Website Content - It's a Strategy!

People make snap judgments: “It takes 0.05 seconds for website users to form an

opinion about your website that determines whether

 they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave” (Laja, 2012).

So, what makes a good website in your eyes? Easy layout? Photographs? Design?

For most people these things are what they judge the site by, but the content is what keeps them there. 

In order for users to access the information that they desire, require and need, content needs to be appropriate and available to them. Building or updating a website to cater for the user's needs will increase the chance that they'll stay on your site once they arrive.

Content strategy is the mind-set, culture and approach to delivering your customers information needs in all the places they are searching for it. And the goal is to use words and data to create unambiguous content that supports meaningful; interactive experiences online (Lovinger, 2007). It plans for the creation, publication and governance of useful, usable and available information to meet website user’s needs (Halvorson, 2008) and has been described as a repeatable system that defines the entire editorial content development process for a website development project (Sheffield, 2009).

When done well, content strategy helps companies understand and produce the kind of content that their audiences really need.  Kissane (2011) believes that there’s only one central principle of good content: it should be appropriate for your business as well as for your users.

Good content is appropriate and necessary; appropriate in its method of delivery, in its style and structure, and above all in its substance, ‘content strategy is the practice of determining what each of those things means for your project – and how to get there from where you are now’ (Kissane, 2011).

Having a content strategy will ensure consistency in your communications, allowing users to become familiar with the site. This links directly into Brenner’s (2012) view that the success to content strategy is to focus on your organisation helping its clients and on building a strong community. Content strategy should not be used to promote products but to assist website users in gaining the information and communication techniques that they require. 

However, Halvorson (2010) believes that for web content to be successful it should be appropriate for users but also support key business objectives. Corporate websites should portray and support the corporate objectives and strengths; this should be considered when using content strategy to enhance online presence.

Halvorson (2010) states that context should always be considered before its form. The organisation need to focus primarily on what it is they want to portray before deciding how to deliver it. Templates, layouts and buckets should be the final thought that helps transpire the information that is needed to be relayed. 

Further Reading:

The Three C's of Content
Complete Beginners Guide to Content Strategy
10 Elements of Content Strategy

References:

Brenner, M. (2012) What is a content strategy and why do you need it? [Online} Forbes. Available at < http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/09/18/what-is-a-content-strategy-and-why-do-you-need-it/ >

Halvorson, K. (2008) The Discipline of Content Strategy. 1^st Ed, USA: A Book Apart

Halvorson, K. (2010) Content Strategy for the Web. 1^st Ed, USA: New Riders

Kissane, E. (2011) The Elements of Content Strategy. 1^st Ed, New York: A Book Apart

Laja, P. (2012) First Impressions Matter: The Importance of Great Visual Design [Online] Available at <http://conversionxl.com/first-impressions-matter-the-importance-of-great-visual-design/#.>

Lovinger,R. (2007) Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data. 1^st Ed London:Boxes & Arrows

Sheffield, R. (2009) The Web Content Strategists Bible. 1^st Ed, Atlanta:Cluefox Publishing