Building a great site takes expert design, development, QA, project management and many other skills. But without content, a site has no reason to exist in the first place. So it's surprising that content often takes a backseat to wireframing, design comps, site building, and theming. If you've ever demo'd a site that had your beautiful responsive theme wrapped around dozens of pages of "lorem ipsum" then you've experienced this problem first-hand. Building a site "content first" means investing the effort up front to develop key messaging, positioning, and value propositions ... to craft the story of the brand and use this as the basis for creating your wireframes, information architecture, and designs. It puts the site's "reason for being" at the forefront, ensuring that all the effort from the design and development teams is as effective as possible. Presentation Includes: What is Content First design and how will it benefit your organization or client? What are the key steps to take BEFORE you make the first wireframe or comp? Defining "content" - from messaging to multimedia, it's more than just "words"! How does content drive design and development and make them more effective? How should agencies bill (and clients budget) for these efforts, and why should they?

1. L7 CREATIVE
content first!
*planning your site from
the inside out

2. what is a content
strategy, and why
do you need one?

3. because you don’t want
to launch this site

4. let’s grab some sushi

5. where would you
rather eat:
a beautiful restaurant with
mediocre food? or...
the unknown “hole-in-thewall” spot that serves the
best sushi in town?

6. in other words:
presentation is
important, but it means
nothing without great
content

7. branding
trust
community
conversions
seo
more reasons

8. what makes up a
content strategy?

9. strategy
execution
audience
message
positioning
differentiation
gather / audit
organize
establish IA / hierarchy
create

10. who do you want to bring to your site?
what are they interested in?
who else do they follow?
what keywords do they search on?
the audience

11. how does your product/service relate to
the marketplace?
who do you compete with?
what existing products are you like?
what existing products are you not like?
the positioning

12. what is special about you?
what is your “style” of communication?
formal? informal? hip? conservative?
the message

13. what is remarkable about you?
what do you have to say that is
interesting and share-able?
differentiation

14. steps in creating
your content
strategy

15. example conversion events:
a sale
a newsletter signup
a lead
time on site
page views
start from a goal

16. what gets measured,
gets managed
start from a goal

17. what do we have?
is it good?
does it match the strategy?
will people share it?
gather / audit

18. by content category
by content type
by user story or audience
organize

19. site map
content types
taxonomy
context
views
url paths
keywords
breadcrumbs
establish IA / hierarchy

20. industry articles
expert content / positioning
solve problems for your target audience
create

21. get out the whiteboard – what will
we be sharing on this site?
news
blogs
images
video
structured content
create

22. who do you need?

23. writers and/or editors
seo
site builder / administrator
social media
your content team

24. define clear metrics
benchmark
a/b test content and navigation
iterate just as you would with code!
metrics for success

25. thank you!
Harley Orion
Exec Producer + Principal
L7 Creative
www.l7creative.com
@l7creative
L7 CREATIVE