Rod McLaren: Words that work |||

When is something ready to publish?

15 Sep 2023

Honestly, it’s never ready.

Publishing the new website - or even just a blog post - often feels like an uncomfortable step.

It’s tempting to keep refining the content, to wait until you’ve got it exactly right. But this can lead to endless editing and sign off paralysis. The cause is usually a lack of confidence in the organisation (“Will Legal approve this?” etc), or a lack of confidence in the audience.

The truth is that publishing always feels uncomfortable because all content is always provisional.

Your audience’s expectations are always changing. The landscape in which your organisation works is always changing. It’s never going to feel perfect: these days, the world changes too quickly to be able to settle on perfect.

So don’t ask yourself if this new content is perfect.

Instead ask: is this new content better than the content that’s on the website right now?

It probably is.

So publish it. And then make it better and publish again.

If you know you’ll be publishing again, every decision to publish carries a much smaller risk. The website will get better quicker. Your audience will see your improved content sooner.

And all of it will build confidence.

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