|
08.30.05
Quality
Not Quantity : Delivering Value From Your Web Content
 By
Gerry McGovern
Maintaining the quality of your content is critical to the long term success of
your website. That involves establishing rigorous pre and post publication editorial
processes.
Slowly but surely, organizations are beginning to realize that the quality of
their content is critical to the success of their intranets and websites. However,
there is a long way to go. I still come across many organizations who give little
or no regard to the quality of the content they publish.
Things are changing. I was with Microsoft in Redmond in May and was very impressed
by the strong publishing culture that is now there. Yes, in the past, Microsoft
has been guilty of churning out content by the truck load, much of it poorly organized
and written in a way that geeks might understand but the general public would
be left sorely confused by. Consequently, Microsoft has a website with millions
of pages that is often a trial to navigate or search. When you do find the content
you need, the information it gives can be confusing and/or plain wrong, as I have
discovered myself on numerous occasions.
Find
30 Outlook add-ins that can make a
difference! – Click
Here |
According to a Microsoft senior manager, the company is suffering from "extreme
content proliferation". Part of the cause of this proliferation is because Microsoft
initially directly translated a print culture to the Web. This print culture was
focused on documenting everything about a product and having it all ready as a
big manual when the product shipped. Nobody really asked the question about whether
a particular piece of content was actually needed. Nobody really tested the content
to see could an ordinary person follow the instructions and do the things they
needed to do.
Microsoft thought of content in the same way most organizations did. It was a
low level commodity that deserved low priority. The product was the software.
The content was just stuff you had to include with the box.
Microsoft thinks differently about content today. The Web has allowed it to increasingly
find out what content is being read and what content isn't, what content is working
and what content isn't. Before Microsoft publishes content it now thinks more
like a professional publisher, focusing on a quality, not quantity approach. After
content is published, it tracks reader ranking and feedback, and seeks to improve
content that is getting poor ratings.
When I was with University of California, Los Angeles recently, I was told about
a particular intranet that held scientific content. This had a team of 20 people
who spent 20 percent of their week publishing new content and 80 percent reviewing
old content. When I tell this story to some web managers, I'm told that they would
never to be able to allocate so much time for review. Maybe that's why many websites
are full of poor quality, inaccurate and out-of-date content.
I spoke to someone from Intel recently who informed me that they have an "end
of life" process for their web content. Every three months, content is deleted
that doesn't meet certain minimum standards. I am also aware that Johnson & Johnson
and Tetra Pak have rigorous review processes for their content. These and other
organizations recognize that if you want your content to deliver value, you must
focus on quality.
About the Author:
For your web content management solution, contact Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
Subscribe to his New Thinking Newsletter: subscribe@gerrymcgovern.mailer1.net
|
