Content Audits: Quantitative and Qualitative

Where an inventory catalogs what exists, a content audit assesses it. A quantitative audit counts, how many pages, how many belong to each topic or content type, how many use a given template, and is useful mainly for scoping a project and estimating its cost. A qualitative audit rates the actual quality of content: how well it fits its target audience, how current and accurate it is, how credible it feels, and how well it serves both user and business goals, typically on a five-point scale for each dimension.

Quantitative audits are quick. Qualitative audits require real human judgment about every piece of content you review, which makes them far more labor-intensive, so the scope of a qualitative audit has to be chosen deliberately, focusing effort where it will matter most rather than attempting to rate everything equally.

Counting your content tells you how big the job is. Judging your content tells you which parts of the job are actually worth doing.

Exercise

The scenario: A nonprofit organization is preparing a new fundraising campaign and wants its website content to support the campaign's goals. They have one content manager available for two weeks. The website has 400 pages across six sections; some sections are strategically critical to the campaign, others are peripheral to it.

Given the two-week, single-person constraint, which approach makes the best use of the content manager's time?
Try It With Your Data: Audit Framework

Fill in your own details below; the prompt updates as you type. When it's ready, copy it into Claude or whatever AI tool you use.

What this prompt is made of (RICE breakdown)
R

Role

Casts the AI as: You're a content strategist experienced in content audits and inventory management.

I

Instructions

Spells out exactly what to analyze and return.

C

Context

Organization, Trigger, Known issues and Constraints tell the AI what your specific situation is, not a generic one.

E

Expected format

Complete audit methodology with templates

e.g. "all developer-facing API documentation"
One objective per line
Which content types are in scope
e.g. "content published since 2022"
Where the content lives
One criterion per line
What you need out of this audit
e.g. "50-person B2B SaaS company"
What prompted this audit
Problems you already suspect
Time or resource limits
Assembled prompt

        
        
      
Try It With Your Data: Multi-Pass Audit Strategy

Fill in your own details below; the prompt updates as you type. When it's ready, copy it into Claude or whatever AI tool you use.

What this prompt does

Design phased audit approaches for complex content audits, breaking analysis into focused passes that build on each other: structure → category-level → cross-category relationships.

  • Large content audits (100+ pages)
  • Complex IA with multiple interconnected sections
  • When single-pass analysis would be overwhelming
  • When different aspects need different evaluation criteria
What content is in scope
Whole number of pages/items
Brief description of the existing structure
Problems worth investigating
One objective per line
Assembled prompt

        
        
      
Try It With Your Data: Quality Assessment

Fill in your own details below; the prompt updates as you type. When it's ready, copy it into Claude or whatever AI tool you use.

What this prompt is made of (RICE breakdown)
R

Role

Casts the AI as a content quality analyst with expertise in the domain you enter in the Domain field (for example, API or developer documentation standards).

I

Instructions

Names 5 specific outputs to produce, so the response comes back structured rather than a general summary.

C

Context

Content type, Target audience, Last updated and Traffic/importance tell the AI what your specific situation is, not a generic one.

E

Expected format

Structured assessment with actionable findings

e.g. "fintech API"
Paste the content, or describe it
What accurate means for this content
What complete means for this content type
Your writing quality bar
How fresh this content needs to be
How you measure whether users succeed
e.g. "tutorial", "reference"
Who uses this content
e.g. "March 2025"
If known
Assembled prompt

        
        
      
Try It With Your Data: Standards Compliance Check

Fill in your own details below; the prompt updates as you type. When it's ready, copy it into Claude or whatever AI tool you use.

What this prompt does

Use this prompt when: Starting a new content audit project.

  • Auditing content against Diátaxis framework
  • Checking compliance with documentation standards
  • Validating content types are correctly categorized
  • Identifying content that doesn't fit established patterns
e.g. "Diátaxis", "our internal style guide"
Paste the standard's definition or a link to the guidelines
Paste the content or inventory, with content types noted
Assembled prompt