Are You Content with Your Content?

It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.

Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.

I’ve been blogging since before they called it blogging, and posting online since even before that. Everyone I knew who was creating original content before the ‘content marketing’ term became widely used understood the value of that content creation. It was obvious when a collection of content had been published that people would find it — maybe not always immediately, but eventually. That’s the value of long-term content properties.

A funny thing happens when you’ve been publishing content online over time, though. Eventually, much of it disappears or becomes outdated. I was asked recently to share a few of my favorite articles I’d written online. Once I began seeking those out, I discovered that several of the companies that owned the companies I had written for at various times had been acquired, eventually dissolving their content. The only place it’s findable now is the Wayback Machine.

Then there are the group blogs that went the way of the dinosaur. And even major publications that have online content eventually will archive it, taking it offline, making new for fresher more relevant pieces. The Internet that we were taught would have so much digital permanence — as it turns out — does not.

If you’re like me and your work has been sprinkled across the Web in various forms over time, as these content properties disappear, your own digital footprint can change. If you do a vanity search, you can see what search engines think is current and relevant, but it may not match your own experience in that regard. (That’s ignoring the people who share the same name, like the other author Sarah Granger who writes gay romance novels. Let’s stick with the content actually linked to you.)

So then it begs the question — does the content that remains online represent who you are? And are you content with that content? Personally, I see it as an interesting evolution. I tend to save drafts of most of my work offline anyway, but I do miss being able to see certain articles I toiled away at no longer in their original published homes where readers can benefit from them.

I also wonder what will come of all this when I’m gone. One of the topics I covered in my book, The Digital Mystique, was about leaving a digital legacy. I don’t dwell on it often, but there’s such a vast collection of data we’ll all be leaving behind. Who will want to caretake for all of that content? Most people will not.

What’s the moral of the story? The content you create that you care most for — archive it yourself. Track it somewhere offline. Make a list or some sort of file that organizes your thoughts around that content so that others can benefit from it or figure out what to do with it when you’re no longer online yourself. And put thought into what content you want to create next, where you want it saved long-term, and how to preserve any notations or links that might also expire. Content is king — until it isn’t.