A Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing Your Knowledge Base

 

One of the most exciting things about a knowledge base is how it can grow over time. When you have many contributors and lots of topics to create content on, your knowledge base can quickly become almost out of control. Then you will know it is time to run a knowledge base audit.

A knowledge base audit goes beyond individual article reviews and examines the structure of your content as a whole. Regular audits are crucial for improving the health of your knowledge base and ensuring it remains useful for your users. Instead of article-level editing, this is a system-level check designed to understand how your knowledge base is operating as a whole.

It’s not always about creating more content, but rather maximizing the performance of the content you already have by eliminating the factors that hold your content back. A high-performing knowledge base is one that has been audited regularly and not only had content added but also had it removed, to ensure health and optimization.

How to Audit a Knowledge Base Step-by-Step

First things first: we’re going to talk about exactly how to audit a knowledge base as a broad overview of steps to take, focusing on each crucial area of the audit to ensure comprehensive coverage.

You don’t have to follow these steps in an exact order, but it can be helpful to progress through each stage step-by-step, in order of complexity.

Check Content Accuracy and Legal Compliance

The first steps of an audit are to check the accuracy and compliance of your content, taking steps to address any errors.

• Identify Missing or Insufficient Coverage – an audit is a good opportunity to look for content that is missing. We’ll talk more about this in a later section, but ensuring that your knowledge base is comprehensive is a crucial part of the audit.
• Detect Outdated or Obsolete Content – similarly to your current and factual content, continue to look for content that is outdated or obsolete, meaning that it refers to something that is no longer relevant. Being thorough in this process means your knowledge base can become a much more helpful resource because users notice that your company has taken the time to remove outdated content.
• Identify Redundant or Overlapping Content – When knowledge bases are created by teams, sometimes your content can become redundant as new pages are created that essentially cover the same content. Remove overlapping content so that each page is unique, and especially does not provide conflicting content for users.
• Check if Copyrights Are Up to Date – your knowledge base might be using copyrights that have become out-of-date, so it’s important to search through the knowledge base and identify which copyrights need to be renewed, or copyrighted materials need to be removed.
• Confirm regional and jurisdictional accuracy – During the audit, ensure guidance is correctly scoped to the intended geography and does not unintentionally imply global legal applicability.
• Review Security Compliances and Ensure Sensitive Data Policies Are Followed – ensure security checks are part of every knowledge base audit to make sure your organization is compliant.
• Keep the Cookie Policy Checked and Updated – the same goes for your cookie policy, and be very careful about how you collect and store data.
• Confirm Tone and Format Align with Brand Standards – terminology consistency means ensuring product names, feature names, and standard terms match the style guide.

Review Links, Images, and Resources

Links and images are integral assets for your knowledge base, so you should regularly assess them for quality and validity.

• Check the Links (Fix Broken Internal or External Links) – your knowledge base should ideally use a broken link checker (like the built-in feature in Document360) to check the validity of your links automatically. Using this tool, you can find the broken links and replace them with links that work, to vastly improve the experience for your users.
• Identify and Remove Non-dependables (Images Not Used Anywhere) – consistently clean up your file manager by removing these files.
• Review Image Alt Text – to check accessibility for all users, you can review image alt text to make sure you have described your images in a way that feeds into assistive technologies.
• Replace Missing or Outdated Visuals – visuals can start to look dated, or you might come across pages where the images are broken. It goes without saying that you should replace these images with something modern and relevant that appeals to your users.
• Ensure all Media Loads Properly and Supports the Topic – conduct a thorough check of media in general to check that it loads and adds something to the topic covered on the page, all contributing to the experience for your users.
• Identify orphaned references within articles – Look for mentions of tools, pages, or resources that are no longer linked or accessible, and either restore the reference or remove it.

Analyze Article Performance

Analytics tell you how your articles are performing and enable you to make better decisions over time based on data.

• Review Article Performance Metrics – using the analytics in your knowledge base and an integration with Google Analytics, you can review article performance metrics to check each page. You can use this process to identify the most high-performance articles that deserve your investment, and the worst-performing articles that perhaps need your review.
• Analyze Search Queries – it’s important to look at what your users have been searching to identify search intent and decide what content might be needed in the future. Review search data from search analytics to find search queries.
• Identify Keyword Gaps and Intent Mismatches – failed searches tell you what users are looking for that they can’t find in your knowledge base, shown by keyword gaps and intent mismatches (high bounce rates). What users expect from your knowledge base can often differ from what exactly you have on offer, but it’s your team’s job to close this gap.
• Identify low-performing articles and plan updates or consolidations – improve the content that doesn’t perform so well and bring it up to the standard of your most high–performing articles. You don’t always have to create new content when your existing articles can simply benefit from improvement.
• Analyze User Feedback About the Article – if you’ve managed to collect user feedback, then you can take this into account when improving your article. Consider things to add, making the article shorter, making the answers more accessible, and anything else that users have suggested.

Audit Information Architecture (IA) and Content Findability

The big picture of your knowledge base is the Information Architecture: the structure of your content and how users understand the navigation of your site.

• Evaluate Category and Taxonomy Structure – ensure there is intent and logic when it comes to category and taxonomy structure, with a way for users to clearly navigate through your knowledge base. Categories send clear signals to users of what is contained within your knowledge base.
• Assess Navigation Depth and Hierarchy – to make it easier to navigate through your knowledge base, you need to control the depth of your navigation and content hierarchy, your knowledge base could potentially become overwhelming.
• Review Menu, Breadcrumb, and Navigation Clarity – ensure your menus are clear for users, that they have breadcrumbs to show them the path to the current page they are on, and that the navigation is clear and accessible.
• Analyze Cross-linking and Related Content Connections – often it makes sense for you to cross-link and create connections between the pages of your knowledge base for a better user experience. Think proactively about other questions users might have and guide them to the right place.
• Identify and Eliminate Content Silos – ensure you avoid having content dead-ends by linking to further resources when you end up with a silo. Keep the experience going and ensure that your knowledge base is more valuable, no matter which direction your users take.

Track Team Activity and Manage Access

 

Knowledge bases are created by teams: it’s crucial that you track activity and manage access to ensure a well-functioning knowledge base.

• Use Audit Trails to Record Edits and Team History – this should be possible in your knowledge base software to help you keep track of any changes you make to your knowledge. Not only can you see the changes that have been made, but you can also revert to earlier versions if necessary.
• Maintain Transparency by Tracking Who Made Changes and When – each individual contributor should be matched with the changes they make in your knowledge base to ensure accountability. Observe exactly who is contributing to your knowledge base and making the most changes.
• Review Team Account management, such as Access Levels and Role Assignments – add audit checks for content ownership & review cycles. For example, you may want contributors to edit but not publish. You may want an overall editor to oversee your knowledge base.
• Apply Whitelisting to Restrict Access to Sensitive Internal Documents – make sure only the individuals you want can have access to private documents hosted in your knowledge base. Consider access permissions when you have restricted content.

Update Interface and Interactive Elements

Review the interface and interactive elements of your knowledge base to make the experience of using your content better.

• Keep Smart Bars and Other Design Components Updated with Relevant Info – consider carefully what you want your users to know and reflect that in the knowledge base.
• Ensure Visuals and Calls-to-action Reflect Current Features or Promotions – advertising has to be kept relevant; otherwise, at best, your users will ignore your promotions, and at worst, they will be annoyed by them.
• Maintain Consistent Formatting and Clean Layout Across All Pages – the design of your knowledge base helps to make the experience of navigating your content more enjoyable.

Refresh Quick Support and FAQs

Keep your FAQ and Quick Support sections up-to-date to ensure customers can obtain the support they need.

• Review Quick Support and FAQ Sections for Accuracy – this might mean removing FAQs that are no longer needed or updating the answers to some of your questions to ensure accuracy.
• Keep Answers Relevant by Comparing Them with Support Tickets – use your help desk to identify questions that need answering on your knowledge base, and store the answers within your FAQs.
• Remove Outdated or Duplicate Responses – don’t repeat yourself or answer questions that are no longer relevant. Don’t hesitate to delete any unnecessary responses.
• Ensure all FAQs are Easy to Find and Accessible From Multiple Sections – link clearly to your FAQs so customers can easily find the most direct answers to their queries.

Conclusion

When you’re conducting knowledge base audits, consider setting a regular audit schedule that helps you organize when you complete this process. You can perform audits quarterly or biannually to ensure that it doesn’t take too long between cycles, allowing your team to consistently expect audits and prepare for them.

No man is an island: make sure you collaborate and improve your knowledge base audit process by encouraging feedback from support teams and other content contributors for a repository of ideas regarding how to make your knowledge base better.

A knowledge base audit is an essential step for ensuring the health and performance of your knowledge base over time, especially as your content grows and your knowledge base begins to expand. Taking the time to take stock and review your knowledge base as a whole helps you to stay relevant and helpful for your users.