The Art of Strategic Content Maintenance

What happens to the content once you publish it? Is your work over and you move on to the next task? Or do you feel that maintaining web content should also be a duty? There are differing views on the subject. Majority of digital marketing companies do not find content maintenance exciting and typically overlook it.

Content maintenance includes a number of aspects. Also, content with various features and aims needs to be prioritized in different ways.  One thing should be remembered – “maintenance-free content” or “maintenance free website” is a myth, even though all content does not need the same level of maintenance.

At times, content needs to retire because it is no longer relevant in current times. That does not mean it was factually wrong – what it needs is management based on current and potential relevance. You should abandon content that is no longer pertinent and unlikely to be pertinent again.

Let us also understand the difference between 2 associated concepts: content relevance and content validity. The term content relevance refers to how well the audience care about the content. Content validity on the other side implies whether the content is accurate. It is a division of content relevance.

When someone talks about updating content, they often do not give a clarity as to whether they are trying to fix inaccuracies in the content, or if they want to assess the ways in which can be made more relevant.  This lack of precision on methods of updating content can be confusing for those who are assigned the task.

Usually, ‘updating content’ is done on the presumption that the content is relevant intrinsically but that some parts of it need changes. And there are two types of updates here:

Accuracy updates

Technical updates

Change is the only constant and facts characteristically go out of date. And it has been noted that even certain scientific facts are not stable – they are subject to revision.

Content needs to be maintained and its maintenance calls for a process in addition to willpower.  It is good to make rules, frame criteria and document plans to ensure that content maintenance keeps happening.  You should also connect these rules and plans to the larger aim of your brand’s content strategy.  Content repair has to be upgraded from its status as a monotonous task to being considered as a contributor for growing audience engagement.