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The Great Dis-Content: Tackling Content in a Website Redesign
The document discusses the challenges and importance of effective content in website redesigns, emphasizing the need for a content strategy to ensure quality over quantity. Key issues include the political nature of content creation, the commodification of content, and the necessity for organizations to communicate and align on content goals. The text advocates for a structured approach to content strategy that fosters engagement and meets user needs, ultimately aiming to improve the user experience and support organizational objectives.
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The Great Dis-Content: Tackling Content in a Website Redesign
- 1. 1 The Great Dis-Content TacklingContent in a Website Redesign
- 2. 2 ANDREA ZOELLNER EDITORIAL ANDWEB CONSULTANT @andreazoellner www.andreazoellner.com
- 3. 3 User Perspective BusinessPerspective What a user sees, reads, learns, experiences, remembers, and maybe even shares (if you’re lucky). WHAT IS CONTENT? Critical information the website, application, intranet, or any other delivery vehicle was created to contain or communicate. - Content Strategy for the Web, Halverson, Rach, 2012
- 4. 4 Text Video Including the transcripts, captions,descriptions, titles, and annotations. Animations Sometimes a combo of text, images, sound… Microcopy Button or navigation copy, tags, urls, metadata. Images WHAT IS WEB CONTENT? No, but really. Articles, product descriptions, social media posts, web text, captions, pop ups, links. Don’t forget alt tags and descriptions.
- 5. 5 Supports key objectives Well-writtenand engaging Well-organized and intuitive Supports user’s needs Irrelevant or redundant Overwritten Hard to find Broken or inaccurate Good content Bad content CONTENT Your business needs it, your users want it.
- 6. 6 WHY IS CONTENTSO HARD? Time consuming Resource consuming Requires ownership Political Overwhelming
- 7. 7 Decision makers don’twant to spend time, money, or effort on good content. Content is commodified, produced as a by-product of daily tasks or on the cheap. Bad content is shipped with the promise of “revisiting it later” when we have the time, money, and resources. Content is created without a strategy and nobody is happy. CRAPPY CONTENT A vicious cycle
- 8. 8 www.louistwelve.com WHY IS CONTENTstill SO HARD? “I don’t have time to make it better” “I’m not sure what we need” “The demands for content are non-stop” “I don’t know how to create good content” “I don’t have anyone to create it” “No one is in charge of content” “Content requests get stuck in bottlenecks”
- 9. 9 We forget contentcan get political. We treat content like a commodity. We don’t take the time to make a plan. We assume everyone is on the same page. COMMON CONTENT BREAKDOWNS Where things stop working
- 10. 10 WE TREAT CONTENTLIKE A COMMODITY ▪ Rely on automatic content aggregation (algorithms, RSS feeds, syndication) ▪ Create as much content as possible ▪ Get users to generated content ▪ Sacrifice quality for price Content requires real people and real resources. Content that works for your business and matters to your users is not a commodity.
- 11. 11 WE DON’T TAKETHE TIME TO MAKE A PLAN ▪ Creating content just because you can ▪ Buckling under the pressure to deliver, now ▪ Wanting to have something to show your boss, now ▪ Not stopping to ask questions
- 12. 12 WE ASSUME EVERYONEIS ON THE SAME PAGE Nobody likes to have extra work sprung on them. Make sure you are communicating your plans throughout the whole process. Agree on the scope and expectations so no one is caught off guard. Content creation is more like running a bakery than baking a cake.
- 13. 13 LIFECYCLE Expectation 1. CONCEPT 2.CREATE 3. REVISE 4. APPROVE
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- 15. 15 WE FORGET CONTENTCAN GET POLITICAL ▪ The information architect had a vision that is getting derailed ▪ Marketing needs to ensure brand alignment and messaging ▪ Business or product owners don’t agree with the messaging ▪ Legal is pushing the disclaimer that has to be there by law ▪ The CMS team needs at least 2 months to integrate all the changes
- 16. 16 IF THEY PRIORITIZEAND NEGLECT THE RISKS ARE Business - budget/ROI - schedule - deliverables - UX - actual time to develop - project risks - content doesn’t meet user needs - missed deadlines and delays Marketing - promoting key features - SEO - tracking/cookies/pixels - audience’s priorities - customer-facing copy - maintenance post- launch - content is more promotional than educational - writing suffers from “marketing speak” - content is launched then neglected Advertising - campaign-driven creative - interactive features - latest technology - usability - existing content - CMS restrictions or requirements - content is more flash than substance - content is delivered in animation or graphics that can’t be measured or indexed CHART OF PRIORITIES Every organizational unit has an impact
- 17. 17 IF THEY PRIORITIZEAND NEGLECT THE RISKS ARE UX - audience needs and desires - research - visual design - current state content analysis - SEO considerations - planning for content - business content objectives are overlooked or marginalized - desired content can’t be completed by project launch date due to lack of source material, time, or budget IT - CMS or dev requirements - production workflow - people involved in the content creation process - brand and messaging - content may be published with a “fix- it-later” plan. - final published content may not adhere to visual or editorial brand standards CHART OF PRIORITIES (con’t) Every organizational unit has an impact - Content Strategy for the Web, Halverson, Rach, 2012
- 18. 18 A website redesign isan opportunity to stop, take inventory, develop a strategy, and create better content.
- 19. 19 CONTENT FIRST? “ One ofthe biggest and best side effects of content strategy’s activities is that it’s encouraging agencies to reorder their design process. It’s no longer: discovery, information architecture, design, templates and development. Instead we’re doing: content strategy, information architecture, web writing, content production, design, templates, and development. - Tiffani Jones Brown
- 20. 20 They deserve tohave a great website experience. YOUR USERS DESERVE BETTER Content is a key part of what your brand is communicating, make it count. YOUR COMPETITORS ARE BETTER AT IT Good content will help you achieve your goals and streamline cross- company efforts. STRATEGY WILL MAKE YOU MORE EFFICIENT Good content will increase your reach, conversions, and save you money. THE NUMBERS SAY IT ALL WHY SPEND TIME ON CONTENT? Let’s make a case
- 21. 21 Plan Audit Win Strategize Align TAKE ACTION Think big,start small Create great content
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- 23. 23 WORKFLOW GOVERNANCE SUBSTANCE STRUCTURE HOW DOES CONTENTSTRATEGY WORK? Brain Traffic, 2010 CONTENT COMPONENTS PEOPLE COMPONENTS Core Strategy
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- 25. 25 Content strategy works around, between,& inclusively of other disciplines. 02 0306 01 05 04 WEB WRITING INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE SEO MESSAGING AND BRANDING CMS METADATA CONTENT STRATEGY AND OTHER DISCIPLINES
- 26. 26 GATHER A TEAM ▪Identify your stakeholders ▪ Convince them to participate ▪ Set the stage for alignment with a kickoff ▪ Get them engaged ▪ Keep them motivated
- 27. 27 STRATEGIC DECISION MAKERS MONEY PEOPLE CHAMPIONS SHOWSTOPPERS TYPES OF STAKEHOLDERS Build your team INTERESTED OTHERS
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- 29. 29 Choose your typeof audit Audit Tabulate your findings Create a report FOUR STEPS OF CONTENT AUDITS
- 30. 30 Quantitative inventory Qualitative Audit: Best practicesassessment 3 TYPES OF AUDITS Qualitative audit: Strategic assessment
- 31. 31 QUANTITATIVE INVENTORY: JUSTTHE FACTS Quickest and easiest way to get a sense of the quantity of content and channels. Use technical tools on your WordPress backend like the WordPress plugin Content Audit to help you gather this data. ▪ ID ▪ Title/Topics ▪ URL ▪ Format ▪ Source ▪ Technical home ▪ Metadata ▪ Traffic stats ▪ Last update ▪ Language
- 32. 32 QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENTS Best practicesassessment: Does my content follow industry best practices and meet my users’ needs? Strategic assessment: How does my content align with my strategy? What needs to change?
- 33. 33 Knowledge level Findability Audience Accuracy Actionability Usability CHOOSE YOUR OWNFACTORS And the appropriate scale/measure
- 34. 34 01 02 03 MESSAGEBUSINESS VALUE BRAND/TONE STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT FACTORS
- 35. 35 A NOTE ABOUTSPREADSHEETS The basic spreadsheet Spreadsheet 2.0 Indexed Inventory
- 36. 36 CONTENT SAMPLING What doyou want to learn? ▪ Content objectives ▪ User groups ▪ Traffic ▪ Content ownership ▪ Maintenance frequency ▪ Depth Look at enough content to see patterns emerge and answer your questions. The “representative sampling” Brain Traffic, 2010
- 37. 37 Overview of theprocess Goals, factors, measurement, scope Path to raw data Some people might be interested, you never know Next steps Results and recommendations Findings Formal report, summary, or charts YOUR AUDIT REPORT 01 02 03 04
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- 39. 39 Target audience Messaging Channels Workflow and governance FACTORSOF INFLUENCE Internal factors When internal analysis is ignored or out of date, entire strategies are built on un-researched assumptions and isolated opinions—costing everyone time and money. - Content Strategy for the Web, Halverson, Rach, 2012
- 40. 40 Users Competition Power players Current events FACTORSOF INFLUENCE External factors
- 41. 41 WORKFLOW GOVERNANCE SUBSTANCE STRUCTURE BUILD YOUR STRATEGY BrainTraffic, 2010 CONTENT COMPONENTS PEOPLE COMPONENTS Core Strategy
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- 43. 43 SUBSTANCECONTENT COMPONENTS ▪ Audience:Who are they? Who are your users? How do they rank? ▪ Messaging: What do you want them to remember? Is there a hierarchy in messages? ▪ Topics: Audience + Messaging = Topics ▪ Purpose: Every piece of content needs a job. Is it to persuade, inform, validate, instruct, entertain? ▪ Voice and Tone: What’s your voice, tone, cultural factors to take into consideration? ▪ Source: Will you use original content, co-created content, aggregated content, curated content, user-generated?
- 44. 44 STRUCTURECONTENT COMPONENTS ▪ Channels:Where you are communication your content (email, websites) ▪ Platform: Technology upon which you build your content or service (CMS, App) ▪ Format: The medium used (text, video, images) ▪ Navigation: What structure and nomenclature will you adopt? Be intentional and consistent. ▪ Links: Decide on a format and make it clear and compelling. ▪ Microcopy: Partner with UX to decide on alert, button, and instructional copy. ▪ Metadata and tagging: Is it accurate, consistent, and help to organize content? Where are your audiences? Which format communicates best? How shareable does the content need to be? Don’t waste time delivering content where your audiences don’t actually want you to be.
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- 46. 46 ▪ Style Guide ▪Content planning and priority matrix ▪ Voice and tone guidelines ▪ Product trademark specs ▪ Web writing best practices ▪ Meeting guide HELPFUL TOOLSPEOPLE COMPONENTS ▪ Editorial calendars ▪ Content requirement checklist ▪ Curation/aggregation checklist ▪ Migration spreadsheet ▪ Content inventory ▪ Content maintenance checklist ▪ Content maintenance log ▪ Qualitative audit spreadsheet and report ▪ Measurement scorecards ▪ Measurement history Style Maintenance Creation
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