One of the most common questions I receive when it comes to content is how do I know if my content is relevant? In their book Creating Breakthrough Products by Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel, the authors write that what makes a great experience for a user is a combination of three elements – useful, usable, and desirable. When it comes to providing content usefulness is the easiest – you just have to know what the user wants and provide content that is relevant to that want. The problem for government agencies, who are still designing sites and publishing blogs under the mindset that everyone is a customer, is not knowing what content is relevant to the user.

When it comes to making Web site and Web 2.0 content relevant to the user, there are three components:

• Understanding the user. This is pretty straight forward – if you don’t understand your user, then how can you write content for them? It all starts with personas. This also includes understanding their goals in relation to what you provide.
• Users getting what they want. Relevancy of content to a user means that they get the information they want in a format that they are comfortable with. A great example is the AMBER Alert program. Government agencies can send out content via text messages to mobile phones, email, and on Web portals – among the many available channels. People who sign up for these messages get the content they want – information about a missing child in a channel they are comfortable with.
• Content providers getting the response they want. Relevancy of content to a provider means that they get the user response they expect. Under the AMBER Alert program, the government providers get the response they want – a lot more eyes looking for the child, or a person or vehicle connected to the child’s disappearance.

So you have personas and you have an understanding of your users. How do you check the relevancy of your content? By using direct and indirect methods. First, direct methods focus on a known user set and strives for feedback directly from the target users. These methods include:

• User ratings. If you have a rating system in place for specific pieces of content such as an article then user ratings offer some value. I say some value because it takes little effort on the part of the user to select between one star and five stars and can easily be influenced by external factors.
• User surveys. Surveys of registered users and casual visitors are the most common form of checking the relevancy of content and are moderately valuable. They are moderately valuable because they can give you deep insight, but only on the questions you ask. Remember that you are not looking so much for statistical relevancy as you are looking for general trends.
• User comments. Though generally few and far between, these comments are the most valuable user feedback because a user took the time to write out a specific response to a piece of content you distributed.

Indirect methods focus less on a user set and more on the broad experience users get from a site or Web 2.0 tool. There are not direct correlations to what the user thinks, but only indirect indicators. These methods include:

• Analytics. Common analytical measures like time on site, bounce rate, traffic sources are good indirect indicators of the relevancy of the content for visitors. They are also relevant in the Web 2.0 world for blogs, wikis, and other social media.
• Path analysis. With path analysis you look at the aggregate of user traffic to determine the frequency of use of certain sequences of pages. This gives you have an indication of whether the user thinks the next step that you have established for them is relevant. It may also give you insight in to other paths you had not intended but that have a high level of relevancy to the user.
• Viral spread. Have your users linked to your content on their site, tweeted about it on Twitter, Digged it, Stumbled Upon, or bookmarked on Delicious? These are all methods of spreading your content virally. The more it is spread, the more likely the user found it relevant and thought someone else may find it relevant also.

The Bottom Line: Make sure your content is relevant to your target user by using both direct and indirect methods to measure, and then adjust accordingly.

In speaking with a number of government Web managers and corresponding vendors recently, I have been asked a lot about why government Web sites and new media efforts are so “poor.” My first response generally is what do you mean by poor and I have been told things like “You can’t find anything on the site” or “The tweets are a mismatch of junk” or “The blog is filled with government speak that few understand” among many others. I then explain that it is most likely because they didn’t build a solid foundation before they started.

When it comes to a successful digital government effort, most Web Managers and New Media Chief’s don’t really think about what kind of foundation they are putting in place. Most are content to jump right in, putting up a Web site, starting a blog, allowing employees to tweet, etc. I am an advocate of open and transparent government, but jumping in like this with out some forethought and cornerstones for continued design and evolution is like building the proverbial house on sand – it won’t stand for long.

Note that I am using the term channel because whether it is a Web site, a twitter stream, a blog, or a Facebook page these three aspects of a foundation are applicable across all.

What constitutes a solid foundation for a digital effort? Three things – content, function, and brand.

• Content. Content is what your constituents want to know and what you want them to know by interacting with you on this channel. Who ever first said content is king was right. Citizens come to your Web sites, read your blog entries, watch your You Tube videos, and follow you on twitter because they are expecting to get content from you.
• Function. Function is what your constituents want to accomplish in this channel and what you want them to accomplish in this channel. Right now most of this is limited to the Web, but expect this to change in the near future as function follows content into other channels. Whether it is the ability to purchase postage, check your social security earnings, check on the status of your tax refund, or make a reservation at a campground online, constituents want and should be able to do more online.
• Brand. Brand is the impression you leave them with and yes the government has a brand. Just check the public perception scores of the National Park Service (NPS) against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). We have all heard the similar stories about the horrific experience Aunt Jane had with the bureaucratic red tape she had to wade through in order to collect her pension or Social Security. As much as I wish these were urban myths, unfortunately most are not. The type of experience you provide across channels will impact the image of your agency and the government as a whole.

Each of these things is one aspect of the interaction between you and your constituency. And like any relationship, there are two sides to each. There may be content or functionality that your constituents want but you are not able to provide yet. If it is something they really want (you should know this based upon the persona research you have done) and you can’t provide it then make the effort to explain why you can’t and if it will be provided in the future.

The Bottom Line: Check and see how solid the foundation of your digital relationship is. Repair where necessary.