Design prompt

Comparative Content Audit, Business & User Intent Analysis

For content strategists, UX designers, and digital teams working across multiple related websites who need to quickly understand overlap, intent, and role clarity before making navigation, content, or consolidation decisions.

Content strategy/ Content Audit/ Discovery

Prompt: Comparative Content Audit, Business & User Intent Analysis

Role & Perspective

You are a Senior Content Strategist Consultant specialising in:

  • Comparative content audits

  • Multi-site ecosystems

  • Content strategy, IA, and governance

  • Brand clarity and user intent

  • Cannibalisation, duplication, and consolidation planning

You think in terms of business goals, user goals, intent, and next actions, not just pages and words.

Your tone should be strategic, exploratory, and non-definitive.

Task Overview

Your task is to analyse two related websites side by side to identify:

  • Content overlap, duplication, and cannibalisation

  • Alignment or conflict in business goals and user goals

  • Confusion caused by competing or unclear “next steps”

  • Benefits and risks of operating multiple sites

  • Opportunities for clearer positioning, focus, and cross-site orchestration

Inputs

Website A

  • URL:

  • Role: (e.g. consumer-facing, engagement platform, governance hub)

Website B

  • URL:

  • Role: (e.g. institutional, regulatory, service delivery)

Relationship between the sites

(e.g. two internal platforms, overlapping services, transition state, legacy vs modern, audience split)

Scope

  • Full sites and global navigation

  • Key sections and content types

  • Topic areas

  • Primary user journeys

Primary goals

  • Identify duplication or cannibalisation

  • Clarify positioning between sites

  • Reduce user confusion

  • Improve cross-linking or signposting

  • Inform consolidation or migration decisions

  • Clarify content focus areas

Target audience overlap

  • Shared users

  • Distinct users

  • Known or assumed role-based audiences

If organisational visibility is limited, clearly state assumptions and confidence level.

Key Questions to Answer

Your analysis should explicitly address the following:

1. Business goals & intent

  • What business goals is each site primarily serving?

  • How are those goals expressed through navigation, content, and CTAs?

  • What does each site ultimately want users to do next?

2. User goals & needs

When users consume content on each site:

  • What are they likely trying to achieve?

  • What questions are they trying to answer?

  • What emotional or practical state are they in?

  • How time-critical or risk-sensitive are their needs?

3. Comparative content overview

Provide a high-level comparison of:

  • Topics covered by each site

  • Depth and type of content

  • Formats used

  • Intended audiences and tasks

  • Positioning and tone differences

4. Overlap & cannibalisation analysis

Identify:

  • Topics or content types covered by both sites

  • Areas competing for the same user need or search intent

  • Whether overlap is healthy, confusing, or risky

  • Severity of cannibalisation risk (low / medium / high)

  • Likely impact on users, SEO, and internal teams

5. “What happens next?” analysis

For each site:

  • What is the implied next action after consuming a piece of content?

  • Are users being encouraged to move forward, slow down, comply, explore, or commit?

  • Where do these implied next steps:

    • Align across sites?

    • Clash?

    • Create friction or drop-off?

6. Gaps, differentiation & focus

Highlight:

  • What Site A does well that Site B does not

  • What Site B does well that Site A does not

  • Shared gaps across both sites

  • Opportunities to clarify:

    • “Who this is for”

    • “What this site is responsible for”

    • “What should live here vs elsewhere”

7. Benefits of the multi-site model

Identify:

  • Strategic advantages of having two sites

  • Where separation improves clarity, tone, or usability

  • Where flexibility, speed, or brand storytelling is enhanced

8. Risks & strategic considerations

Call out:

  • User confusion or fragmented mental models

  • Blurred authority or source-of-truth issues

  • Brand or tone inconsistency

  • SEO or intent dilution

  • Editorial drift over time

  • Governance, ownership, or maintenance challenges

9. Cross-pollination & consolidation opportunities

Identify:

  • Content that could be reused, shared, or centrally owned

  • Better linking or signposting patterns

  • Content that should live in one place only

  • Candidates for consolidation, migration, or deprecation

Outputs Required

A) Executive Summary

Provide:

  • Snapshot comparison of both sites

  • Core business goals vs user goals

  • Key overlaps, risks, and benefits

  • Where confusion or friction is most likely

  • Clear strategic framing

  • Confidence level and assumptions

B) Detailed Comparative Report

Include:

  • Side-by-side analysis

  • Overlap and gap mapping

  • Cannibalisation notes

  • User intent and “next action” analysis

  • Benefits and risks

  • Content focus and positioning guidance

  • Suggested next steps and validation checks

Guiding Principle

Anchor recommendations around this question:

Is this content helping someone step into the ecosystem, or helping the ecosystem operate correctly?

Use this to guide differentiation, ownership, and focus.

How to use this prompt

Use this prompt early, when you need to make sense of how two related websites are working together (or against each other) before changing navigation, rewriting content, or proposing consolidation.

This prompt works best when:

  • Roles between sites feel blurred or politically sensitive

  • Stakeholders disagree on who content is “for”

  • Navigation debates are stuck or circular

  • You suspect duplication, cannibalisation, or user confusion but lack evidence

Start by pasting in the two URLs and clearly stating each site’s intended role (even if it’s an assumption).

Run the prompt to surface business goals, user goals, implied next actions, risks, and benefits — not to get solutions, but to build shared understanding.

Treat the output as:

  • A diagnostic (what’s really going on)

  • A framing tool for workshops or leadership conversations

  • A bridge into Define, where decisions, principles, and ownership can be agreed

Avoid using this prompt to:

  • Jump straight to IA or content solutions

  • Validate a pre-decided consolidation plan

  • Produce final recommendations without discussion

Think of it as a clarity accelerator — it helps teams see the ecosystem clearly so better decisions can follow.

What this prompt gives you

This prompt gives you a clear, shared view of how two related websites function as a content ecosystem, not just as individual sites.

Specifically, it helps you:

  • Understand the business goals and user goals each site is serving

  • See what each site is implicitly asking users to do next after consuming content

  • Identify overlap, duplication, and cannibalisation risks (content, intent, and SEO)

  • Surface where journeys align, clash, or create friction

  • Clarify which site should own which types of content

  • Highlight the benefits of separation as well as the risks

  • Provide a neutral, evidence-based framing for stakeholder conversations

The output is:

  • An executive-ready summary for leadership alignment

  • A detailed comparative analysis you can use in workshops or planning

  • A strong foundation for Define-phase decisions around navigation, content focus, governance, or consolidation

Think of it as a way to move from “something feels off” to “we understand what’s happening and why” — before making changes.

Hello, World!