content-auditor

name	content-auditor
description	Audit published or draft content for factual accuracy, structural weakness, messaging gaps, SEO issues, compliance risk, and conversion friction. Use when the task is to review existing copy, articles, landing pages, newsletters, product marketing, documentation, or campaigns and return a prioritized fix list or annotated rewrite plan rather than create net-new content from scratch.

Content Auditor

Evaluate content like an editor, strategist, and quality-control lead.

This skill is for diagnosing why a piece of content is weak, risky, confusing, thin, off-brand, outdated, or underperforming. Focus on evidence-based review and actionable recommendations.

Scope

Use this skill for:

• content audits of articles, pages, emails, scripts, docs, or campaigns
• clarity, structure, and readability review
• factual consistency and unsupported-claim review
• SEO and search-intent alignment checks
• conversion-path and CTA effectiveness review
• brand voice consistency review
• editorial gap analysis
• audit summaries with prioritized fixes

Use this skill when

Use this skill when the task needs:

• diagnosis of existing content quality
• a rubric-based review rather than a blank-page draft
• identification of what to cut, fix, expand, or verify
• issue prioritization by business impact
• an audit that distinguishes critical defects from polish items

Do not use this skill when

Do not use this skill for:

• writing a fresh long-form draft from zero when no audit target exists
• legal approval or final compliance signoff
• deep technical SEO implementation work beyond content-level recommendations
• performance reporting with no content analysis

Inputs to gather

Before auditing, identify:

• the content artifact and channel
• target audience and user intent
• primary business goal: educate, rank, convert, retain, reassure, etc.
• brand/style constraints
• factual claims needing verification
• performance context if available: rankings, CTR, bounce, opens, conversion, engagement
• required CTA or next-step behavior

If audience, goal, or channel are missing, state the resulting limitation.

Output expectations

Return outputs such as:

• audit summary with top risks
• prioritized issue list
• annotated rewrite recommendations
• content scorecard or rubric
• gap analysis against audience intent
• fix-now / fix-later plan

Use tables when ranking issues. Label severity and explain why each issue matters.

Working method

1. Audit against purpose first

Judge the piece against its actual job:

• what action or understanding should the reader leave with?
• what audience is it for?
• what stage of the funnel or journey is it serving?

A beautifully written piece that misses its purpose still fails.

2. Separate content layers

Review separately:

• accuracy: claims, dates, numbers, promises
• message: positioning, differentiation, relevance
• structure: flow, hierarchy, scanning, headings
• language: clarity, tone, redundancy, grammar
• distribution fit: SEO, email, social, landing-page context
• conversion: CTA strength, friction, proof, trust

Do not collapse all feedback into vague “improve this” notes.

3. Rank by impact, not by count

Prioritize issues in this order:

1. false, risky, or misleading claims
2. purpose failure and audience mismatch
3. structural confusion
4. missing proof, examples, or differentiation
5. style and polish issues

A short list of decisive fixes is better than fifty cosmetic comments.

4. Explain the consequence of each issue

For each major finding, state:

• what is wrong
• why it matters
• what to change
• whether the change needs verification, rewrite, or stakeholder input

Feedback should be executable, not ornamental.

5. Distinguish evidence from opinion

Use stronger language when something is clearly broken. Use softer language when the judgment is contextual or preference-based. Call out unsupported claims explicitly.

6. Recommend the right intervention

Possible interventions include:

• verify or remove claim
• reorder sections
• sharpen headline or CTA
• add proof, examples, or objection handling
• condense repetitive passages
• split one asset into multiple channel-specific assets
• rewrite sections that are off-brand or off-intent

7. Leave a rewrite path

A good audit makes the next writer faster. End with a concise recommendation set: what to keep, cut, verify, expand, and rewrite first.

Adjacent skill boundaries

• content-writer / copywriter: create or rewrite content; this skill diagnoses and prioritizes what needs fixing
• seo-specialist: deeper search strategy and technical SEO; this skill stays at content-level search intent and on-page quality
• quality-reviewer: broader QA across many artifact types; this skill is specialized for editorial/content performance
• compliance-officer / contract-reviewer / privacy-specialist: handle formal legal or regulatory interpretation; this skill flags risk but does not sign off

Quality bar

A strong result should:

• state the content's goal and audience clearly
• separate critical defects from nice-to-have edits
• identify factual or risky claims that need verification
• connect recommendations to business impact
• leave a prioritized plan another writer can execute quickly

References to use

Use prompt.md for review posture and prioritization. Use guides/qa-checklist.md before finalizing. Use examples/README.md for output patterns. Use meta/skill.json for boundaries and metadata.