You’ve launched, now what? Planning for the future of your content

Creating quality digital content is not a one-time endeavor. Once you’ve published content, you must then manage it over time. Sometimes management means making changes or enhancements. Other times, it means retiring legacy content or migrating content to another website, where it will be managed by another team. Regardless of the method, ongoing management keeps digital content relevant, accessible, and up to date.

Most content will go through several launches over time. You’ll want to refresh, restructure, and update designs as you review metrics and receive feedback; continuously enhance usability; and potentially update technology platforms. You’ll also want to incorporate lessons learned.

Think of content as something you’re responsible for long-term

Think of this analogy when your team is planning new content: content is like a puppy. As the puppy grows, the owner learns how to take better care of it, and keep it happy and healthy. The owner also learns how much work caring for a puppy is — and thinks hard before getting another one.

Content is similar. Once you have new content, you can’t expect it to take care of itself. It must be maintained and kept in balance with the other demands. For example, assign specific pages or sections to someone to regularly review and keep current — like ensuring that everyone on the team knows when it’s their turn to take the puppy for a walk or give it a bath. This approach eliminates “heroes,” or individuals and teams who shoulder the work and get burnt out.

Document and measure for future content managers

Post-launch is also a good time to think about measuring success. Consider important questions like:

• What will success look like for your content a year from now, or two years from now?
• If you use a minimum viable product (or MVP, a project management approach), what does your content management roadmap look like after launch, and how will your plan evolve over time?
• Which metrics will you collect and analyze, and how will they inform your definition of success and future refinements?
• How will usability testing contribute to maintenance and enhancement of your content?
• Where can you find efficiencies and make improvements?

You might decide to transition ownership of your digital content post-launch. During transitions, your project documentation is key. Project documentation includes things like:

• Meeting notes
• Standard operating procedures
• Style guides (follow your agency’s style guide; don’t create your own!)

Documentation maintains consistency, provides clarity on decision-making, and helps teams iterate and build on previous work more effectively.

Share what you’re learning

Share successes and lessons learned internally and externally throughout the post-launch process. Documented lessons learned can build buy-in within your agency for future projects. They also provide best practices and approaches which can be shared collaboratively across the government.

You can share what you learned with other teams by joining Digital.gov communities of practice and engaging in conversations with other federal practitioners.