How to Use Content Scoring to Improve Your Technical Writing

Picture it: You spend hours crafting crucial content, be it technical specifications or an instruction manual. You read it, reread it, and send it for peer review. 

But still, doubts persist. Is it clear enough? Is it consistent with your brand voice? Does it meet all the necessary compliance requirements? 

The endless back-and-forth, the uncertainty, and the potential for errors to slip through can be incredibly draining. Another thing is, they lead to inconsistent outputs and missed opportunities.

Now, picture a different scenario: As you write, you see a score based on various critical factors. A glance tells you:

• How well your content follows your company’s specific style guide.
• Whether it meets industry compliance standards.
• Whether you’ve covered your main messaging and terminology.
• If its tone is just right. 

This is the beauty of content scoring. It provides immediate, measurable feedback, and makes you write content with confidence, making sure every piece of writing performs exactly as intended.

Key takeaways

• Content scoring provides instant, measurable feedback. It transforms content creation by ensuring accuracy, consistency, and adherence to specific guidelines in real-time.
• Unlike basic SEO tools, a comprehensive content scorecard evaluates writing based on detailed criteria like style, tone, terminology, and industry compliance. It offers helpful insights for content improvement.
• Implementing a successful content scoring framework involves the following steps: Selecting the right platform, compiling internal guidelines, integrating into workflows, providing training, and continuously refining metrics.
• Tools like Markup AI excel as all-encompassing content checking solutions. They combine deep customization with content governance for enterprise-level quality and compliance.

Introduction to content scoring

When you hear content scoring, what do you think of? Counting how much you’ve hit a focus keyword? Analyzing content length to make sure it meets the given requirements? If you’re trying to improve visibility in search engines, these are important metrics to consider. Yet, while plenty of tools offer SEO scoring, that’s only a “subgenre” of the broader content scoring landscape.

If you need to make sure your technical documents are accurate and compliant, aspects like SEO scores aren’t the insights you need.

Instead, your content score should provide an objective assessment of how well content aligns with predefined standards like writing and compliance rules. Comprehensive content scoring measures adherence to aspects like: 

• Brand voice
• Style guides
• Approved terminology
• Industry-specific compliance requirements. 

It’s a strong tool to make sure your writing is consistently clear, accurate, and impactful across all channels.

What goes into a content scorecard?

A content scorecard is a detailed, dynamic framework. Content experts use it to evaluate text against many predefined quality criteria. 

Far beyond simple grammar and spelling checks, they are a way to measure content quality at a bird’s eye level. They help writers and editors to understand where they need to make improvements to meet specific content standards. 

These scorecards are instrumental in maintaining high-quality content, acting as an objective benchmark for every piece of documentation.

A content scorecard typically includes the following elements:

• Spelling and grammar: Making sure content is correct, ensuring linguistic accuracy and professionalism.
• Clarity and conciseness: Measuring aspects like readability and sentence complexity, to make sure readers can grasp and understand the information.
• Style guide adherence: Assessing compliance with your organization’s unique writing rules, such as capitalization, formatting, and stylistic preferences.
• Brand voice: Making sure the content consistently reflects your company’s unique personality and communication style.
• Tone: Evaluating if the content’s voice (for example, authoritative, supportive, friendly) consistently matches the brand guidelines, to make sure it works well for the intended audience.
• Approved terminology: Checking for the correct and consistent use of terminology across all documentation. This includes official product names, feature names, and industry-related terms.
• Industry compliance: Highlighting language that may not meet legal or regulatory standards pertinent to your industry (like medical, financial, manufacturing documentation).

Depending on the content type they’re associated with, there can also be more elements in a scorecard, like the above-mentioned SEO keyword score. 

Note: It’s particularly important for large enterprises that create content in multiple global markets to have a detailed scorecard. And while every organization’s scorecard might look a bit different, always make sure yours contains compliance scoring. 

Breaking industry regulations in your technical documentation won’t only damage your budget, but your reputation as well!

Tools and technologies for content checking

The demand for high-quality, consistent, and compliant content at scale has fueled the development of content checking and scoring tools. While many act in the same way, these tools differ significantly in the datasets they pull from and their overall purpose.

We’ve grouped a few different types of content checkers below:

• Grammar and style checkers: Tools like Quillbot or Ginger offer suggestions to improve aspects like grammar, spelling, punctuation, and basic style. They’re helpful for refining sentences and catching common writing errors.
• SEO content optimizers: Platforms such as Surfer SEO or Clearscope help optimize content for search engine visibility. They analyze keyword usage, content depth, and competitive landscapes. While they provide overall scores, they focus primarily on organic search performance.
• Terminology checking software: These tools help enforce the consistent use of approved terminology. This is crucial for technical and brand consistency, especially in large organizations with specialized jargon.
• Content governance and quality platforms: Platforms in this category, like Markup AI, analyze content against a highly customizable set of rules. These rules include brand voice, style, tone, clarity, and industry-specific compliance requirements. They provide helpful feedback and an objective content score.

This makes them a solution for enterprise-level content quality and governance, which unifies the benefits of multiple, more specialized content checking tools in one platform.

All while integrating deeply into your existing authoring environment, providing immediate, in-depth content insights based on your organization’s unique guidelines.

How to set up a content scoring framework

Have you decided to implement content scoring? Great! Now, it’s about setting up your content scoring framework. To establish a framework that powers continuous improvement and consistent content quality, follow these steps:

Select the right content scoring platform

The foundational step is choosing the right tool. Look for a platform specifically designed for comprehensive content quality. One that offers deep customization capabilities, writer feedback, and the ability to integrate with your existing content tools and processes. Did we mention Markup AI already?

Compile your internal documentation and guidelines

Gather all relevant internal documentation, including:

• Brand voice guidelines
• Audience
• Specific style guides
• Approved terminology
• Essential compliance requirements 

These standards will serve as the core data for configuring your content scorecard within the chosen platform.

Integrate scoring into your processes

For maximum impact, embed the content scoring tool directly into your writers’ authoring environment. Real-time feedback helps writers make corrections as they create their first draft. This prevents issues early and significantly reduces the need for extensive revisions later in the process.

Start with a pilot program

Implement your content scoring framework with a smaller, focused team or on specific, high-priority content types. This allows you to refine your scoring rules and gather valuable user feedback. Also, you’re able to demonstrate the platform’s value before a broader organizational rollout.

Provide training and support

Train all your writers and editors on using the content scoring tool and, crucially, understand the rationale behind the scores. Ongoing support, regular workshops, and clear documentation will foster adoption and enable your team to use the tool effectively.

Set measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)

Define clear, quantifiable metrics to track the success of your content scoring initiative. For example, a crucial KPI could be “Making sure that every piece of content achieves a minimum content score before publishing it”. Other KPIs might be: Reduced review cycles, improved consistency rates, or decreased compliance-related issues.

Iterate and refine your scorecard

Content standards, business needs, and market demands constantly evolve. Regularly review your content scorecard metrics and adjust them based on performance data, feedback from your team, and changing organizational priorities. This makes sure your scoring framework remains relevant, accurate, and highly effective over time.

Are you ready to see content scoring in action? Discover the power of content scoring with Markup AI. Get early access today and experience how instant insights can improve your content quality.