You’ve got a product to sell, a service to offer, information you need to get across and maybe a call to action. What do you want to say and how do you want to say it?
You’ve got a savvy tech team working on your website and now you’re ready to tell your story. Great ‘content’ for your website is definitely not ‘one size fits all’ and we’ll need to work together to create content that includes the information, functionality, look and feel that’s just right for your business.
What is Website Content?
Website content or web-content is the term used for the text, audio, video or imagery (like photos, graphs or graphics) that are published on a website. Content may include creative elements or hard data, facts and figures.
When that content is organised into relevant categories it becomes easy for a visitor to navigate and to achieve their goal in visiting your website.
Engaging and informative content is what makes people visit your website, return to it and share your site with others. And that’s great for business.
The content development journey
1. Introduce yourself
The first, and most important, step is getting to know you and your brand and what you want your web-content to achieve. We listen carefully to get a feel for you and the culture of your organisation. Let’s talk big picture in the beginning and capture some key words and ideas that reflect who you are.
2. What have you got already?
We need to ascertain a starting point for your content development.
A. Maybe you’re a brand-new business or this is your first website and you’ve never really thought about web-content before.
B. Perhaps you’ve already got a website and/or brochures, text, graphics and images?
We’ll map out a plan of your content development journey, whether you are client A or B, and put a timeline alongside your ‘tasks’ (your homework and what we need to know from you) and ours.
3. You have no copy?
You’re Client A and you’re probably feeling a little daunted by the whole process. Don’t be. We ask the right questions and listen very carefully to your answers. Here are a few sample questions to get you thinking.
- Who is your Target audience?
- What is the culture of your organisation?
- What’s your objective for your content?
- What is your style of voice? Friendly? Professional?
- What information do your clients need to access?
- What are the keywords and phrases that your clients will search for?
- Do you have a call to action? Do you want visitors to your website to do or buy something?
- Would your clients value endorsements?
- Do you need research or supporting information on your site?
- How should we organise the content on your site? What are the most effective categories and sub-categories?
Once we’ve gathered this information from you we will create a draft version of your website’s content for approval or amendment. We phrase your content carefully, avoiding unnecessary jargon and making sure that every word counts. The draft will have the look and feel of the finished product, with image placement and layout, but we’ll come back to you for tweaks and critique. It may be perfect the first time or we might have to come back to you a couple of times until it fits your brief exactly.
4. You have some material or an existing website.
You’re Client B. The process is a little different from Client A’s as you’re already a step ahead of the process. We take a close, critical look, with you, at what you have been using in way of your current website and any advertising material. You can tell us what material you like, what has been effective and how you’d like your new and refreshed content to look and work for you. We may use a few of Client A’s questions to stimulate some deeper reflection and generate new ideas. Then we’ll map out a timeline for your content development journey.
A large part of our work will be to copy-edit for you. What does that mean exactly?
We’ll divide your content into logical and user-friendly sections, finding the gaps and asking you for extra information when necessary.
We’ll take your material, refine it and focus on the key words, phrases and functions you require.
We’ll maximise the impact of your words placing them where they best fit into your website layout.
We’ll make sure your images and graphics fit with the functionality of your site so that your clients have a pleasurable, successful and seamless experience engaging with it.
Just like Client A we will create a draft version of your website’s content for approval or amendment. It may be perfect the first time or we might have to come back to you a couple of times until it fits your brief exactly.
5. Approved.
Everyone’s happy? Your content works perfectly with your website build and you’re ready to go live!
