Unbound Edition - Web Content Strategy: What’s Your Signal-to-Noise Ratio?

Congratulations. Your business has embraced a digital content strategy. You’ve all settled on the cornflower blue icons. The company president wants to know if you’ve “gotten IT to install the Web 2.0 yet.” You’re sitting in your cube, taking a moment to breathe, thinking that the beast has been slain, the stables cleaned, the rock is on the top of the mountain, and hey, Hell looks nice from up here.

Then the phone rings: It’s your web monkey and he wants to know what you want him to post on the site tomorrow.

Oh, back to your cage, web monkey! This is the question you’ll be answering at least every week, if not every day. The furnaces burn, baby, and the lake of fire is “always on.” When you do manage to convince business associates, friends, and customers to part with their time and spend a few minutes on your website, the the number one question on their mind will be, “What’s in it for me?”

If your answer to this question is: “Something new!” then you’re halfway there. But save yourself future agony (and declining visitor engagement) by preventing “new” from being your only answer. Beware the signal-to-noise ratio of your digital content. When the quality of the content suffers in deference to the frequency of updates, you’re wasting your resources. If you’re sacrificing the quality of your content for the quantity of updates, you may be turning off more visitors than you know.

Businesses are not expected to be out there Twittering every move. A visitor’s expectation differs from property to property, just as readers have different expectations for a Charles Simic poetry collection versus a graphic novel. Your brand position will create in your audience the expectation of a particular tone, or editorial voice, and may also influence the frequency of your updates.

Look to your brand fundamentals as you review your content choices. Does this sound like us? Does this article, video, or podcast somehow touch on the promise of our brand? How often would our visitors really expect to see a new piece? This process should not be as rigid as a pre-flight checklist, but ask the questions internally. Run it by your editorial board (those other cubicles... especially the ones that talk to your clients). Check your gut. Gauge response after pieces run.

As you curate content for your site, consider the overall quality of the pieces. You may be tempted to put up your strongest pieces as fast as possible, but if the pipeline for the week contains considerably less substance, plan your releases strategically. Examine your historic traffic levels on a day-to-day basis. When are the busiest days? What will give your top-shelf content maximum exposure on the site?

Eventually, new content will become archived on your site. Evaluating your signal-to-noise ratio extends beyond the front page. To maximize the value of your best content over time, prioritizing your archives based on the merit of the individual content pieces will keep high-value pieces accessible to your visitors. One way to think about your archive is in terms of a “second site” within your site. What pieces would you pull forward? Which would never see the light of day without a search query? How can you cross-link high-value content to other pieces of high-value content? Can you group the best and brightest pieces around a single theme or special subsection?

Admittedly, this isn’t easy. But consider the dividends: The volume of content online will only increase, and as it increases, true value comes for users in the form of editorial boards, curators, and thoughtful webmasters who tend their sites with a strong bias for signal over noise. People love YouTube, but they don’t like searching through YouTube without a little guidance (a link from a friend is ideal).

Mainstream users are increasingly aware of advertising dollars behind the scenes, and the bias that cash introduces into even seemingly transparent sources. When you can become a trusted source, you reduce your dependence on search engines and increase the potential of word-of-mouth marketing of your site. You also build a library for long-term thought surrounding your company. Whether you sell blenders or C-suite consulting services, isn’t this a top priority? Lead the conversation, but make sure it’s not all small talk.

discipline
written by Patrick, September 17, 2007 02:26 PM

The discipline to manage content the way brands are managed is fundamental - and incredibly difficult. Content is liquid...ever changing. And brands are...wait. Liquid...ever changing. Could it be that learning to manage content is excellent training ground for learning to manage a brand? I think so -- all great brands tell complex, rich, malleable stories. Brand = content.

Brand management? Brand authors.
written by E.R., September 17, 2007 03:00 PM

I would argue so, Patrick. In fact, I think we should move beyond brand management and take up the charge to be brand authors. In this context, we think not of consumers, but our imagined readers. Our brands are then characters in collections of scenes, and those scenes should add up to a narrative if we're to keep the readers on the page.

E.

Cross-enterprise content coordination improves signal to noise ratio
written by Richard @ web-content-strategy.com, February 13, 2008 02:38 PM

As part of a complete content strategy, I always push hard for a well-defined content editorial calendar for the next year that is coordinated with all the other marketing activities. If a new marketing campaign is rolling out in May, make sure you have a supporting content project or two in the pipeline with enough lead time to hit the site at the same time as the new campaign. Never fails to amaze me how in big companies, the corp. communications and marketing folks don't talk at all to the Web folks. Having new fresh content that supports what the sales guys are saying and other marketing channels will make your content seem more relevant and less "noisy."