Recently I wrote a post about understanding web content management and gave an overview of what is involved in effectively managing your content on the web. In most cases for websites, strategy involving web content is usually thought of last. I have been reading Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson this week, and she brings up the same point. It’s usually the final hours of a web project when content authors of a business realize they need to get their content ready for launch. It’s the lack of content that often prevents a website from being launched on time. This has been my experience as well. The answer to this problem is a sound web content strategy.
Kristina goes on to explain early in her book in most cases there is no ownership in web content. In almost all websites there are multiple contributors such as stakeholders, marketing, IT, advertising and user experience experts. All are clashing to get their voices heard and address different audiences in different ways throughout the site. This creates a mess of work that no one can easily find what they’re looking for. Navigation and the context of the website become lost. What you have then is a lot of pages with no cohesion. Imagine reading a book with all the pages out of order. You’d never figure out what was going on, let alone finish it.
She goes on to define content strategy:
Content strategy is the practice of planning for the creation, delivery and governance of useful, usable content.
Let’s break it down.
- Content includes text, data, graphics, video, and audio. Online, it’s shaped and delivered by countless tools (such as animation, PDFs, streams and so on).
- A strategy is a holistic, well-considered plan for obtaining a specific goal or result.
Ah-ha! Light bulb moment. A plan for obtaining a specific goal or result.
More often than not, when so many parties come together to produce content for a website the original goal(s) are lost to try to appease the majority of internal politics. The end-user, or customer, is often left out of the mix of the strategy.
Content strategy must have a leader. A voice. Someone who can review content or proposals for said content and answer the tough question, “Does this contribute to accomplishing our business objective with regards to this website?” This person almost acts of a project manager – just for content. They may not need to be an editor or publisher. They may not need the best writing skills in the company. This person needs to be an advocate for the business goals of the website and passionately push the team toward this goal.
The book describes three steps to content strategy:
- Audit
- Analysis
- Strategy
She has done an amazing job at making points on each step so I’ll leave that to you to read. I recommend the book. It’s so far an amazing read. She proposes example questions that one would ask while developing a web content strategy.
My take on web content management is that strategy is the very foundation of what you’re trying to do. Forget about what content management system you need, which social media platform you engage or what blogging solution you’ll purchase until you have developed your strategy. You may find all those will be answered after you’ve put the plan together.
