How we maintain content

Last updated: 22 September 2025

Subject matter experts are responsible for keeping content factually up to date. Find out how to make a request to update or create new content.

We will also conduct our own checks and reviews to maintain good quality content, including removing webpages and documents.

Content reviews

Content should be reviewed:

• at least once every year
• if something changes and it needs to be updated
• when there is feedback or complaints about it.

There are many reasons why we should conduct reviews, including:

• taking stock of content
• reducing risks associated with out-of-date content
• cutting the carbon footprint of our website by removing old content
• identifying opportunities to make improvements
• supporting the launch of a new or redesigned service.

Watch Content Strategist Lauren Pope’s video to find out more about what content audits are, why they’re important and how they can be done.

Content reviews on medway.gov.uk

The Content Design Team will regularly conduct reviews of different areas of, or journeys within, the medway.gov.uk website to:

• improve existing content by explaining complex concepts in a simple way
• reorder and consolidate content
• reduce or remove content that is no longer needed
• add content based on search terms that are not yielding results
• add content based on calls to support the call centre in reducing avoidable contact
• add content based on previous freedom of information requests and complaints, to ensure information is available online within the context of a service or task
• explore different ways of presenting content that works well on all devices.

The aim is to help users get to the information they need quickly and easily, ensuring they understand what they’re being told so they can carry out their task or get to an outcome.

We will prioritise these reviews based on:

• when the content was last audited
• the reach – the number of people using the service
• if we’re receiving a high volume of calls, repeated feedback or complaints.

Our content review process

Our content review process can be broken down into several steps.

First we will:

1. decide the scope of a review, for example if we’ll review a whole area of the website such as ‘births, ceremonies and deaths’ or only part of an area such as ‘births’
2. contact you (the subject matter experts) to tell you what we plan to do, why and how you can help us
3. agree on timescales
4. write a brief outlining scope, high-level objectives, who is involved, and the timeline.

The rest of the process is broken down into the following stages and tasks:

Discovery

Discovery helps us understand existing user behaviour, problems and successes so we can make the right decisions within the review.

We will:

• identify what content we already have online and who the audience is
• map existing user journeys through this content
• gather analytics to identify top tasks, low volume traffic and search terms
• gather online feedback to identify compliments and pain points
• look at heatmaps to see how users are interacting with the content
• speak with call centre agents to understand what phone enquiries we’re receiving
• find out what type of complaints are being raised with the service
• research what other local authorities or organisations are doing
• decide what user research is right for the task, for example, card sorts or user interviews or usability testing
• conduct user research and analyse the findings
• use the data gathered and work with you to identify information that may be lacking, missing or unnecessary
• document what the emerging themes are for problems that need to be solved
• write user stories based on discovery.

Design

The design stage is about taking the findings from the discovery stage and redesigning content to improve user experience.

We will:

• review information architecture (categories and navigation)
• decide whether content is redundant, outdated, trivial or essential
• consolidate content where possible
• pair write new content with you
• redesign existing content, making sure it aligns with our content standards
• mock up content changes and additions in our content management system, including if converting documents into HTML webpages or forms
• optimise the content for search engines (descriptions and key words)
• ask you to do a final check for factual accuracy.

Test

Wherever possible we aim to test our designs before making them live to the public.

We will:

• write a plan to decide the best method, participants and location for user testing
• organise and conduct the testing
• discuss and analyse what the results tell us
• decide what small changes can be made and implement them
• add changes that cannot be made at this time to the review backlog.

Sometimes time doesn’t allow for this step. If this is the case, we’ll monitor feedback once content is being used by people in real time.

Implement

This stage is where we make our redesigned content available to the public.

We will publish the changes including any links, redirects and search results (ensuring that we do not cause breakages). We will also decommission pages and documents that are no longer needed.

Measure and iterate

When we have reviewed and changed content, it’s important that we measure if and how those changes have made a difference to users.

We will book a meeting with you around 3 months post-review. We can use our findings from before the changes were made to evaluate how the content is now performing. For example, we may look at:

• analytics to see if page views or time on page have changed
• the number of return visits (indicating ongoing value)
• tracking of goals (for example registering for an event) through conversion rates
• heatmaps to see where users are now focussing their attention
• user feedback to see if satisfaction has improved
• search queries to analyse what users are searching for and how often they find it
• completion rate of forms and where users are dropping out
• the types of questions being asked in chatbots and the answers given
• how the accessibility of a page or pages has improved
• conducting user testing to gain further insights
• how regularly the content is being updated by you and other subject matter experts to remain relevant and accurate.

We will also expect you to share any feedback you have received.

By combining these metrics, we can gain a comprehensive understanding of how well content is performing and where improvements may be needed. We can make urgent or small changes and schedule in any larger iterations.

In the world of digital, content is never ‘done’. It will need to be regularly monitored and updated to reflect the changing needs of users.

Removing content

Good content design practice ensures that content on medway.gov.uk stays accurate, relevant and optimised both for users and search engines. When content is no longer accurate or useful it needs to be removed.

We rely on subject matter experts to tell us if content has become outdated or if terms of service have changed.

We will, however, proactively remove any content we see that is out of date or no longer serves a purpose. For example, content or documents linked to a consultation or campaign that has ended.

Events should be scheduled to come offline as soon as they’re finished.

We keep news articles for a maximum of 2 years.

Our website should not be used as a tool for storing or archiving information. Our content strategy outlines our plan to reduce documents and webpages, as well as consolidate some content so it can be found in one place. This means the right content will be easier to find and there will be less chance of updates being missed.