Content inventories are the cornerstone of content strategy. They enable the content strategist to really dig into the content and understand what is going on. Together with other discovery activities such as stakeholder interviews and domain modeling workshops, they also form the basis for findings and analysis as well as roadmap recommendations.
Content Inventory: This document captures information on content that resides on a website, including the volume of current state. Analysis of the inventory helps formulate the goals and objectives for the future state. It provides a basis for many other content strategy deliverables.
Typical format: Microsoft Excel
Example: Content Inventory – by Type. This inventory uses the content types as a basis for an inventory. This is useful for small sites, but larger sites will require an inventory based on the overall website structure.
Content Audit: Based on the content inventory, an audit provide additional evaluative information (e.g. content quality) that can be used to create content strategy frameworks or roadmaps.
Typical format: Microsoft Excel
Example: Content Audit. This audit is a content inventory based on site structure, with additional (subjective) information regarding content quality.
Photo: Tree and Mt. Kilimanjaro. Amboseli National Park, Kenya