Content principles

At Sticker Mule we view content as more than blog posts. Content includes everything from website copy, videos and FAQs to dashboards, emails, training guides and internal documentation.

Vigilance about content quality helps us build a solid foundation for our future. Content multiplies as you grow so it is important to foster a commitment to crafting high quality content early.

We created a set of principles that guides our team as they write copy, write scripts, shoot videos and create documentation. They're shared below for the benefit of future team members and anyone else that may find them useful.

9 principles to help you create quality content

Omit needless words.

Use the fewest words possible. Practice by editing content after you write it to see if any words can be omitted. Practice editing content to omit needless words.

Omit needless information.

Delete information that doesn't matter.

Use sentence case.

Camel Case Makes Reading Harder. Use sentence case.

Consolidate and optimize.

Combine similar content into a single optimized piece of content when sensible.

Always be polishing.

When revisiting content fix problems when you spot them.

Obsessively organize.

Put content in the right place so that it is easily found.

Use hyperlinks.

Link to additional content when appropriate.

Think about the future.

Good design is long lasting and so is good content. Avoid creating content that doesn’t provide long term value.

Practice.

Crafting quality content is difficult. It takes constant practice to become and stay good.

Concluding thoughts

Since the internet makes every business international, content quality is more important than ever. Eventually, many of the words you write will need to be translated to support customers worldwide. If you can't craft exceptional content in your native language, it's going to be even harder to translate your message globally.

An obsession with content quality may seem trite, but words, images and videos are all we have to communicate with our customers and each other. Making a mess of it weakens our foundation, while crafting and curating great content makes it stronger.

Our aim is to build an enduring business and long lasting businesses need strong foundations.