Contents
Why and what to moderate are the first two questions to ask yourself to get the most out of content moderation. How can you maximize your moderation ROI?
Why content moderation?
Down to the very basics, moderation is about keeping a certain level of content quality. The right quality means delighted users who will return to your site and spread the word to colleagues, friends, and family. Your reputation will build, and so will your visitors and your business.
Stay Out of Legal Trouble
As a site owner you also want to make sure the content doesn’t result in legal trouble, give you bad publicity, or be abused by competitors.
Organize Your Content and Take Your Customers on a Journey
Taking it to the next level, good moderation will also help you organize your content and take your customers on a journey that makes them stay longer on the site, discover more content or purchase items they didn’t look for in the first place.
What to moderate?
The type of content that needs to be moderated depends on the site, user base, and local laws. However, some general good practices apply to most brands and businesses.
Site Visitors are generally looking for content that is safe, organized and descriptive.
Users posting content want a smooth process, fast approval and a good organization for a larger chance of getting a match.
Site owners need content to be appropriate to the target group, legal and non abusive. For example, you probably don’t want nudity in content targeted towards families, illegal stuff or links to your competitors.
The 5 layer model for content quality
To help you define the right quality, we have developed a model consisting of 5 layers of content moderation: Illegal, Scam, Abusive, Irrelevant, and Inappropriate.
1. Illegal
The Besedo Layers Model starts from the left, with the most serious threat: Illegal Content. This is where you need to start to focus your moderation. Keeping illegal content off your site is the obvious choice if you can only do one thing.
2. Scam
If you have slightly more resources, you can move to the next layer: Scam. If your users get ripped off they are not likely to come back, and if scammers get lucky, they will focus even more on your site.
3. Abuse
The next level, Abuse, is when someone is misusing your site for e.g. avoid fees or promote their brands in an unallowable way. One example is posting ads that should be paid for in a free category, e.g. real-estate listings in the home decoration category. Margins on classifieds sites are small and you probably need to get paid when you should.
4. Irrelevant
One step right takes you to the Irrelevant layer. Poor pictures, missing descriptions or multiple items per ad gives a bad impression and restless users won’t stay long on the site if they don’t immediately find what they’re looking for.
5. Inappropriate
Finally, Inappropriate content can turn off your users and things like nudity or slandering might lead to a bad reputation. Strained for resources? Don’t panic, just focus on the first couple of layers. If you can avoid illegals and scams you have taken a big step in the right direction.
Choose the right level of quality
Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that every business is unique, and not all sites need all layers of moderation. It’s up to you to set the right level of content quality for you. The most important thing is that you take an active decision and make sure you keep the quality you have chosen.
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