself from them as they’re affecting your SEO scores. Use SEO best practices to heal those pages and content.
Problem: Not enough resources to produce the right amount of B2B content
Management always wants to see “numbers” when you ask for more resources, right? So the next time you want to ask for more marketing resources, use the data from your latest content audit to quantify it in terms and numbers they’ll understand and increase the odds of getting the approval.
How to solve it
Pick out any B2B content gaps you identify in your content audit. That might be new web pages that need to be created, ones that must be revised, or additional resources that should be produced, like case studies and white papers.
Map the content to your B2B organization’s business goals and targets. It’s always good to tie in resource requests to the organization’s bottom line. Frame your resource requests in terms of the B2B content you need to produce, your marketing programs, and business goals.
