Content audit metrics: the five measures that get executive sign-off

Most content audits fail at the executive table. Not because the work is weak, but because the audit reports the wrong things in the wrong volume. The content audit metrics that get sign-off are not a forty-column spreadsheet. They are five measures a senior executive can read in three pages: relevance, accuracy, accessibility, traffic, and decision-readiness.

I have watched a 40-page audit sit unread for a quarter while the problem it documented got worse. The version that would’ve landed was three pages: five scores, one recommendation, one named risk. It was signed off in twenty minutes, and the work started that week.

An audit is a practice, not a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet is a by-product. (Sometimes called an inventory.) The practice is choosing the few things you will measure, defending those choices in the room, and turning the scores into one clear decision. If your audit cannot survive that meeting, it does not matter how thorough the tab-work was.

Why most audits fail at the executive table

The common failure is volume without a verdict. A page-by-page inventory of two thousand URLs tells an executive nothing they can act on. It pushes the interpretive work onto the busiest person in the room, and they decline it.

The second failure is measuring what is easy to count instead of what the organisation cares about. Word counts and metadata completeness are simple to tally and irrelevant to a decision-maker. Executives fund content work when the measures map to their concerns: cost, risk, service quality, compliance, and growth.

The five measures that earn sign-off

Score each one simply. A three-point scale (red, amber, green) or a one-to-five rating is enough. The point is a defensible judgement, not false precision.

Relevance

Does the content still match a real user task and a current service? Score it against demand, not opinion: search terms, top tasks, and call-centre drivers. Low relevance is the fastest route to a decommissioning decision, which is where the cost savings live.

Accuracy

Is the information correct, current, and consistent with the authoritative source? Out-of-date entitlements, superseded forms, and pages that contradict each other are a risk and compliance exposure, not a tidiness problem. This is the measure that makes a legal or risk lead pay attention.

Accessibility

Does the content meet WCAG 2.2 and plain language obligations? Accessibility is a legal obligation under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992, not a quality nicety. Score against the standard, name the failures specifically, and the executive can see the liability clearly.

Traffic

Is anyone actually using this page? Pair traffic with relevance: high traffic and low accuracy is an urgent fix, low traffic and low relevance is a candidate for retirement. Traffic on its own is a vanity number. Paired, it becomes a prioritisation tool.

Decision-readiness

Can someone read this content and act, or do they have to call to understand it? This is the measure closest to service quality, and the one most audits skip. When ACT Government reformed its content, average call-centre time fell from seven minutes to four, because content that lets people act removes the second contact.

What goes on the cover page

The cover page carries the whole audit for the people who sign it. It holds five scores, one recommendation, and one named risk. Everything else is an appendix for the team who will do the work.

Lead with the recommendation, not the method. An executive does not need the scoring rubric on page one. They need to know what you are asking them to fund and what happens if they do not. The detail earns trust, but the cover page earns the decision.

Write the recommendation as an action, not an observation. "Retire 340 pages and consolidate 12 services into 4" is a decision. "Content quality is inconsistent" is a description that dies in the minutes.

Start with the question, not the inventory

Before you open a spreadsheet, write the one question the audit has to answer for the person who signs it off. Is it "where are we exposed on accessibility", or "what can we retire to cut maintenance cost", or "why are calls not falling"? The five measures stay the same. The order you lead with changes with the question.

If you cannot name that question, you are not ready to audit yet. What is the single decision your next audit needs to produce, and who has to sign it?

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash.