Content Creation: Quality vs. Quantity

Last night, I had dinner at one of Brain Traffic’s favorite local restaurants: Brasa Rotisserie. They’re part of a growing number of shops opting for a “limited offerings” approach to dining. That is, they offer a few dishes, and they do them gosh-darned well. They use locally grown, organic ingredients. They slow-cook their meat, and price the dishes reasonably.

I tend to appreciate that less-is-more approach with regard to more than just my dinner. That’s why I shop at my neighborhood co-op instead of the mega-supermarket across town. It’s why I like wearing dresses instead of trying to assemble a pants-shirt-belt outfit every day. Life is complicated enough already, jeez.

The same don’t-bite-off-more-than-you-can-chew, quality-vs.-quantity sensibility factors into many of the recommendations we make to our clients as they undertake the complex task of planning for content on their website.

Your content can’t please all of the people all of the time. (Sorry.)

It’s common for publishers of web properties (large ones, especially) to feel the pressure of becoming all things to all people. After all, different departments within a company have different priorities and different ideas about what the end user really needs.

But without clear rules and a solid decision-making process about what should stay and what should go, the situation can quickly devolve into a “too many cooks in the kitchen” scenario (ahem).

Pretty soon, your users get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information on your site, and they leave feeling frustrated, but still hungry for something substantial. The information they wanted may have been there all along, but it was hiding behind a bunch of stuff they didn’t actually need or care about.

But with a content strategy in place, it can please some of the people most of the time.

So how can you satisfy your users by giving them only useful, usable information that’s also easy to navigate and search? A strategy is necessary. That’s all there is to it.

Whatever form that strategy takes, it should cover the whos, whats, whens, wheres, whys, and hows of everything you serve up. For example:

• What are your users’ goals?
• What content do you offer to satisfy those goals?
• Who makes the content?
• Who fixes it when it’s broken/outdated?
• Where is the best place on the site to share the content?
• Why would your users choose you over another organization?
• How can you use your site content to build on those competitive differences?
• How do your users find you when they find you? How long do they stay when they get there?

If you can’t keep tabs on all your content in these ways, make less of it for a while. Minimize the content elements you can’t easily govern … until you have the resources or the budget to do so.

The key is to set standards your organization can easily support and routinely evaluate.

Most importantly: Set standards (and a schedule!) for evaluating quality. Make a plan for adding/subtracting content elements to reflect current demand, while innovating in your area of expertise. (If you’re awesome at slow-cooking meats, make that your thing. Then whip up a few side dishes to give that carne some context.)

In summary, make sure the content on your site helps your users accomplish a task. Ditch everything that gets in their way. Bam!