Sustainable web content is possible, but most importantly for businesses that want to create value and stay profitable.
What is sustainable web content? What are the challenges for a company or a brand?
Concretely, sustainable web content is content or a content ecosystem that can maintain a consistently high level of attention, responding to the real needs of users as well as communication objectives for the duration of its life cycle…
Today, a content strategy that is not based on these principles of sustainability can severely damage a company’s reputation, or even directly result in financial or legal consequences.
The 4 essentials for producing sustainable web content
Constant editorial authority
The value of editorial authority lies precisely in its ability to bring together the key factors to achieve a sustainable and valuable web content strategy. How? By ensuring that:
- the people involved have the necessary skills to maintain content;
- they have enough time to devote themselves to the content;
- that the organization itself remains committed to its editorial strategy;
- what predictive and iterative processes are put in place to anticipate and standardize work on the content;
- and finally, that everything is implemented for a perfect strategic awareness and financial issues.
A dedicated and competent team
Who says sustainable web content, necessarily says good design and production practices. For this, we (still) need humans with the right skills, resources and commitment to maintain high-quality content over time. Ideally, we work with a real editorial team, mobilizing complementary skills:
A chief editor, at the center of the development and execution of the content strategy, in charge of defining the axes and the objectives, of organize workflows and check final quality;
writers and producers of content, experienced in writing and web multimedia, able to apply standards and guidelines, while respecting the brand image of the company;
Thematic content experts (the so-called ‘Subject Matter Experts’ or SMEs), who ensure the legitimacy and accuracy of speaking, work in collaboration with the production and validation team and bring added value.
You can opt for a centralized management model or prefer to distribute responsibilities at multiple levels. But each of these two models has its strengths and weaknesses. A centralized organization is more difficult and costly in small structures, while the idea of involving a little everyone can quickly cause concern for competence and consistency. The solution for sustainable web content is to adopt a hybrid way of working. When the content allows it, you have the flexibility to decentralize it: your HR department can support the publication of job offers, and marketing, event-related communication, for example.
An evolutionary editorial inventory
sustainable web content is content that keeps its useful value over time. To ensure that your digital strategy is sustainable and sustainable, you must be able to answer the following questions at all times:
- What content do you really have?
- What state is it in?
- How to revalue?
Your content inventory must be up-to-date and evolve along with your goals and means of communication. A good way to sort through your existing content and evaluate the work needed to recycle and refresh it is to use the WROT Grid: Weak-Weak, Redundant-Redundant, Outdated-Expired, Trivial-trivial. In function, you can more easily decide which treatment to apply and which resources to mobilize to revalorize them within your editorial heritage.
A regular performance check
Finally, to be able to focus on sustainable web content, it is obviously necessary to regularly take the pulse on the numbers and performance side. The analysis of results is an integral part of a responsible editorial approach, as it allows:
- to ensure that the content continues to meet the needs of users;
- learn what works and does not work and stop repeating mistakes;
- identify the content ready to be deleted or archived;
- to increase the return on investment of its editorial efforts;
To establish your evaluation plan, begin by clarifying the nature of the objectives to be achieved. Awareness, education, commitment, acquisition, etc. Are your KPIs SMART:
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Tangible?
And most importantly, are you able to compare your numbers across multiple periods and campaigns to find real improvements?
Beyond the ethical issue, sustainable web content is a (good) sense for companies and brands. Not only does it guarantee the efficiency of the production efforts, but it is also the cornerstone of the overall strategy: serving the user needs of the targets and the communication objectives.
