Website Content without Context = Crap
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Here’s a question – how relevant is your website content? This is important because the time-relevance of information on your site is going to say an awful lot about your site’s relevance to the world. Relevance plus reliability plus findability equals a resource. If any of those three are missing then you’re out of the game.
So what do I mean by relevant? OK, supposing you wrote it, when was that smick article about the best RAM chip in the world published? Three years ago? So, on face value, if I come to your website and read that the best RAM chip in the world is something I now know is a dog then I’ll think you’re an idiot. And if I don’t know but happen to rely on your information and get ripped off then I’ll really think you’re an idiot. Time relevance of information is without argument one of the critical factors for web managers to consider. It provides context, and without context your information is crap.
You can provide time-relevant information in several ways, too. The primary thing you can start doing, if you’re not using software that automatically outputs this, is to visibly publish the date and time the information became available. The second, if its in your control, is to provide it as HTML metadata so that someone can go to your source code and at least find the date published. The third thing you can do is to start cleaning out your old irrelevant information to make a leaner, more information-findable, website.
What does that leaner website offer you? Greater usability for your website users. Less crap to wade through.
