Content auditing and marketing strategy creation walkthrough

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Prerequisites 

  • Get access to Optimizely Content Recommendations. 
  • Install the tracking script on your website to activate content processing.

Introduction

This walkthrough guide explains how Content Recommendations can help content strategists and marketers conduct real-time content auditing and design content marketing strategies.  

  • Real-time content auditing – Content strategists can leverage the content dashboard to reach their content production target, saving costs and time for their company. 
  • Content marketing strategy design – Content marketers can use the insight dashboard to view actionable insights on visitor activities and use this data to produce quality content and improve media planning.

Real-time content auditing 

Imagine you are a content strategist at OptiGrowth Media, a digital marketing company specializing in conversion rate optimization (CRO). Your primary objective is to drive measurable improvements in client conversion rates across various digital channels. Your team consistently produces approximately 200 pieces of content annually. 

An analysis of Q4 2024 content performance revealed that A/B testing was a top-performing topic, particularly within blog posts, generating significant organic traffic. To leverage these insights and set the stage for impactful experimentation, OptiGrowth Media established the following goals for Q1 2025:

  • Allocate 30% of OptiGrowth Media's total content production efforts in Q1 2025 to topics directly related to A/B testing. 
  • Ensure that 15% of this A/B testing-focused content, equating to 4.5% of total Q1 content production, is published specifically as blog posts. 

Problem

Despite the clear Q1 2025 objective to dedicate 30% of your content production to A/B testing, manually auditing content output is a significant problem. The current process of extracting URLs, populating spreadsheets, and manually tagging content for A/B testing is slow, resource-intensive, and produces delays in strategic decision-making. This manual effort prevents real-time monitoring and risks missed opportunities to capitalize on high-performing topics like A/B testing.  

Solution

By using the content dashboard within Optimizely Content Recommendation, you gain immediate, real-time visibility into the thematic focus of OptiGrowth Media's content library. Select a time period and view your topic's ranking during this time to identify the exact percentage of content dedicated to A/B testing. Using filters, you can also identify the percentage of blog posts that was dedicated to your chosen topic, eliminating the need for manual auditing. Additionally, by using the topic performance graph, you can instantly identify if your content supply for a given topic meets audience demand. 

Results 

The real-time content intelligence lets you precisely track progress towards 30% of your content production to focus on A/B testing in Q1 2025, with 15% of it within blog posts. You reallocate resources from manual auditing to content creation and optimization, saving costs in agency fees. You can also use insights into other high-performing topics to refine content strategy, directly supporting organic traffic growth for A/B testing content.

Select Q1 2025 time period 

  1. Go to Content > Content Dashboard.

  2. Select Custom Period from the Show Content Imported Between... drop-down list. Choose a time range between January 1 to March 31, 2025. 

  3. Click Apply.

  4. View the content dashboard and data tables for Q1, including the number of processed content items, total number of topics extracted from these items, the top-performing topics, sources, and top-performing sections.

View your topic's ranking

To gain more visibility into your topic's coverage, A/B testing, in the total content production, go to Content > Content Dashboard and scroll down to the Topics table to view the data for Q1. The table displays the top 10 high-performing topics for Q1. If you do not see your topic in this list, click + View More to find your topic. 

In this example, you can see A/B testing only accounts for 9.79% of the total content production in Q1 and is the 30th best-performing topic. 

Apply filters 

Now, you want to see how many content items containing A/B testing were processed by Content Recommendations during Q1. Scroll up to the filter section and complete the following actions:

  1. Select Topic from the Select a Field... drop-down list. 
  2. Select is at least one of condition from the conditions drop-down list.

  3. Select A/B testing from the list of topics. Click Apply. 

  4. View the dashboard to see the number of content items processed containing A/B testing. You can see only 38 content items were processed during this time period. 

  5. Scroll down to the Topics table again to view other high-performing topics. This can help you identify which topics are performing well and use those to design an improved content strategy. You can also add these topics to a topic selection by clicking Add to Topic Selection. You can use the selection to view the performances for these topics only. 

Now that you identified the number of content items processed during Q1 that contained A/B testing, you can use additional filters to identify the type of content processed in the same time period. You can create a Section containing your topic and assign a Flow to the section, ensuring your section only contains blog items with A/B testing. When you create a section with a specific Flow, it displays as the screenshot below:

To find the data for this section, complete the following on the Content Dashboard:

  1. Select Topic from the Select a Field... drop-down list. 
  2. Select is at least one of condition from the conditions drop-down list.
  3. Select A/B testing from the list of topics.
  4. Click + (AND) and select Section from the Select a Field... drop-down list.
  5. Choose is at least one of condition from the conditions drop-down list.

  6. Choose the section Section Topic: A/B testing from the list of sections. Click Apply.

  7. View the dashboard to see the number of blog posts that were processed during Q1. You can see that only 8 blog posts covering A/B testing were processed.  

  8. Use the following formula to identify the percentage of blog posts that covered A/B testing in Q1:
    $$\text{Percentage} \;=\; \frac{\text{Content items in Q1 with selected Topic \& Section}}{\text{Total content items in Q1}} \times 100$$

    Using the example data and the formula above, you can calculate the percentage:
    $$\text{Percentage} \;=\; \frac{8}{388} \times 100$$

    $$\frac{8}{388} \approx 0.0206185567$$

    $$0.0206185567 \times 100 \approx 2.06185567$$

Based on this data, you can infer that only 2.06% of the blog posts focused on A/B testing during Q1 2025. 

Outcome

Using the filters, you identified that only 9.79% of your content production focused on A/B testing during the first quarter of 2025. Additionally, you also discovered that 2.06% of these contents are blog posts. This means your goal for Q1 2025 (30% of the content production focusing on A/B testing, with 15% of those as blog posts) are not being met. You can use this data to optimize your content production by reallocating resources and producing more blog posts with A/B testing, driving organic traffic to your website.

Use the Topic Performance graph

You can also use the Topic Performance graph in the Insight section to gain real-time insights into your visitors' engagement with a selection of topics. As content strategist, you wrote content items with the topics, Artificial intelligence, Customer experience, Discover, and Ecommerce in Q1 2025. You can create a topic list to identify the exact number of interactions visitors had with each topic and compare these interactions with the performance of other topics. In this way, you can use the graph to enhance user satisfaction and retention by delivering relevant content suggestions, ultimately increasing conversion rates and feature adoption.

Create and save a topic list

In the Topic Performance graph, the blue bubbles representing topics above the dotted line indicate that you have an excess of content on these topics, but limited visitor engagement. Topics below the dotted line indicate you have more visitor curiosity on these topics, but a shortage of content, indicating you need to publish more content pieces containing these topics. 

To create your topic list with the selected topics, complete the following:

  1. Go to Insights > Topic Performance. The graph displays. 

  2. Enter your topics in the search bar and click them from the Topic list. Their performance will appear in the graph, highlighted as yellow bubbles for easy identification.  

  3. Expand the save icon and click Save Selection.

  4. Enter a Title, for example, Q1 2025 hot topics, for the selection and click Save Selection in the dialog prompt. Select the checkbox if you want to share the topic selection with other members of your organization. 

Outcome

You can use the saved topic selection to track the performance of your topics across different quarters. This also lets you identify other high-performing topics and incorporate them into future content plans, ensuring you create high-quality content that aligns with audience demand.

Content marketing strategy design

Now, imagine you are a content marketer at OptiGrowth Media. Your overarching goal is to continuously refine and optimize the content strategy to maximize client conversion rates and strengthen the company's market position. 

For Q1 2025, your critical focus is on identifying and amplifying high-performing content to match audience demand. This involves the following approaches:

  • Determine which specific topics are resonating most effectively with your audience and which content types, like blog posts, interactive guides, or case studies, are best suited to deliver that information.
  • Understand which of your high-performing content types are attracting visitors from Google and LinkedIn, as OptiGrowth allocates a significant portion of its media budget to advertising on these platforms. 

Problem

Currently, you use Google Analytics to gauge content performance and activity. While Google Analytics provides essential metrics like visitor numbers, traffic sources, and user behavior, it falls short in offering thematic insights. It does not directly reveal OptiGrowth's most visited topics or which content items cover them. This gap makes it challenging to identify high-performing topics and content formats for Q1 2025. Additionally, it is challenging to determine which of these are effectively attracting visitors from your key paid channels, specifically Google and LinkedIn. Without this, optimizing your content strategy and media budget is a constant struggle.

Solution

Use the Insight Dashboard within Optimizely Content Recommendations to gain actionable insights into top-trending topics across your content items, performance by content section, and crucial data on sections and referrers, including Google and LinkedIn. 

Results

By leveraging these insights, you can now proactively guide your content creation, ensuring future pieces directly align with audience interests and high-performing topics. This data-driven content marketing strategy leads to improved engagement, maximizing your return on content efforts. It also enhances your paid media strategy, ensuring ad spend is directed towards content that already demonstrates strong engagement from key platforms.

Select Q1 2025 time period 

  1. Go to Insight > Insight Dashboard.

  2. Select Custom Period from the Show Content Imported Between... drop-down list. Choose a time range between January 1 to March 31, 2025. 

  3. Click Apply.

View top-performing topics in content

You can identify the top-performing topics in the content items processed during Q1 in the Topics in Content data table. Go to Insight > Insight Dashboard and scroll down to the Topics in Content table. The table displays the topics with the most visitor interaction. In this example, you can see that Commerce, Marketing, and Artificial Intelligence had the most visitor interactions.

Apply filters

After identifying your top-trending topics, you can also find the Content, Section, and Referrer most associated with those topics that drive the most visitor interaction. Complete the following in the filter section:

  1. Select Content > Topics from the Select a Field... drop-down list. 
  2. Select is at least one of condition from the conditions drop-down list.

  3. Select Commerce, Marketing, and Artificial intelligence from the list of topics. Click Apply.

  4. Scroll down to view the Content table. You can see that visitors interacted the most with the content pieces Orchestrate, See how Optimizely Content Marketing Platform works, and 127,000 Experiments: Lessons to level up your program. Each content piece contains your selected topics. 

  5. Scroll up to the filter section and click + (AND) and select Content > Content from the Select a Field... drop-down list. 

  6. Choose the is at least one of condition and add the content pieces Orchestrate, See how Optimizely Content Marketing Platform works, and 127,000 Experiments: Lessons to level up your program from the list of content. Click Apply.

  7. Scroll down to the Sections section. You can see the top-performing sections with the content pieces. Click individual sections to view the details. For example, click Insights EN. You are redirected to the Edit page, where you can click Associated Flows > English Insights and see that visitors only interacted with your site in the English language.       

  8. Scroll down to the Referrers section. This section displays a list of all the referring URLs that sent visitors to your site. You can see that 12.03% of the total visitors came from google.com, while only 1.24% visitors came from linkedIn.com. You can also see other top-performing referrers, such as go.optimizely.com, search.yahoo.com, and youtube.com.  

Outcome

By analyzing the data table and applying filters, you identified the top-performing topics on your website: Commerce, Marketing, and Artificial Intelligence. You also discovered the most-read content pieces, including Orchestrate, See How Optimizely Content Marketing Platform Works, and 127,000 Experiments: Lessons to Level Up Your Program. Additionally, most visitors consumed content in English, with 12.03% arriving from Google and only 1.24% from LinkedIn.

This insight can guide your strategy in two ways:

  1. Content creation – Produce more English-language content focused on the top-performing topics.
  2. Paid media optimization – Reevaluate your paid media strategy by shifting focus from LinkedIn to more profitable platforms, such as YouTube.

Conclusion

By leveraging real-time content auditing and using the Content and Insight dashboards within Content Recommendations, your company, OptiGrowth Media, can efficiently align its content production with top-performing keyword clusters like A/B testing. This approach streamlines content strategy by identifying high-engagement topics and enhances conversion rates and user engagement by tailoring content to audience preferences. Through detailed filtering and performance analysis, OptiGrowth can make informed decisions, ensuring content efforts are focused where they are most impactful, ultimately improving overall marketing effectiveness.