Practical approaches to better content governance

5 content governance tips to keep your web experience relevant

When discussing website relaunches and redesigns, a common refrain I hear among the reasons for the relaunches is: 'our old website had grown organically over the years'.

Usually this is a euphemism for navigation becoming more confusing as it is amended and 'content creep'. To tackle these issues in preparation for relaunch, often some customer research is done, some content culled, card sorting exercises undertaken. The new website launches with a cutting-edge design; slimmed down, well written content and a breezy navigation. Big success!

Yet after a while content creep sets in again - the navigation is getting inconsistent and complaints come in about information being inaccurate or hard to find. Sound familiar? What lies behind it, and what can be done to stem the re-emergence of content creep and messy navigation?

Web maintenance, just like a development project, needs control mechanisms, otherwise 'organic growth' will start all over again. Content governance helps tame content creep and means reaping the benefits of a relaunch for as long as possible.

Here are five key tips to make a start with content governance steps for your website relaunch

• 1. Be clear about the purpose of content

Make a list of business reasons that justify publication and check each piece of content against it. Reasons could include to:

• help customers in addressing or solving a problem
• enable customers to buy or subscribe
• support online self-service
• help in an emergency
• satisfy legal/ regulatory requirement.

If a piece of content or navigational update doesn’t satisfy a specific business or customer need it should not be published or implemented.

• 2. Develop performance indicators for each purpose

Such KPIs will help you determine whether a piece of content delivers the intended benefits. These reports will support you with hard evidence when pushing for content changes or removals with internal stakeholders.

KPIs could include the time readers spend on a page, visits generated on an SEO landing page, or drop-off rates in a conversion funnel.

• 3. Decide on quality requirements

For each content type (eg. product description, press release, how-to-article) prepare a checklist of what information should be provided, to what level of detail, in what tone of voice and how it should be presented. Much of this could already be in your organisation’s brand style guide.

Agreed quality requirements take subjectivity out of the review process. As a result there will be less emotion, less back-and-forth and more consistent quality.

• 4. Chart your content life cycle process

On a regular basis make time to review your content. Take your content KPIs and quality requirements and check your content. Is it still relevant? Is it still accurate? Does it deliver the anticipated business benefits?

If the answer is no to one of these questions, decide whether the content needs to be edited, deleted or archived. Make a chart of your content life cycle from start to finish, including creation, editing, approving, regular reviewing and content retirement. Get it signed off.

Visualising this process will give all stakeholders a better understanding of what content management involves and how much time and resource it needs.

• 5. Agree on roles and responsibilities

Who takes ownership for content? Who else will be helping? With check-lists and processes in place it becomes obvious that one person alone can’t do it all.

Whilst Web Managers are the CMS experts in the organisation they might not be the subject matter experts to review existing content. The experts on the other hand are doing their day jobs. Checking web content is usually not their priority, even if they themselves had pushed for publication in the first place.

To make this happen, get senior manager on board and agree on responsibilities. For each step in your content life cycle chart, assign a person accountable for completion.

The result: serenity and value for everyone

Having content governance in place not only helps maintain high quality content but also content that's both user and search engine friendly. Defined purpose and quality criteria,as well as the content KPIs, keep the amount of published content under control, focusing on content that truly matters.

Less content means reduced cost for initial content production and subsequent maintenance. Regular content reviews also help mitigating legal and compliance risks.

Finally good content housekeeping will make your next relaunch or migration a lot easier.

An example for thinking about content purpose and quality criteria is the LocalGov Digital Content Guidelines (PDF). What other examples, practices or guidelines have you used which would you recommend?

Thanks to Suzanne Richter for sharing her thoughts and opinions in this blog post. Suzanne is a digital consultant and has been digital communications and development manager for various organisations. She is experienced in mapping business processes to digital, development projects and content management. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.