Content Strategy for the Web

A Crash Course in Content Strategy

A workshop at the School of Visual Concepts

October 21, 2011

Your host: James Callan

Sunday, October 23, 2011

(This workshop stands on the blog posts and books of giants.)


What websites do you visit often?

Why do you visit them?


People don’t visit your site for a great user experience.


People don’t visit your site to see amazing design.


They want your content.


(Note: user experience, design, and the other things that make up your website are also important.

This isn’t a contest.)


Content is not a nice-to-have. Content is not an add on.

It’s a business asset. It has value.


Because ... it brings you customers,

wins you fans,builds you an audiences, and earns you money.


It’s also a lot of work, if you want to do it well.


So you should get it right.Enter content strategy.


Jeopardy! without content:



Jeopardy! without content strategy:



Jeopardy! with content strategy(as it should be)





No content: It’s Alex and a blue screen.


With content:It’s a suitable arena for humanity’s last stand

against our machine overlords.


What is content strategy?


First word: What is content?


“In the web industry, anything that conveys meaningful information to humans is called ‘content.’”

Erin Kissane, content strategist

The Elements of Content Strategy


“Content is contextualized data.”

Rahel Bailie, content strategist

“A Practical Definition of Content”


“Content is anything an organization or individual creates and shares

to tell their story.”

Ann HandleyHead of Content at MarketingProfs


words

audio

images

comments

cartoons

illustrations

photos

podcasts Facebook posts

blog posts

navigation

tweets

video

interface copyslideshows

infographicswhite papers

help articles

error messages

Twitter accountsSunday, October 23, 2011

(It’s not just words.)


Word two: What is strategy?


It’s a plan for getting stuff done in order to achieve a goal.


“Wikipedia’s strategy was creating a set of rules that got people to generate

more than 18 million articles.”

Erika HallCo-founder & Director of Strategy

at Mule Design Studio

From her Confab presentation.


Put ’em together: What is content strategy?


“You are all in publishing!”

Jeffrey Zeldman, king of the web

http://www.zeldman.com/2011/03/15/web-design-is-publishing/




“Content strategy for the web is about bringing editorial skill and methods into website planning. In order to create good content, you need a plan for

how you’re going to get it and keep it coming.”

Elizabeth McGuane, writer/editor/content strategist

http://mappedblog.com/2010/10/04/fear-loathing-and-content-strategy/






“Content strategy is to copywriting as information architecture is to design.”

Rachel Lovinger, content strategy director

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/content-strategy-the




“Like a gentleman in a finely crafted suit who wants to burp you the alphabet, even if your website looks nice, no one will stick around to hear what you have to say if you don’t craft something compelling.”

Jason Santa Maria, graphic designer

http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/the-elements-of-content-strategy/






“I am a firm believer that content strategy is communication design.”

Nicole Jones, content strategist

http://swellcontent.tumblr.com/post/4072864686/demystifying-content-strategy-part-i-the-term


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_design

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_design





“Content is story. Content strategy is storytelling.”

Prateek SarkarDirector, Creative Services

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts


That’s a broad range of answers. Content strategy is a broad field.

Practitioners come at it from different perspectives, and tend to specialize.


Where do content strategists come from?

From “Apes of Wrath,” a Warner Bros. short.



Is content strategy UX?


Without content strategy, the whole game breaks down.


You can’t create a great user experience around bad content.


There’s overlap.But they’re not the same thing.


“Content strategy helps organizations use content to achieve their business goals.”

Melissa Rach, VP of Content Strategy at Brain Traffic


“(God help a business if UX isn’t one of their business goals, but helping the user

isn’t an inherent part of content strategy).”

Melissa Rach, VP of Content Strategy at Brain Traffic


It’s not only user experience.


Is content strategy marketing?(Marketers have been very excited

to talk content strategy!)


Sure, a good content strategy helps persuade people buy your stuff.


It’s not only user experience.It’s not only marketing.


It’s also data modeling.And product design.

And change management.And social media.

And editorial.And content management.

And information architecture.And content development.

And other stuff.


Different content strategists have different specialties.


The benchmark definition:


“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content.”

Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web


Creation: Who’s providing your content?


Publication: How are you getting your content to users?


Governance: When do you add, update, and archive content?


Useful: How does this content benefit you?

How does it benefit your user?


Usable: Can people find, consume, and act on your content?


What makes good content?


“Good content” is in the eye of the beholder.


What are your goals?What is your content supposed

to achieve for you?


“There’s really only one central principle of good content: it should be appropriate for your business, for your users, and for its context. Appropriate in its method of delivery, in its style and structure, and above all in its substance.”

Erin Kissane, content strategist



• Appropriate• Useful• User-centered• Clear• Consistent• Concise• Supported

Good content is:

Erin Kissane again. Seriously, read her book.


How do you know if your content is good?

Inventory and audit.


Inventory: What content do we have?


Audit: What content do we need?


The content inventory


The cornerstone of any successful content strategy!

How do you do a content inventory? Click each link on your site. Document what you find.


Things often tracked in a content inventory:• Page ID/number• URL• Page Title• Parent • Page Description• Components• SEO Information (metadata, keywords)• Who inside the organization owns that content.


The inventory is quantitative. What’s on the site?


Followup: the content audit.That’s qualitative: How good is what you’ve got?


Basic audit: ROT analysis.Look for content that’s:

RedundantOutdated or

Trivial


More thorough audits can track all kinds of qualities. Is content on brand?

Is it clear?Is it meeting customer needs?

Is it in a usable format?(There are many possible measures.)


EXERCISE #1: Let’s evaluate some website content.


Step one: Let’s do user analysis on ourselves.


Say you’re visiting a pizza place’s website.What content would be useful and usable?


Business goals:Ideally, we’d talk to the business owner.

If you owned a pizza place, what goals would you have for the website?


SPLIT INTO TEAMS OF TWO

I’ll give each team a pizza restaurant’s website. Your job: Perform a quick inventory. What content is on the site?


And a quick analysis: Is it useful and usable, based on our goals? Is any content redundant, outdated, or trivial?


WORTH CONSIDERING:Does the content work on mobile?Are they linking to Facebook or Twitter or Yelp, and if so, are those up to date?


Spend a half hour on your analysis.Then prepare a quick overview: How’s the site’s content? What needs fixing?


Present:• Three adjectives that describe the pizza joint’s voice. What makes it distinct?• Three recommendations for how content (new, deleted, changed) could improve the site.


And we’re back.


So we’ve identified problems.

Now what?


Remember the nutshell:1. What content do we have?2. What content do we need?3. Fill the gap: edit, create & curate.


Erin Kissane’s even shorter breakdown:1. Evaluate.2. Design.3. Execute.


One thing to keep in mind:

Content strategy is a process. It’s a cycle. It never really ends.



Content strategy is a web design discipline.Content experts should be involved

from the beginning of a web design project.(Some would argue “content first.”)


It’s not a perfect world, of course,so that doesn’t always happen.


“The end goal is not great content.It’s a great thing.”

Erika HallCo-founder & Director of Strategy

at Mule Design Studio

From her Confab presentation.


More evaluation tools:


Stakeholder interviews


Talk to everyone involved with the content, preferably one-on-one, about

what they need and want from the site’s content.


The goal is to get an idea of how content works within the organization.


ASK QUESTIONS. (Go with the classics: who, what, when,

where, why, and how.)


Who’s supplying the content?Who is the target audience?

Who’s maintaining the content?


What content do we need?


When will we publish?


Where will we publish? (Our site, email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)


How will all of this get done?


And a big one, especially in discovery:WHY?

Why do we need a blog? Why do we need a Twitter feed?

Why aren’t we using a CMS?Etc.


Once you’re done evaluating, it’s time to design.

Some tools you might use to do so:


Message Architecture

What are your key messages?How are you delivering them?

Does your audience believe you?


Your message architecture is independent of form.

It’s not a tagline, or a mission statement, or a video.

It’s communication goals. Specific terminology.


words

audio

images

comments

cartoons

illustrations

photos

podcasts Facebook posts

blog posts

navigation

tweets

video

interface copyslideshows

infographicswhite papers

help articles

error messages

Twitter accountsSunday, October 23, 2011

Editorial Style Guide

What’s our tone? Which dictionary do we consult?

Do we use the serial comma?


Editorial process

Who’s creating our content? How do we decide it’s good enough?How do we evaluate its effectiveness?


Content Template(a.k.a. Page Table)

What needs to go on each kind of page? Includes both visible and invisible

content. Accompanies site map and wireframes. Communication bridge between subject matter experts and

writers.


Content Template(example #1)

http://intentionaldesign.ca/2011/02/22/writing-templates/




Content Template(example #2)



Content Template(example #2, continued)



Editorial Calendar

How do we decide when to publish? (Tweet twice a day? Update home page when new products launch? Respond to holidays? Respond to news events?

How quickly? Etc.)


There are more tools.content matricescontent modeling

accessibility guidelinesSEO analysistaxonomypersonas

competitive analysiswireframes


Not every project requires every tool.


Also, not every project is a site-wide redesign. Content strategy works on a

project-by-project basis.


ONE MORE THING ...

Governance! How content strategy plays out over time.


“If IA is the spatial side of information, I see content strategy as the temporal side

of the same coin.”

Louis Rosenfeld, information architect & publisher


“When I look at where most websites fail, it’s in managing their content over time.”

Karen McGrane, Managing Partner,Bond Art + Science


Consultants and agencies: People want to hear from you!

Yay, buy-in! But you don’t get to be there for the long haul.


In-house: Buy in can be a major challenge!

But you know the brand and business goals, and you are there for the long

haul.


Content strategy is not a quick fix. It’s a long process. One reason

content is valuable is because it’s messy, and difficult, and requires a lot

of resources.


To keep your content working:Track when content will need to be

archived or updated.Use the editorial calendar.

Use a rolling audit. Budget time to get that done.



Introducing: Vanessa Casavant, in-house content strategist for

AdoptUSKids.


I’m tired of yammering.I know you’ve got questions. Shoot!


Resources:I’ll post a bibliography and links and stuff on my blog:

http://scarequot.esCome to a meetup with Content Strategy Seattle!http://www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-Seattle/

Join the Google Group, or LinkedIn discussion groups.Follow smart people on Twitter.

Content strategists are a friendly, helpful group. (I think it’s a job requirement.)


http://scarequot.es

http://scarequot.es

http://www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-Seattle/

http://www.meetup.com/Content-Strategy-Seattle/

THANK YOU

Remember to fill out your evaluation.

[email protected]://scarequot.es

Twitter: @scarequotes

Don’t forget to write.


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Technology

Content Strategy for the Web