How to Talk: A Guide for Developers on Content Strategy
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Content can make or break a great website. While developers aren’t always in control of creating the content, it’s an integral part of their jobs. If you are tired of getting vague specs on content demands and want to learn how to communicate with your content creators, the tips covered in this talk will get you speaking their language! No more fuzzy constraints or unknown variables, when you learn effective communication skills with content creators you’ll reduce stress AND development time!
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How to Talk: A Guide for Developers on Content Strategy
- 1. How to Talk Content #CMSSummit A Guide for Developers Lisa Melegari @lmelegari www.calicocontent.com
- 2. Why do I need to learn to talk content? How many times have you… Had a project held up? Had a project go over estimates? Had to go back and re-do significant amounts of work? Had nothing to do because you were waiting on the client?
- 3. EXAMPLE
- 4. I need an approval of this wireframe of your home page before we can proceed.
- 6. What do those boxes and numbers mean? And what’s that nonsense text?
- 9. Are those pictures of Bill Murray going to stay that way?
- 11. “The blank slate paralyzes clients.” - Karina Kreger @karenalenore
- 12. So what do we do about this?
- 13. Determine Where Your Client is in the Content Development Phase Don’t use the word “content” – break it down into the actual things you need. Have them fill out a content onboarding questionnaire. Ask for access to their existing assets or someone in charge of producing those assets.
- 14. Probably a picture gallery, maybe some videos. I’m not sure yet, I’ll figure it out once you finish the site. Isn’t that your job?
- 15. I want a full image background that stays when you scroll down. I’m going to be using a lot of pictures in my blogs and posting at least once a week. I might have a logo later, but not right now.
- 16. Identify the Site’s Goal What does the client want their site to do or what do they want to get out of it? What do the site’s users look and act like?
- 17. Learn About Your Client Do they want to have a hand in adding content later? Are they technically savvy enough to add this content?
- 18. Offer Some Assistance Provide basic, relevant filler content and encourage them to make it their own. Work with a creator friend and have them make some samples.
- 19. Help Them Get Inspired Find sites with similar goals or uses in your portfolio. Show them some sites you think have great visuals or write a good block of text. Give them homework.
- 21. Text
- 22. Text Tips Find out how often they’ll blog. Consider using navigational breadcrumbs. Develop a way to link related blog topics. Create special templates or page types. Identify the best way to design their blog roll.
- 23. Images
- 24. Image Tips Identify why the client needs an image-heavy site. Determine what is important for displaying those images. Find out if your client will provide all the images up front. Check that your client’s hosting account will have the resources to handle heavy images.
- 25. Video
- 26. Video Tips Consider where the video is being hosted. Identify how many videos, how long, and if your client will want to add more in the future. Develop a plan for navigating videos.
- 28. Download Tips Consider your delivery method before you build. PDFs are much easier to distribute than program files. Don’t compromise page speed for dynamic content.
- 29. Final Thoughts
- 30. Content is King – Don’t Commit Regicide A beautifully developed site is worth nothing if the content can’t be easily experienced. You are not responsible for poor quality content – but you can help prevent it. Remember: You can lead a client to good decisions but you can’t make them commit.
- 31. Any questions? @lmelegari lisa@calicocontent.com www.calicocontent.com Download this presentation and my speaker notes here: goo.gl/IT38Qm (that’s an uppercase ‘i’ in front of the T, it’s case sensitive)
Editor's Notes
- A friend of mine was developing a site and during the mockup phase, did a basic wireframe of the home page layout.
- So the solution he came upon was to utilize Fill Murray, a custom placeholder script that puts images of Bill Murray in standard image sizes on your site mockup.
- It was great, quirky, easy, and…the client, kid you not, responded with
- Custom placeholders, whether it be Bill Murray or Kittens (and believe me, there are dozens of them out there), just don't cut it when it comes to identifying content types, spaces and sizes. Or getting your clients to even understand what content IS.
- At WordCamp Orlando 2016 I caught this amazingly accurate quote from Karina during our business panel. She was asked how do you handle a client who has no idea what they’re doing for content.
- Ask your clients for their text, photos, video, download assets – don’t call it “content”. The onboarding questionnaire isn’t foolproof, but it’s a small bit of effort that could potentially smooth the path ahead. Getting access to their existing assets or asset manager is golden. It’s typical for you to be dealing with a manager or owner who has no idea how to get you graphics and copy. This cuts out the middleman and assists in creating a direct pipeline of content.
- Even if it looks like you’re building a straightforward eCommerce site, your client might want to include a robust blog talking about their products. Never take a site description at face value, what you think they want and what they are envisioning can be two totally different things. Consider creating user profiles, or at least having your client identify the types of users they want to bring to their site. Imagine how they react to large pages of just text or too many pictures on a page. Not only will that help you design and develop a user-friendly site, it can help steer the content ship in the right direction.
- If your client knows they’ll want to add more text or images in the future, you need to determine the level of comfort they have in working with a CMS. Now, I’m not a WordPress expert by any means, but I find it’s super simple to add content to an already well built site. But not all clients will be like me. You may need to develop a special client-facing backend to ease future additions and minimize their ability to “tweak” things. Another route is to offer ongoing support for adding and updating content. This is especially helpful for completely hands-off clients, and it’s additional revenue for you with little effort.
- I've seen design projects come to a grinding halt while waiting on a client to provide content. Placeholders only serve a purpose for so long before it's get real or get used to sitting around. One of the most effective ways to get your client moving on their content - besides billing them for extending the project timeline - is to provide some basic content yourself. If you're able to invest the time and effort, create some applicable but still filler content. It doesn't have to be pretty, it just has to give them some inspiration of what they want that content to be. And if you don't have the time, that's fine - find a content writer or graphic designer who does, have them produce some samples, and at worst you'll give them the push to produce their own, and at best you'll give your friend some business!
- If you've been a developer for any length of time, you know your job ends up being a whole lot more than code. I've heard stories of my dev friends who end up acting like business coaches, helping their clients develop a business model while building their site. If that's not above and beyond I don't know what is. At the very least, it doesn't take a lot of effort to help your client get inspired. If you have a substantial portfolio with sites in a similar vein, show off those projects and point out aspects that would work well for their site. If you don't have anything relevant to show, find some sites that you think really do the job your client is looking for. Give them homework - tell them to find examples of writing and images that they want to emulate on their site. The more they look into how passionate retail sites sell their wares and how the best food blogs compose their photos, the more eager they'll be to get the content train on its tracks and let you get back to wrapping up that project!
- There are four basic types of content your client will either need to provide you or commission someone to develop: Text, Images, Video, and Downloads or Dynamic Content
- Practically every site needs SOME type of text.
- A site where the owner only blogs once a month will need to be developed much differently than one for a owner who blogs multiple times a week. Navigational breadcrumbs are more of a tool for the site’s users, but it’s a great tool to have if your client is going heavy on the text content. There are plugins that help link between posts in a series or create links to related content on the site. Templates can help keep your client focused on just adding content and not adjusting other bits of the site. A long list of blog titles and hyperlinks is a boring way to showcase their work. I emplore you to think outside the box!
- A website with a few photos needs just as much as consideration as an photo-heavy website when it comes to how to handle your images.
- Are they a photographer? Or do they use a lot of images to showcase their products. There are so many reasons a client will want a heavy-image site, it’s your job to identify and work for those unique needs. If your client is a photographer they likely want extra measures taken for quality, ease of navigation and security. A client that wants image galleries for their products likely wants the ability to interact with their product while viewing photos. When the clients wants to add their own images after you’re done with the build, you’ll want to create an easy to use upload and organization environment to make it as painless as possible. If your client’s web server won’t be up to snuff to hold and retrieve thousands of images, consider upgrading to a dedicated host plan with more bandwidth, or utilizing Amazon Web Services for extra speed and space.
- Even though YouTube has pretty much cornered the market on video services, there’s still some consideration to be had when it comes to adding and displaying it on your client’s site.
- Make sure you consider bandwidth when self-hosting and weigh upgrading to a better hosting tier versus using imbedded players for the best user experience. If your client will be adding new videos all the time, you should develop a pipeline for getting that new content onto the site. Whether you do it or they do, make sure whoever is in charge of that can do so with ease. Ensure that the videos are delivered in a quick manner but without sacrificing quality. You can do individual pages for each video which creates great opportunities for SEO transcripts, or a whole page of thumbnails as a video gallery. Just make sure the solution fits the quantity of videos your client will have.
- If your client wants to provide downloadable content off their site, or offer dynamic things like on-page calculators or interactive features, the time to decide how to handle those assets is sooner rather than later in the build.
- Consider your file sizes and types – it can impact the quality of experience if a user has to wait for several minutes for an item to download. For long files, consider secondary delivery such as emailing a link later or delivering a download package rather than the final product at that exact moment. If your client wants a complex dynamic element on their page, make sure you can find a good compromise between page speed and quality of the tool. If one can’t be found, consider developing the dynamic content into a standalone program or app rather than a browser-run element.
- If your client wants to provide downloadable content off their site, or offer dynamic things like on-page calculators or interactive features, the time to decide how to handle those assets is sooner rather than later in the build.
- As a developer, it’s your job to lead the client to make the best decisions for their site, but it’s not always possible. By knowing how content works and what is important for developing a site to provide it, you can help your client avoid some of the common pitfalls – and help reduce your frustration during development.