PowerPoint slides - IABC Waterloo

PLANNING YOUR

WEB CONTENT

PRESENTED TO IABC WATERLOO

MARCH 21, 2013

JONATHAN WOODCOCK

OVERVIEW

Provide a summary of major work tasks for
developing effective website content


Provide information about resources to help with
website content planning and development

MAJOR TASKS

AKA: 10 easy steps to effective web content

1.
Identify target audiences (visitors to your website)

2.
Conduct web content analysis (content audit/inventory)

3.
Conduct competitive analysis

4.
Define website visitor content requirements

5.
Specify area business requirements

6.
Plan web information architecture (sitemap/navigation)

7.
Prepare website content

8.
Obtain required training

9.
Prepare project management plan

10.
Create web content update and maintenance plan


IDENTIFY TARGET
AUDIENCES

Identify the target audiences of your website: Who
are your current visitors or who is this website for?

•
List target audiences

•
Organize content by target audiences

•
Write audience
-
specific content

•
Create and use personas

Your website is not for you!


CREATE PERSONAS

Name:
made
-
up name, representative of audience

Picture:
representative stock photo, or shadow image

Relevant demographic information:
age, major
interests/responsibilities, other relevant info

Main goals and tasks:
what s/he is trying to achieve
on your website

CONDUCT WEB
CONTENT ANALYSIS

Helps you:

•
Know what content you have and need

•
Identify content audiences, topics and types

Tip: Who should do the content analysis?

•
Also called a web content audit or web content
inventory


CONTENT ANALYSIS

•
Assess what content exists (ROT = Redundant, Outdated, Trivial)

•
Itemize what content needs to be generated

CONDUCT COMPETITIVE
ANALYSIS

Assess the competition

•
3
-
5 comparators is often enough

•
Can be as simple as 3
-
5 things that you like/worked, and 3
-
5
things that you don’t like/didn’t work

Identify patterns for user expectations

•
Navigation

•
Specific content

•
Standard terminology

Establish common language for stakeholders

Encourage thinking as a user

Don’t reinvent the wheel

DEFINE CONTENT
REQUIREMENTS

Know your website visitors’ questions

•
Conduct needs assessments/focus groups/surveys

Know your website visitors’ language

•
Ask your coworkers what questions they get asked
regularly by phone or email by the same audiences
(visitors)

•
Check your analytics on existing sites for common
search terms

DRAFT PRELIMINARY
CONTENT

Question:
What are the requirements for admission?


Heading:
Admission requirements


Answer:
The admission requirements vary by
program. List of links to admission requirements by
program.




CONTENT PLAN

•
Page tables used to establish
priorities at a page level, assigning
components of the strategy to each
page

•
Can serve as a writing brief as well
as a record

•
Update and maintenance plan
included

•
Less content intensive sites could
use the Content Inventory revised
to include further detail

SPECIFY AREA BUSINESS
REQUIREMENTS

Identify what website visitors need to know but
don’t know they need to know

•
Connect their language to your information

•
Solve the common problems by leading them to the
correct information

Include relevant
‘
慢a畴⁵u
’

楮i潲浡瑩潮

•
An about section on your site is probably the most
work for the least traffic
–

but still required.

•
Emphasis on the
relevant to your audience




PLAN WEBSITE
INFORMATION
ARCHITECTURE

•
Define your web information architecture
(sitemap/navigation)

•
Make sure that your information architecture works
with the web design

OBTAIN REQUIRED
TRAINING


Technical Training

•
Are you using a content management system (CMS)?
What implications do your content types have for your
writers?

•
Who needs what access? Who is managing access?

Training for web content

•
Are your content maintainers web writers?

•
Are they aware of the Accessibility for Ontarians with
Disabilities Act (AODA) and it’s implications for the web?


PREPARE WEBSITE
CONTENT

Now you are ready to prepare your content!

•
Use your sitemap (information architecture) to guide
your website content writing

•
Use your website visitor requirements to create your
website content (this is the starting point)

•
Write/add the other content that is required
(business area requirements; content analysis)

•
Remember key web writing guidelines
-

write
accessible,
scanable
, SEO content

•
Obtain images/create graphics for your website

PREPARE A PROJECT
MANAGEMENT PLAN

Our typical Web Content PM Plan contains:

•
Project Schedule

•
Content Strategy

•
Content Inventory

•
Competitive Analysis

•
Information Architecture

•
Content Plan (Page Tables or Inventory)


CONTENT STRATEGY

•
High level overview, answering:

•
Who are our audiences?

•
What do we need to say to them?

•
How do we need to say it?

•
What are we trying to do?

•
Provides a reference point for
content questions

•
Provides a framework for
measurable goals

PROJECT SCHEDULE

•
Identify key tasks and dependencies

•
Assign work
-
time estimates

•
Review with stakeholders

•
Establish real timelines

CREATE WEB CONTENT
UPDATE AND
MAINTENANCE PLAN

How often should the website be updated?

•
What are your business cycles?

•
What are your user patterns over time?

•
Are you committing to dated content like blog, news or
events?

The Web is never done.

•
Make content somebody’s job.

•
Manage your content (
Hint:

this is different from your content
management system)

•
Include maintenance in the project management plan and
schedule to keep it mind throughout development.

KEY LESSONS

Communicate with ALL stakeholders early and
often

•
Establish clear priorities and expectations

•
Establish clear understanding of timelines and revise with
input from key dependencies


KEY LESSONS

Photography and graphics are content but should
be treated as special

•
Include as separate work tasks in schedule

•
Establish separate inventory

•
Capture art direction guidelines where appropriate


KEY LESSONS

Internal stakeholders love their FAQs

•
“We get great feedback about our FAQ!”

•
Almost always from internal users needing a reference
document, that belongs on your intranet.

•
“We collated all the user questions and organized them by
user type and theme, it’s even searchable!”

•
There’s already a name for this: a website.

•
Remember: Your website is not for you!


QUESTIONS?


Jonathan Woodcock

@jbwoodcock

jonathanwoodcock.me