Completing a content audit

This process is for Victorian Government organisations on or migrating to SDP.

1 What your content must be
2 What content doesn’t need auditing
3 Why complete a content audit
4 What to include in your audit

What your content must be

Migrated content must be:

up to date – reviewed in the last 6 months
meeting Victorian Government standards – like style guide, readability and accessibility standards
unique – it doesn't already exist on another Victorian government website
owned by your department - to ensure content is accurate, approved and not duplicated
relevant and accessed – has at least 1,000 sessions annually. There are exceptions to this.

What content doesn’t need auditing

Exceptions can be made for specific content that has low traffic but is required for transparency. This includes:

Why complete a content audit

Auditing your website content helps to figure out:

the scale of the migration
how your content is performing and whether it fulfils an ongoing user need
whether any content needs work to meet government standards
what content should be merged or archived.

What to include in your audit

You can create your own or you can use the SDP audit template:

The basics to include in a content audit are:

page title
URL
date page was created
date page was last updated
Google Analytics metrics for previous 12 months, such as session numbers, bounce rate and average time on page
reading level of content (your department might have a tool to support this. Microsoft and Hemingway are other free options)
any media embedded on page, such as documents, images and videos.
any complex functionality, such as webforms, iframes, data tables, maps.
a decision on whether to migrate, merge or archive the content.

All pages flagged for migration must meet readability, accessibility and style guide standards. Any edits needed to meet these standards must be made by your content team.

Once you have completed your audit, an SDP team member can review and provide feedback.