essays

Are attractive websites more likely to trick experienced content strategists?

Perpetuated primarily by startups hungry for users and the entrepreneurial agencies and thought leaders who serve them, bad data begets worse expectations. Rapid rocketship visibility graphs imply that business results will follow—almost never the case long-term.

Sometimes, mid-planning, you'll hear something like, "We have to build out an entirely new content campaign that doesn't fit into our existing plan or budget because Wolverine is Canadian and his skeleton is infused with adamantine."

You can't predict the future, especially in publishing. You never know exactly which pieces of content will be hits and which will be a waste of time and money. But you can, as the finance folks have taught us, forecast your impact.

How to measure your content's performance, regardless of the business model

How do we expect audiences to find and read our content if we can't be bothered to research and build better structures?