Content review is unavoidable and a mandatory task. Because it is the single most important driving factor that directs people to a page, best practices mandate that you ensure your monetary and time investments that create content have impact and remain relevant over time. This absolutely means setting timelines for reviewing content and identifying which ones can be improved.

Content review is challenging. You must update your list of what makes content high quality based on Google algorithms. Some struggle with the core elements that matter. There is a universal focus of areas that should not be neglected and over time need to be enhanced.

Specific characteristics such as relevant keywords, good spelling and appealing layouts are associated with what is considered to be good content. Here are 3 steps on how to define those targets, measure the performance and assess your changes in a review process.

Step 1: Know your audience

This is the most important step because without this you are literally doomed. Identifying your target audience is the key to everything. It should shape the foundation of your content. Insight into the reader’s intent and how to convey your message through this is what you need to achieve.

To arrive to this point, you first need to answer the following questions:

Why are they reading my content?

What does my target audience look like?

Step 2: Reassess and update your existing content

Once you have defined your audience, you can assess your existing content. It’s important to identify the components you should keep, discard and update. Take into consideration, of course, the performance of your components like tone of voice, continuity and design. They should all fall into the spectrum of moderate improvement. One of the most effective ways to evaluate and measure the degree of optimization needed for these components is to create a scorecard. Make sure it contains the current applicable Google best practices for measurement and it should be a direct, reusable and easy to apply tool that can objectively assist you in reviewing the performance of your content.

Step 3: Evaluate your evaluation

Be ready to edit. The fundamental fact about assessing content it that it never – ever – ends. Edits could lend you to deviate away from initial strategies and that’s not always a bad thing. However, you should continuously monitor your updates to ensure that you are on the right track to create highly valued content.

It is efficient to evaluate your material when 50% of the edits are complete and then again at 85%. This will get you to the finish line and your content should be robust and ready to publish. When you’ve completed this task you should look through your revisions and ask the following questions:

Am I using the right language and tone of voice?

Does it look like the information is structured correctly (hierarchically)?

Am I still addressing the needs of my target audience?

Are my target keywords properly integrated?

Moving forward

No two pieces of content are exact but that does not mean there does not exist important commonalities, either. Being able to identify these parallels and understand the role they play across all layouts and topics will lead the way to developing your own review process for evaluating subjective material.