When you think of “content creation”, you probably think of a buzzword that vaguely means blog posts, maybe social media, but generally involving hours and hours of writing for somebody “over there” because content creation is a marketing task that can be cut when budget needs to go elsewhere.
What if I told you that you already have content created, live, and waiting for ownership— even if you’ve never had a blog?
Every piece of information you have on the internet, from your location to your contact information to your company description, is content. Each word you have put on your website or social media profile is an opportunity to build rapport and brand yourself.
Everything is Content
The internet relies on content to exist. Web design is to facilitate users reading content. Searches are to find content. If you have information on the internet, you have content.
Does Anybody Own It?
This is a question to ask yourself seriously before you begin evaluating your content. While it can be tempting to dodge this question so as not to take responsibility for bad content, answering it— at least for future endeavours— is necessary to improve your online presence.
Responsible for content doesn’t necessarily mean you write it. What it does mean is you create a standard for all future content, keep tabs on what content you have, and prune any unnecessary or outdated content.
Managing It
Once you’ve taken or assigned responsibility for your web content, it’s important to keep checking up on both the state of your content, and any rules that are being passed about web content.
This means:
- Regular content audits to see what you have online
- Pruning irrelevant content once it becomes irrelevant
- Reading up on legal requirements such as AODA
- Making sure all new content meets those requirements
While this looks overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be all done at once (or even all the time). You can schedule content audits based on how often you refresh your content— a slowly changing site can have yearly reviews, with yearly pruning. Faster changing sites might need every six months, or quarterly. Unless you’re constantly adding new things to the website, it’s unlikely you’ll need more than that
Legal requirements for content aren’t published too often, and by updating your content creation processes you can ensure all future content is compliant. Not to mention, having regular content audits means you always know what you have, and don’t have to make content you don’t need anymore up to regulations.
Benefits
By owning your content, you can start to evaluate every aspect of your online presence for its effectiveness, and start to think of why people visit your site. Is your content something people want to look for? Does it answer their questions? Does it help them trust you?
Looking over your content means you start to be aware of where you stand. Once you know where you stand, it’s far easier to take next steps and improve.