I will make a confession: as a writer, I prefer to write new work. It’s more fun and more exciting to create something fresh. But, as a Web content writer, I recognize the need to edit my existing work. Whether it is updating old content on your company’s Web site, responding to the comments on your blog, or managing themes and memes in your social media streams, you must return to the pages that you’ve built and update them. Otherwise, unmaintained and out of mind, these neglected content components start to rust, dragging down the rest of your site and damaging your continuity, message, and voice. After all, you can’t have a beautiful house built on top of a collapsing basement.
There are many reasons to revisit your work. Product specifications change, staff members get promoted or leave or new people come on board, events happen and then get archived. But there are other less obvious, but no less important, reasons to revisit your content. Never think of what’s on your Web site as complete and finished – after all, that’s kind of the beauty of the Internet. To keep your site vibrant and relevant to your users, you must continually provide them with new, meaningful information.
While it’s perfectly okay for some standard content to remain as boilerplate, many sections of your site must be treated as an evolving species. Marketing and social media pages must exhibit new growth for users to feel engaged and compelled to return to your site. For example, before you launch that testimonials page with three glowing customer reviews, be sure that you have another 10 in the can to swap out after a few weeks, and, more importantly, a mechanism for gathering more.
Use your tools and your team members to your advantage:
- If you use a content management system, leverage the workflow features to schedule edits for existing content or force content to expire after a certain date.
- If you work with a team of content creators, make an editorial plan that includes revisiting content on a regular basis.
- If your team members are specialized – one writer takes care of press releases and public relations while another writes all of the technical content – have them work together to comment on each other’s work.
- If you have social media specialists on your staff, collaborate with them to glean new insights and perspective on your existing content: what are users talking about? What features do they like? What features are they asking for?
Writing for the Web is more like a round robin – a piece of collaborative fiction – than a finished novel. You are always adding to the narrative and shifting focus, introducing new characters and plots, and revisiting and revising old themes. The intent is to refresh and renew your message, while always maintaining your voice and ethos, and keeping your focus on your users and their needs.