When talking about a web content strategist and web content projects, what is the context? The answer may vary depending on who you are talking to. A content strategy could be something as simple as planning to publish a blog and distribute content through RSS feeds. Or it could be as complicated as planning to create a 1,000 page website with different specific content written for specific user groups, all done in ten languages. In the world of web design agencies, we usually talk about the latter when we talk about web content strategy. A content strategist works as part of a larger team that may also include an art director, graphic designers, an information architect, a technical lead, programmers, content developers (writers), and a project manager.
So what exactly do I mean when I use the term “web content”? Technically, web content can be anything that appears on a website, including words, images, videos, sounds, downloadable (PDF) files, buttons, icons, and logos. For this discussion, when I refer to web content, I generally mean editorial content: the paragraphs, sentences, and words on a web page. A content strategist may be involved in tracking and locating some of these other types of content, but for the most part, we’ll be talking about the processes surrounding the identification, creation, and approval of words on a website.
But let’s not oversimplify this either. As Web users have become more and more sophisticated, their expectations of Web content have become higher. Having a lot of content is no longer enough. The content must be well organized (this is often the job of the information architect) and must be cohesively tied together and communicate value and a good story (this is the job of the content strategist).
Editorial content then becomes more than just words on a page. The content strategist may be involved in every phase of project design and implementation. She can help determine what content should be on the new site and how much existing content (online, print, etc.) can be reused. She will help determine how much new content needs to be written. She will define the content development process that will be used for all new content; this would include workflow and approvals. She can also write some of the content herself and handle assigning content for others to write and edit once it’s complete.
So as a content strategist, for each paragraph of text on the website, you’ll need to consider:
- How is this information relevant to what the user is doing? A site user who is just starting to think about buying a product needs very different information than someone who has done a lot of research and just wants detailed specifications. These users have different criteria about what the relevant product information might be. This is often referred to as the user’s context on the site. This is why a content strategist may decide to write different content for various types of users.
- Is the content complete? Is everything present on the site that a user might want to know so that they can successfully accomplish whatever they came to the website to accomplish?
- Is the content properly labeled and defined? These tags and content definitions are called metadata-data about data. Keywords or tags for the search can be metadata, as can a list of countries for which the content will be used. The metadata makes the content automatically manipulated by computer systems based on business rules. For example, maybe products labeled “boots” should only appear in certain areas of the site.
- What is the most efficient way to develop this content? Ultimately, someone will have to write, import, or copy and paste the existing text into some kind of data repository for the site, usually a web content management system (WCMS). What tools will be used? What workflows and approvals are required? If there is a WCMS, what is the ease of use of the input forms? Should the content strategist help design them? Is there enough time in the project plan to create all the necessary content? The team will look to the content strategist to help answer these questions.
All of these elements become as much a part of editorial web content as words and sentences.
It’s a big job, but one that can be extremely rewarding, both personally Y financiallyfor smart, well-organized writers of all kinds.
