Manage
that Online Content
OK, I admit it. I'm guilty of being a "putter upper," as Gerry McGovern calls it. That means I've been getting content on to Web sites (putting it up), but not managing it once it's there.
No longer though. I have seen the light. After two days in Gerry's Web writing seminar, I finally get the whole notion of managing content once it's online.
Content still rules, but ...
I come from a "content is queen"
perspective. That the more relevant, keyword-rich content you have, the
better your search engine rankings will be. This is still valid thinking,
but Gerry helped me see that we must consider content over the long term,
not just when we're building a new site or pursuing SEO.
What does managing Web content mean?
* It should be reviewed regularly, once a month or quarter.
* Out-of-date, irrelevant content should be taken down.
* Someone needs oversight to make sure content is approved (and appropriate) before being published.
* Someone also needs to make sure Web content meets pre-established standards.
There are many pieces that have to be considered when developing the words for a Web site: keywords, SEO, conversion, your visitor's goal (or goals!), useful information, to name a few. And that's already a long list. But Gerry's right. There's enough garbage online without us contributing to it. Getting the content up is still important. But making sure it's relevant, timely and useful for our site visitors is even more so.
Until next month!
Sharon
