Three Questions That Replace "I Don't Like It" in Content Reviews
Reviewing content isn't about moving words around. Three focused questions replace gut feelings and cut months of back-and-forth revisions.
How to Review Content From Your Contractors
Your editor just sent over an article. The copywriter delivered a landing page. A designer dropped the email layout in your inbox. You grab your coffee, open the file, and now comes the hard part: accept it, send it back for revisions, or scrap the whole thing?
The first instinct is to nitpick the wording. Move a word around. Swap "we" for "you." Debate whether the headline needs an exclamation mark. I did this for years. Then it hit me — that's a trap. Reviewing content isn't about the text. It's about the job the content was supposed to do.
Three questions instead of "I don't like it"
The entire review process comes down to three things. Get these right, and you'll save yourself months of back-and-forth revisions.
Does it speak to your audience? Would the reader see themselves in this? If you're a marketing consultant for startups and the article reads like a corporate annual report — miss. If your audience is busy founders and the piece opens with five paragraphs of theory — also a miss.
Does it solve a real problem? Content that just informs isn't enough. It needs to help the reader do something or fix something. An article about "the importance of planning" is information. An article about "how to plan your week in 15 minutes every Sunday" is a solution.
Does it serve your business goal? Was this post supposed to drive newsletter signups? Then where's the call-to-action? Was the article meant to demonstrate expertise? Then does it go deeper than what your competitors have published?
If all three answers are "yes," everything else is the editor's job. Style, rhythm, comma placement — that's their responsibility. And you can get back to the work clients actually pay you for.
Here's something that helps: before you even open the file, write one sentence — "This piece of content should ____________." Then judge the delivery against that sentence. Not against a gut feeling of "like it" or "don't like it."
