For the inaugural UX Content Design Meetup (10/11/18), I shared a few of my favorite tools. These have served me well in content strategy for everything from ecommerce websites to enterprise marketing hubs to tech UX writing. (If these slides seem light, it's because they are. They were presented pecha kucha style: 20 slides, 20 seconds each. You can find the context and additional resources in the presenter notes!)
Assess: understanding the scope of what exists will help us see gaps, recognize redundancy, and find themes
Strategize: Prioritize our goals
Plan: Figure out how to execute
Optimize: Govern & manage
ScreamingFrog: Use this to build your initial inventory & see what exists today - also:
find broken links & duplicates
audit/govern redirects
analyze meta data (page title + desc)
Deeper domain level detail with URL Profiler:
integrate with Google Analytics or whatever analytics tools you use to find things like page speed, scroll depth, rank, etc.
integrate with Majestic or Mozscape (just drop API key in) to find out how authoritative your site is on topic you really want to lead in
Human element - evaluate how well content aligns with things like user personas & journey stage
- also - how linkable or sharable (authoritative) is it? Is this “quality” content? (1-3 scale)
Communication goals - Message hierarchy: what do we want the world to know about us?
http://cards.appropriateinc.com/
Also - Content Strategy at Work (sample chapter: http://appropriateinc.com/downloads/ContentStrategyAtWork_Chapter2Sample.pdf teaches how to use the cards)
not actual words they ever use, but you feel it through the entire brand experience - marketing, product design, in store experience
Always changing but one way or another your GA data can help you understand the overall UX / average journey - like Behavior Analytics:
what people are engaging with
what is bringing them deeper into the site / what the natural flow is between content
where gaps or issues might exist
see also https://www.adviso.ca/en/blog/guides-en/content-marketing-how-to-create-a-solid-content-brief/
CrazyEgg: Understand where *your users* are clicking & moving through the site, how deep they’re scrolling
(Also, try HotJar for similar purpose)
- find themes & gaps, inform IA
Explicit, macro-level user needs:
Answer the Public, Uber Suggest; SEMRush, SearchMetrics - see trends and research related keywords & terms (as well as how easy it is to rank for)
- inform your site navigation, tagging, meta strategy, content marketing efforts, etc.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/website-feedback-template - understand YOUR users
Optimal Workshop - Treejack tool: Test / validate IA by inputting your potential IA (one-many versions), writing tasks, and asking users to complete them
outputs: task by task breakdown of success rate; detailed path analysis; destinations breakdown of the “right” answers
Also - persona development (this is helpful: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/12/content-tips-templates-checklists/ )
What should content do for audience + business
https://insights.newscred.com/content-marketing-mission-statement/
Planning: For both IA (site map) and workflow (and way more)
Content planning (can be used as a full project mgmt tool, or just content organized by sections/topics/SMEs, etc.) & track progress
See also: Monday (formerly DaPulse) or Airtable
Flexible, scalable to plan one content program, a global content program, etc. — DAM, scheduling, workflow management, tagging, meta, etc.
Use same tools as in your inventory/audit to optimize your content over time - ScreamingFrog, URL Profiler, GA, manual analysis (VLOOKUPs are your friend!)
conditional formatting to understand where the problem areas are and optimize
secret sauce: https://www.copyblogger.com/content-gaps/
content level analytics (deeper than GA) to tie your content back to key actions & ROI