The more I write about the blog problem, how organizing a blog is hard, the effects of not organizing it, related common issues that can arise, the more I’m reminded of hoarding behavior.
When you publish content, are you just throwing the next post, video, pod on your existing pile of content?
If you publish content without paying attention to where it should fit in your information architecture, you are just stacking newspapers in a dark, damp, sad home.
Of course, you’d never get rid of it, it’s your content. So you keep stacking it.
You’re saying, this content matters today because you’re sharing it today. But tomorrow there will be more content, and tomorrow’s content will matter tomorrow.
When you inevitably die among all your cats, your content won’t live on. Your site will disappear overnight, and your content will be even harder to find in the content graveyard that is the Wayback machine.
In contrast, if you build a library, you’ve created something of value to everyone.
It’s an important resource, easy-to-reference, and the parts are easy-to-find. Older information is archived. It’s there for posterity if someone ever wants to look, but the interesting, useful, important, popular things are curated on shelves with no clutter.
Are you stacking newspapers or building a library?