A short guide to content governance

Every audit we run turns up some version of this. Everything we would tell a client about content governance in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

Writing for the web is largely an editing job: the first draft is always longer than it needs to be. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

What it costs to ignore

Someone must own each page or it rots. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

What good looks like

Set review dates when content is published. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

What to watch for

Removing outdated content is maintenance, not loss. The teams that handle this well are rarely the ones with the biggest budgets. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

The short version

Pages that answer a real question outlive pages written to fill a slot in a sitemap. Three things worth confirming about content governance before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Removing outdated content is maintenance, not loss — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.