DBS Interactive Blog

“Content is King,” has always been a saying that belonged to marketers. However, as more and more people are embarking on the quest to build a website, one aspect of the process seems to get overlooked, the content. These people are centrally focused on the web site design and the intricate functionality so often that they miss the most important function of a website, to send a message.

To sum it up, Content Strategy is the practice of developing a comprehensive plan for the content that your website will feature. For the sake of clarity, let’s identify what is considered content on a website. Content can be text, images, videos, and audio. Content can show your customer a process, tell them where to click to purchase, or guide and inform a user. In a nutshell, Content is your message, your means, your ROI!

So, if content is so important then why do we wait until the eleventh hour to think about it?

When going through the process of developing Content Strategy take the following steps to ensure that you have relevant, usable, and focused content on your site.

• Plan: A strategy is a roadmap, so plan accordingly. You don’t start down the road to a destination without knowing how you are going to get there. Who is in charge of the content? What steps are you going to take to eliminate the bad copy and keep the good copy? Layout the steps and put people in charge.

• Analyze the Road Ahead: Which routes are the right ones? Are there detours? Are the shortcuts worth it, or do they have the potential to just cost you more time in the end? Take a moment to look at your content, all of the content (remember what constitutes content?) and see what is working and what isn’t. Then get rid of what doesn’t work and move forward by improving the message. Don’t get overwhelmed with all the content you have. Remember: you planned for this and you have systems in place.

• Hit the Road!: Now that you know where you are going with your website content and how you are going to get there, start creating content. Create Videos, Images, Text; whatever it is that gets your message to the consumer and stays in line with the overall voice and goal of the site. Since you planned ahead, you should have some structure to the process of gathering, approving, and posting all content for the site, preferably with one person making the decisions. Websites usually have many content stakeholders, each with their own point-of-view and many want their individually tailored message to be heard. This is not conducive to a well organized and well voiced website. Keep the consumer in mind. Give one person the job of owning and enforcing that voice.

• Stay the Course: You have a site. It is well written, well organized, and has been successful in informing and converting online traffic. Now what? Stay the course! Maintain the content. If you have a new video, post it. New images that speak to the websites overall goals, upload them. Have a new product or a new service? Add it! Sounds like a lot of work doesn’t it? Not to someone who did Step 1. You have planned for this and you have named an Editor in Chief. Yes, just like in the publishing world, the EIC is in charge of maintaining the voice and integrity of your website content. As we add things that we think are relevant and/or insightful, we can lose the message and take away from the overall goal of the site. We may even add conflicting messages. The EIC is in charge of knowing everything thing that is on your site and making sure anything that’s gets added contributes to your sites success and takes nothing away from it.

Sounds simple enough! When I break it down for you in 700 words or less (which is what our EIC told me to do), it does. However, there is much more to it. Take a look for yourself. Get the book that brought this to my attention, “Content Strategy for the Web,” by Kristina Halvorson. She goes into much detail about each step, the roles and responsibilities of the EIC, and companies that are successfully using this principle when developing their websites. Not only is it informative, but for those of us who have been through the process of waiting on content, it is great to hear from someone who shares our pain.