TL;DR – How I Treat Content

• I build editorial systems that keep brand, SEO, and commercial goals aligned.

• I use trackers, templates, and clear acceptance criteria so writers/editors know exactly what “good” looks like.

• I’m comfortable sitting between partners, internal stakeholders, and SEO to keep everything moving.

How I Think About Content & Editorial

I don’t see content as “X articles a month.” I see it as an operating system:

• A clear map of topics and article types.

• Templates that encode what works.

• Writers and editors who know the brief and the bar.

• Simple ways for SEO, product, and commercial teams to plug in without derailing everything.

My job is to translate messy goals (“we need more signups”, “we promised partners pieces”, “SEO wants these keywords”) into a roadmap and workflow that humans can actually run.

Example: Partner Publications – Clearing the Review Bottleneck

With one major media partner and its syndication network, the risk was simple:

• Lots of crypto/fintech pieces in progress.

• Multiple editors, internal stakeholders, and deadlines.

• And I was the approval bottleneck for SEO, brand fit, and how our product appeared.

To fix it, I treated the whole pipeline as a mini editorial OS.

1. Article Review Tracker

I built a tracker that sat across all partner publications and topics. For each article we tracked:

• Publication and topic (e.g. “best wallets”, “best crypto apps”, “launchpads”, “Web3 wallets”).

• Status in their workflow and in ours (e.g. ready for review, in edits, approved, live).

• Whether our product was integrated correctly and what was blocking.​

This meant:

• No more guessing what I owed who.

• Stakeholders could see, at a glance, what was waiting on me and what was ready to ship.

2. Review Pattern

Instead of rewriting everything from scratch, I settled into a repeatable pattern for each article:

• Check structure vs search intent (does this cover what the reader is actually typing?).

• Ensure our product is positioned clearly and honestly (not over‑promised, not buried).

• Fix obvious SEO issues (H1, subheads, thin sections, missing internal links).

• Align risk language and disclaimers with our internal standards.

This pattern turned “Nikko needs to rewrite the whole thing” into “Nikko gives targeted, repeatable edits.”

3. Communication with Stakeholders

I then made comms boring and predictable:

• Short updates to the partner and internal team:

  • What’s ready.

  • What still needs edits (and by whom).

  • What can go live now without drama.

Result:

• The partner wasn’t blocked on me anymore.

• Our product showed up cleanly and consistently across multiple big sites.

• Everyone could see the pipeline instead of chasing Slack threads.​

Example: Product Site – Templates for High-Stakes Pages

On one product site, we needed to ship a whole cluster of high‑value pages (think: wallet pages, buy guides, comparisons) with different writers and input from SEO, product, and design.

The risk was: every page becomes a one‑off argument.

So I designed a set of content templates:

• For each major type (e.g. wallet page, “Best X” comparison, how‑to guide), I defined:

  • The sections (value prop, what it is, how it works, why us, FAQs, risks).

  • Word‑count ranges per section.

  • Where screenshots or diagrams should go.

  • Mandatory SEO/UX elements (H1, intro, CTA, internal links).​

We then used those templates for a full cluster of pages, with room for writers to bring their own style.

Impact:

• New pages started from a proven structure, not a blank doc.

• Reviews were faster because we were checking against a shared pattern.

• Design and dev knew roughly what was coming, which made shipping smoother.

The Framework I Use for Editorial Systems

When I step into a messy content situation, I default to:

1. Make the Invisible Visible

• Build one tracker that shows:

  • Every article or page in scope.

  • Owner, status, and next action.

• Treat that as the single source of truth (not DMs and random docs).

2. Define Templates and Patterns

• For each core type (Best Of, review, guide, product page, news), define:

  • Required sections.

  • Voice/tone guardrails.

  • SEO and compliance basics.

Templates are there to protect quality and speed, not to kill creativity.

3. Clarify “What Good Looks Like”

• Simple acceptance criteria per piece:

  • Does it answer the core reader question?

  • Does it represent the brand properly?

  • Does it meet basic SEO/UX standards?

• Editors and writers know when something is “done” without guessing.

4. Keep the Loop Short

• Tight review cycles:

  • Clear deadlines.

  • Clear feedback (what to change and why).

• Regular small updates to stakeholders so they don’t panic or micromanage.

5. Connect Content Back to the System

• Map each piece back to:

  • A hub, campaign, or product push.

  • Specific metrics where possible (traffic, signups, assisted revenue).

If you need someone who can sit between editorial, SEO, product, and commercial teams and keep the whole content machine coherent, that’s the seat I naturally end up in.