online content thoughts and ideas

The two faces of content strategy

2012-01-26T10:08:00.001-06:00

I had a really interesting conversation last week with Tim Frick, owner of Chicago web design firm Mightybyes, about content strategy. Tim had a great perspective about content strategy that really resonated with me, that there are actually two faces of content strategy:

The strategic, outward-looking face
This aspect focuses on what content will help customers, members, and other target audiences of an organization meet their needs and, in doing so, enable an organization achieve its business goals. This involves understanding users and the organization, knowing the terms people use and the channels they frequent, and thinking strategically about online channels. Search engine optimization and analytics are part of this, as are the strategies for using social media. This face of content strategy has become known as content marketing. In fact, there's a content marketing retreat going on as I write this post.
The UX, inward-looking face
This piece involves identifying the specific behaviors of various types of content, determining the fields in the content management system, documenting the dynamic content that will surface for public and logged-in users of a site, creating a metadata strategy, and forming the content buckets that shape the information architecture for the site.

Together, these comprise true content strategy. Both are necessary. We need to identify the details in order for the organization's intellectual property -- what the content is about -- shine. (For more on that, see my previous post.) And we need to spend the time thinking through the details about how the strategy will actually get realized and built, or the content won't have the opportunity to do what it needs to do.

Sometimes, we're talking about one when we mean the other, and sometimes we forget that both need to exist. Is it one person who creates both faces for a website? Is it only content strategists who do this work? The answer depends on the size of the effort, the degree of change needed, and whether it's an internal team or external agency doing the work.

(There's also a huge third piece to content strategy, which is organizational change and workflow -- look for another post on that topic soon.)

I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this topic!

Your content is about who you are, what you think, know, and do

2012-01-17T09:30:00.000-06:00

In the dozen years that I've been practicing content strategy -- yep, since 1999 -- I've often asked myself why organizations have been slow to make content strategy a top priority. I think it's the name "content strategy." Even a newer version of the name, "content marketing," really doesn't capture what the effort is about and why it is a critical, essential part of how an organization presents itself online.

Here's the issue: Content is not about itself. "Content" is information about your company. It's your programs, your lines of business, your strategies, your thought leadership, your benefits to customers or members, your offerings. In short, it is you. In particular, online content strategy is you online.

Moreover, it's all the things that your customers/members want from you -- who you are, what you do, what you think, what you know, and what you offer them.

In order for customers/members to really get you, find you, and use you, your online content strategy must be centered on getting the word out in a customer- or member-centered way. If you describe yourself using your terminology and your mental models, they may not find you, or may not really get that when they come across your website or Facebook page, they've found the solution they are looking for.

So, online content strategy really stands for customer-focused, benefits-centric, readable, relevant, useful, and usable

thought leadership communications strategy
business communications strategy
corporate communications strategy
marketing communications strategy
program communications strategy

Online content strategy is creating each of these in a customer-centered way -- starting with the understanding of how customers or members see you, what they currently want from you, as well as what they currently want but don't know you offer. And all of this, with the layer of online content best practices: clear, share-friendly headlines; short, scannable paragraphs; and others.

But the writing and online presentation are the packaging -- what the content is ABOUT is at the heart of all of it.

SEO is like the game of jeopardy

2012-01-11T08:05:00.004-06:00

(I first wrote about this concept back in 2006, and the notion is even more true now.)

Optimizing your Web site for search engines is just like playing "Jeopardy."

What questions do people ask for which your company, your offerings, your information is the answer?
Who are those people?
What words do they use in asking those questions?

You need to research these questions (a great starting point is Wordtracker.)

Then, you need to make sure that your website answers each of those questions. Be sure to use their terms and phrases in your content. Be sure to address each of the questions on individual, separate pages on your site.

The example I used back in '06 was Web advice for a relative who runs a company that makes the "trees of life" and other products that organizations use as to honor and recognize their donors.

The issue was that someone on a fundraising committee at that organization probably doesn't know the term "donor recognition." My relative wanted to understand how to improve his conversions -- he has people trickling onto the site, but extremely low numbers who actually contact him.

I told him to keep three things in mind:

You want to put yourself where your target audience is, online
You want to describe your offerings in terms your audience uses
You want to create words and images that will resonate with the people who arrive at your site.

His research showed that people were searching for "plaques," "trees of life," and "donor walls." He learned that they wanted information about their specific type of organization -- healthcare organization, house of worship, charitable institution, etc. -- even though the actual choices are pretty much the same.

The reality is that it's possible for my relative to create almost any kind of recognition product that a client could dream up -- but they weren't on Google searching for "freeform recognition product," so concepts to that effect weren't drawing prospective customers to his site.

After applying the Jeopardy principle to his online presence, his traffic is up and the conversion rate is greatly improved.

Goals Written Are Dreams Achieved

2011-12-30T15:23:00.001-06:00

When I'm not thinking about websites or content strategy, I'm usually knitting. In fact, I've just started a knitting blog where I share knitting-related thoughts and patterns.

Today my worlds intersected a bit. I came across a wonderful post entitled "Goals Written Are Dreams Achieved." While I'm not planning to sell my knitted objects on Etsy anytime soon, I thought the post really captured best practices for every association, corporation, nonprofit, or entrepreneur.

The post gave four tips for writing and measuring goals. I've paraphrased them and added a fifth.

Write them as positive, declarative sentences.
Be detailed.
Share your goals with others, maybe in a blog post or on Twitter.
Track the progress of your goals.
Review and refine them on a regular basis.

For a website, content strategy is key to enabling your business to meet its goals.

Content strategy -- the who, what, when, where, why, and how of content

2011-12-21T08:23:00.000-06:00

People come to your site to learn something or do something, and your content strategy needs to reflect that you know what they come for and know how to help them do it.

Sounds easy...but it's actually not. In fact, often the cleanest, easiest-looking solutions actually were the most challenging to develop. Keep in mind that those challenges are absolutely worth tackling!

The question "what is content strategy" seems to be out there in the ether more than I've ever seen it. My take on it is that content strategy is the who, what, when, where, why, and how of content.

Who will be creating the content? Do they know how to write effectively for online consumption?
What content do your site visitors need in order to do what they came for?
When: How often should you publish new content? How often will you promote a particular piece of content?
Where should it live? What section of your site houses the information? Where will you promote it -- on your site, on Facebook/Twitter, in your e-newsletters?
Why: Do the folks responsible for writing and promoting the content understand both the business goals of the content, as well as users' goals?
How: Do you have a content management system -- both CMS technology and the related business processes -- to to get the information posted online efficiently and effectively?

So, content strategy involves several different areas of your organization: content creators, communicators, marketing, and technology. All must be aligned in order for the content -- and the effort behind it -- to succeed.

An open letter to mobile sites

2011-11-10T20:34:00.004-06:00

Dear mobile site,

Most of the time, frankly, you’re awful. All too often, you don’t let me do what I came to the site to do -- something that your full site lets me do pretty easily. You present a small handful of options, but not the one I’m looking for. And to be honest, you’re ugly. I definitely appreciate good design on a website, so using you is just not a very pleasant experience.

Yesterday, I started the day as I usually do, checking email on my iPhone before getting out of bed. I got an offer from a clothing retailer for 20% off if I shopped during the week. When I clicked on the link, there were choices to see women’s, children’s, or men’s items. I was looking for women’s clothing – but there was some kind of overlay welcoming me to the mobile site, and it blocked my ability to choose women’s clothes (which I strongly suspect is this retailer’s primary line of business). I clicked on the children’s clothing link, and there, all I could do was drill down, not go to women’s clothes. Oh well – I guess they didn’t really want me to shop with them online. Effective mobile experience? I don’t think so!!

Then on my way home from work, I got a weekly update from a nonprofit career site. In order to see the open positions in Illinois, I clicked through to the site and it asked me if I wanted to go to the mobile site. I’ve clicked “no” each time I have visited the site, but apparently it’s too much for this site to remember that option. I got a request to remember my location – why in the world does this site need to know where I am? I clicked “no” once again. And in paging through the openings in Illinois, I had to carefully expand the page so I clicked on the “next” link vs. the one to the mobile site – yet again. There is an option to see all openings from Illinois at once, but it doesn’t work. Major fail!

I don’t mind scrolling around a “real” site on my phone. It’s a mini-computer, after all – not a Blackberry circa 1996. Bandwidth isn’t really an issue, and real sites have information in predictable places, and a real, defined user experience.

So mobile site, don’t get in my way – and give me the option to decline using you, permanently. If you choose to not do that, I will choose not to visit you.

Thanks for listening.

Social media -- can't live without it, can't keep up

2008-10-30T13:53:00.003-05:00

My organization is hiring a social media manager. We've decided to truly participate and engage with the people and online conversations related to us and our issues. I've been working on this effort for many months, and have stepped up my efforts to learn what's going on on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning sites, MyBlogLog, Plaxo, and a myriad of blogs. I avidly use del.icio.us. I haven't yet explored Digg enough. I've hooked the tools together where it makes sense, and I rely on both push and pull methods of knowing what's going on. But it could easily be my full-time job to just read everything -- and keeping up with these discussions and links is not my primary job responsibility, by any means.

We social media-ites are certainly a communicative bunch, and while I am gregarious and extroverted by nature, I sometimes want to ask people to just be quiet for a while and let me catch up!

While that obviously is not going to happen, I just needed to share that.

Finding time to blog

2008-04-09T11:26:00.002-05:00

I've found it challenging to make time to post to this blog. What is blog-worthy? What is worth spending the time on? I guess I'll try and think about it more, post more regularly and see what happens.

Stay tuned.....

If you have ideas on how to get inspired to blog, please let me know!

Real estate book created in record time

2007-11-15T18:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I was introduced to Steve Kantor, who conceived the idea of a book gathering the thoughts of 1,000+ REALTORS® about how to stay successful in a down market. He pulled the book's contents together in five (!) days. The ebook was available for download within one day, and the printed book will be available as of Friday. I commend Steve and his team for the effort, although it remains to be seen whether the information is useful....

Tired in Las Vegas

2007-11-15T18:21:00.002-06:00

I've been in Las Vegas since Sunday, primarily for the National Association of REALTORS® conference and also to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Association Summit (warning -- the WOMMA site talks!).

As we come to the close of Thursday, I'm tired. I've had more drinks than usual, slept fitfully, had 12+ hour days (filled with enjoyable, interesting activities, but long nonetheless), and have hardly breathed outdoor air.

I'll be glad to get home.....

Real Estate BloggerCon tomorrow!

2007-11-11T18:31:00.000-06:00

Tomorrow (Nov. 12, 2007) I'll be hosting NAR's first-ever BloggerCon, along with the Center for REALTOR Technology, at NAR's annual conference in Las Vegas.

It will take place from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. in the Venetian Hotel, in the Bloggers Lounge on Level 4 - Zeno 4605.

If you're a REALTOR® or a REALTOR® association executive and you blog, please come and meet the other bloggers and share your thoughts.

I look forward to seeing you there!

Adding more widgets to the blog

2007-09-02T21:01:00.000-05:00

Look at the right column to see what I've been twittering (tweeting?) about, as well as what I'm listening to....in case you're interested. What are you listening to/twittering about, and do you post that information on your blog? I'd love to know your reasons either way.

Web standards and governance

2007-08-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

I've convened my team in our DC office for a "content summit," my term for an intensive session to:

refine our content strategies/standards/guidelines/policies
standardize the job that our content strategists do between offices and with various departments throughout our association
position the team to be able to govern the site more effectively. Lisa Welchman will be working with us on this final piece.

We'll be posting the site's standards online -- I'll post the link when it's up.

After a glass of wine and a relaxing dinner, I'll be ready for a third day of interesting discussions tomorrow.

CNN.com 2.0

2007-07-01T17:19:00.000-05:00

Check out the new CNN.com, just relaunched today! It's "as an enhanced multimedia site - packed with web 2.0 features such as recommendations and user generated content," according to Read/Write Web. Many of the standards and ideas that it implemented are the same ones we are using or planning to use on REALTOR.org, which is validating:

Streaming video vs. forcing downloads
Playing streaming video in Flash, vs. Windows Media Player
"Integrated multimedia storytelling," which we are taking baby steps toward doing

Some of the site's other new features are ones only in our minds at the moment, including Ajax; "we recommend" and "hot topics" dynamically generated for text and video content; and multiple opportunities for readers to engage with articles, video, and categories.

A revolution in corporate communications is coming your way soon

2007-05-25T15:39:00.000-05:00

Debbie Weill, in her BlogWrite for CEOs blog, wrote about a phenomenon that I've been watching for quite some time. (I wrote an article about this back in January 2005, "To make your website work, transform your communicators from writers to editors.") The blogosphere and the rise of social media have made this transformation happen faster and more fully than I expected, though!

12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know

2007-05-06T11:40:00.000-05:00

Thanks to C. David Gammel, whose High Context Consulting blog is a must-read for association communicators and Web folks, for pointing to this useful post about the legalities of running a blog. The post covers

dos and don'ts of paid blog posts (you should disclose them)
whether deep linking is legal (it is, as long as it doesn't violate copyright)
using images and thumbnails (make sure you don't use images without permission)
laws protecting you from stolen content
domain name trademark issues
handling private data about your readers
ownership and rights to user-generated content
your responsibility in monitoring comments
basic blog-related tax laws
limited liability laws and incorporating
laws about spam and unsolicited emails
bloggers and journalism shield laws

Are you all a-Twitter?

2007-04-29T19:51:00.000-05:00

I've signed up for Twitter. Not sure whether it'll be useful, but it's worth a shot. If you want, please add me as a friend: http://twitter.com/hilarymarsh.

Diagram of a blog

2007-04-08T18:21:00.000-05:00

This image from today's NY Times is all too true! Reminds me of the old light bulb joke about email lists: http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/interlight.html...

How associations can use blogs effectively

2007-03-06T17:45:00.000-06:00

Whew! I just finished an article for FORUM Magazine, the monthly publication of the Association Forum of Chicago. I learned a ton and got reenergized about this blog. When the article is live, I'll share it here.

Because of that article, I'm now addicted to several blogs that I was a casual visitor to before:
Charlene Li's blog sharing Forrester analysts' insights
Logic+Emotion from David Armano
The Kinja feed of posts from several smart association communication issues blogs
John Bell's Digital Influence Mapping Project

What are your marketing challenges and goals for 2007?

2007-03-03T10:04:00.000-06:00

Nonprofit communicators, you're invited to take a short survey created by Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention. Nancy's articles on how nonprofits can succeed through effective marketing are fresh and insightful, and she wants the community's input to make her articles even better. It's only seven questions, including:

Looking back at 2006, what was your biggest disappointment or frustration? And what was your greatest success?
What are your top three communications goals for 2007?
As you look ahead to 2007, please rate these marketing and communications challenges as they relate to your organization. (checklist)

The survey is located at What are your marketing challenges and goals for 2007?.

Excellent post on technical problem-solving

2007-03-03T09:57:00.000-06:00

Michael Stein, who blogs about nonprofit technology issues, offered an important insight about problem solving: "when several problems start up at once, odds are they are related." The example he gave was about connectivity issues, but it's a principle that is relevant in many other situations. Thanks for the insight, Michael!

My new role

2007-03-03T09:49:00.000-06:00

I am now the managing director of REALTOR.org, overseeing the site's content, technology, design, information architecture, and metrics. Guess I'll be busy!

The site has 670,000 registered users and receives more than 1.3 million visits per month. We have ambitious goals for it, including better content management functionality, more multimedia, and user-generated content -- stay tuned!

Women blogging

2007-02-11T14:34:00.000-06:00

I've heard about this community for quite a while, but just took the plunge and joined today. We'll see where it goes for me....

Online music

2007-01-15T16:32:00.000-06:00

I've been spending way too much time during this three-day weekend exploring the world of music blogging and community. I've been having fun with it, and realizing how many others there are doing the same thing. Check out some of my online presences:

hilarymarsh at Last.fm
http://mog.com/hilarymarsh
"Chicks with Guitar" radio on Pandora

Anyone else on these communities too?

My New Music Blog

2006-11-19T18:10:00.000-06:00

Like MySpace for music lovers, Mog is a new service that I read about last week in the WSJ (subscription needed to access). It lets people share their love of music and, through a downloaded application, note what they have on their iPod and what they're playing. It's addictive!

My first conference blog!

2006-11-19T17:10:00.000-06:00

The National Association of Realtors, my employer, held its annual conference in New Orleans last week. Always one of the country's most substantial conventions, it was the Big Easy's largest since Katrina, with 26,000 attendees. We had had a blog at our last convention, but it was basically a recap of the news that we posted in our online magazine. This time, I wanted to create a blog that had a voice of its own, captured different kinds of information than the news vehicles , accepted comments -- in short, acted like a "real" blog. Inspired by a post by Todd O'Neill on the CM Pros e-mail list that linked to What to Post to a Conference Blog, I developed guidelines for our blog (below). The blog is so successful that, a week after the conference's end, it is still getting comments!

NARdi Gras Live
Experience the information, the atmosphere, and the spirit of the 2006 REALTORS Conference and Expo

Blog’s purpose and goals

Capture trends shared at the Conference
Report on the most interesting and/or popular products, sessions, speakers, and events

Assignment/post types

Session reporting – see Contribution details section for more about how this would differ from Show Daily/RMO session reporting
“REALTOR on the street”
“You are here” personal observations of volunteer works, Expo, between-session hallways, special events (Presidents Bush & Clinton, Harry Connick, Bourbon Street), other events (inaugural, Good Neighbor Awards), New Orleans tours?
Include photos – have one person control the camera each day and take photos where appropriate (“REALTOR on the street,” etc.)
Include short (under 2-minute) snippets of Hatfield’s videos of the Habitat builds
Possibly conversations with session speakers, as continuations of conversations begun at their sessions. (The session about blogging will have its own dedicated blog for people to use to learn about the art of blogging, and we will definitely link to that one.)

Contribution details
Each REALTOR.org editor will contribute 1-2 items per day. One of their posts will be a report about an education session relating to one of the content areas of the site they manage. The posts should

cover the ambiance in the room
convey the audience’s interactivity with the topic and the speakers
if applicable, mention what else was going on at the time, and how might that have shaped this session’s audience turnout and expectations
discuss what information was new to you, as well as what seemed new to the audience

We’ll divide coverage of the major events at the conference:

Galas (president’s inauguration, international night out, Good Neighbor awards, et al.)
Star attractions – David Lereah, Bush/Clinton, Harry Connick Jr., REALTORS on Bourbon Street

In addition, I’d like a mix of other types of posts over the course of the conference, covering

Activity level and atmosphere of between-session areas, registration area, hotels and local restaurants
A glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes, in the NAR staff area, press room, blog room
The local New Orleans tours that conference attendees can take
Volunteer efforts

A note about voice
The blog will have a diverse audience – REALTORS, committee members, Association Executives, NAR staff – so be careful of the use of “you”

Process and Oversight

I will have daily meetings with Pamela to review the day's posts and make sure the blog is in line with editorial expectations
I will spend most of my time approving blog posts and comments from the blogger's room, for several reasons:
so that bloggers who come in will have the opportunity to be involved
to foster cross-linking among the conference's bloggers
to show that our blogging is an open process

Blog requirements

It will look like the President's Blog with the same size logo at the top, and will work largely like the NAR in the News Blog
We will accept comments and will moderate them.
We won’t allow trackbacks.
We'll have a blogroll where we can link to other blogs.
We'll set it up to display the category for each post on the post itself, as well as in the blog's navigation. We'll probably have 5-10 categories.
We will organize the archives by day, since the blog will only be alive for about 10 days (it will still exist online, but not contributed to after that).
It will be set up to allow multiple contributors, each with their own login. I will be the sole administrator (although the REALTOR.org editors and Lorelei will have my login information, in case they need to step in for any reason)

Questions

Can we include audio snippets of the sessions while the conference is still going on? If so, how would we go about doing that?
How could we/should we use the blog to inform conference attendees about any updates?
How should we cover committee meetings?

Sources of inspiration
http://agahran.typepad.com/sej2006/
http://blogs.asaecenter.org/BostonBlog/

More about voice and tone:

http://many.corante.com/archives/2004/02/08/conference_blogging.php

This is a very interesting post talking about the modes of conference blogging. I'd like ours to be a mix of the following:

Impressionistic Transcription -- paraphrase with flair. Usually makes the speakers sound better than they are. Adds a little context that makes particular sense if you have been following related memes in blogspace. Great for the writer because the informality excuses waning attention and need to quote accurately. Archetype: Cory Doctorow (example)
Running Commentary -- paraphrase with opinion. While blogging in real time, interspersing the opinions or views of the blogger. Perhaps the most value added activity of one person. Takes real skill to capture the essence of a session and add your own. Archetypes: Mitch Ratcliffe or Doc (example)
Poignant Reflection -- pure commentary. How most people blog conferences. Listen, reflect and post. What drives the post is usually a key quote or a contrary opinion. Archetype: Jerry Michalski (example)

SEO is like the game of jeopardy

2006-10-29T17:39:00.000-06:00

I realized the other day that understanding how to optimize your Web site for search engines is just like playing "Jeopardy" -- you have to ask yourself what questions people will ask for which your company is the answer. Then, you have to create content answering each of those questions, and be sure to use the words embedded in those questions on your site itself.

I was recently asked to offer some Web advice for a relative who runs a company that makes the "trees of life" and other products that organizations use as fundraising recognition tools. He's about to embark on a redesign of his site, http://www.bddonorrec.com, and wanted to understand how to improve his conversions -- he has people trickling onto the site, but extremely low numbers who actually contact him.

I told him to keep three things in mind:

You want to put yourself where your target audience is, online
You want to describe your offerings in terms your audience uses
You want to create words and images that will resonate with the people who arrive at your site.

He sounded a little puzzled until I compared this exercise to "jeopardy." We'll see what happens with the site in the future.....

Content style -- usage reflects ubiquity

2006-06-01T12:08:00.000-05:00

"Web" or "web"? "Web site" or "website"? Every site, and every organization, grapples with style choices. Tony Byrne's recent post indicates that, for at least one tech trade magazine, we've reached the turning point. This magazine has chosen to eschew capitals for the top Web-related terms -- indicating that these words are so common, they no longer need to be set off with capital letters. This is great news, in my opinion. What do you think?

Is new media changing society and culture?

2006-01-18T22:25:00.000-06:00

PBS today launched a new blog that claims they are. MediaShift, written by Mark Glaser, promises to

"track how digital media technologies and techniques such as weblogs, RSS, podcasting, citizen journalism, wikis, news aggregators and video repositories are changing our world. It will tell stories of how the shifting media landscape is changing the way we get our news and information, while also providing a place for public participation and feedback."

If anyone will have intelligent ideas about this stuff, that person seems to be Glaser. He wrote a weekly column for USC Annenberg School of Communication's (Online Journalism Review) and currently writes the OPA Intelligence Report email newsletter for the Online Publishers Association.

I'm looking forward to learning more.

Writing FAQs for the Web

2005-12-26T17:24:00.000-06:00

What do you think of FAQs -- do you look at them? do they answer your questions?

On websites I work on, I encourage people to avoid them at all costs. Instead, it makes sense to take people’s questions and make sure those questions are answered within the text, in the place where it makes the most sense.

In my view, FAQs are a convenient vehicle for the creator, but not necessarily the best delivery method for the visitor to the page. Jacob's guide is a thorough how-to, if you do decide to use them.

Thoughts, anyone?

What does it mean for writing to be user-centered?

2005-10-31T09:13:00.000-06:00

Web writing often contains far too many instances of "I" and "we" and far too few of "you." Bryan Eisenberg has developed the fabulous, free We We Customer Focus Calculator that indicates how much of your site focuses on the customer vs. on yourself.

People come to a site to get information that they can learn from, identify with, and hopefully put to good use for themselves. "Do I want to work for this company?" "Do I want to buy this product?" "Do I want to participate in this program?" "Do I want to join this association?"

User-centered content addresses the reader's needs, not those of the person or organization generating the content.

To ensure that your content is user-centered:

Make sure it answers the question "so what?"
Focus not on the features your product offers, but what benefits the customer will enjoy as a result of those features

Developing a strategy for using multimedia on a website

2005-10-23T16:17:00.000-05:00

Should we use multimedia on our site? Sounds like a pretty straightforward question, but in actuality it is anything but.

What do we mean by "multimedia," anyway? (After some thought and discussion, we narrowed it down to audio files, video files and presentations.)

If we decide to use it, where and when is it appropriate, and what should the guidelines be for how large the multimedia files can be and how long they should stay on the site?

Should we set up the files to download or stream? What file types should we accept?

I've asked members of other organizations' Web teams what their policies are, and no one has been willing to share them, since they insist that it depends on the nature of the content and the tech savviness of the audiences. But how can we develop industry standards, and influence what our audiences expect and are willing to watch/download, if we don't share information?

I look forward to learning more over time.

Surf a web page without clicking

2005-08-18T18:05:00.000-05:00

I learned about this experimental Italitan website from Tidbit, the new blog from Philadelphia usability firm Wildbit. I'm not sure what I think, but I'm glad someone is exploring opportunities.

Join me to discuss "Writing for search" next Tuesday, August 23rd

2005-08-18T17:56:00.000-05:00

Can your customers find you? What content do customers look for on your site? Are you making mistakes on your site that keep search engines from seeing your content? Find out the answers to this and more in a teleseminar, where you'll also get to ask your own questions. Talk to you then!

Talking about online press rooms

2005-08-07T16:46:00.000-05:00

One of the folks who attended my teleseminar about online pressrooms had nice things to say. I'll publish more soon on this topic.

"Eight Things You Can Do Now to Improve On-Screen Readability"

2005-04-29T16:29:00.000-05:00

Do you agree with this article? I don't -- especially the part about creating and embedding a custom font.

I think it's a good thing readers have control over how information is displayed on their computers. I once had a colleague with low vision, and for him, it was easiest to read content online if he had the background set to a dark color -- usually purple -- with the type in white or yellow.

For a designer, "user-centered" means checking aspects of your ego at the door. (It does for content folks too, just in different ways, but we'll tackle that in another post someday.)

Comments welcome....

good Web content represents the meeting between what you want to tell people and what they want to know

2005-04-22T19:16:00.000-05:00

It's one thing to post information on your site, and another thing altogether to make it relevant to the reader.

People come to your site with a goal in mind -- research a specific product, find out whether they should work for you, apply for a grant, conduct a transaction with you. If you think about it, you know what their goals are.

Help them do what they came for. Don't make them visit several sections of the site -- if your information must live in separate places, link to the information they are likely to want.

Read a longer article about this on my website.

More on the "why" of content management

2005-04-07T20:27:00.000-05:00

I recently read a quote in Utne Reader that brought home my point about content management: “America is strong on how and weak on why.”

Most of the content management information out there is devoted to the “how”:

how newer, more robust and more usable software will enable more content management functionality
how to do more inside your organizations
how to get more out of your IT department

But without the why, the how is risky and may be an expensive failure.

Why do we need to manage content?
Do we manage content offline, or is this a case of using technology simply because it exists?

The projects I’ve worked on usually have a mantra: Just because we can doesn’t necessarily mean we should. I completely agree with this.

So....

make sure rules exist for content before building templates
make sure legal department will log into the CMS to review and approve content before paying extra for a system with complex branching and looping workflow
make sure updating content is someone’s responsibility before setting rules where the lack of approval causes a piece of content to be automatically deleted.

CMS software can enable ever more nuanced rules for assigning, storing, approving, publishing, surfacing, archiving and deleting content. But it cannot create order where none exists, can’t write the business rules and can’t substitute for a strategy.

creating an online content strategy -- the "why" before the "how"

2005-03-29T11:53:00.000-06:00

I'm giving a talk about online content strategies at the Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies in San Francisco next month. In developing the presentation, I keep stopping at the "why" of content strategy before delving into the "how."

Why is this? I keep asking myself.

I think it's because content strategy is not really understood, especially by folks in IT, who are focused on figuring out which Content Management System (CMS) to buy. To IT, it's clear that there is too much content and there are too many people in a flurry to post, change and remove information from the site, and CMSs hold the promise of taking responsibility for doing all of that away from them and put into the hands of the "content owners."

But it's not that simple. In fact, if it were, the chain of command for information would have been figured out a long time ago.

The reality is, most organizations have never had a content strategy. Why? Three reasons, as I see it:

They didn't know they needed one. And maybe they didn't. If each of their business units operated as an independent entity, publishing information (sales sheets, newsletters, marketing materials) to discrete audiences with no overlap with the organization's other business units, they may not have needed to become unified.
They didn't know how to create one. That's understandable, since folks have only been thinking about content strategies for a relatively short time, since the Internet became prevalent in the 1990s.
They didn't have the time or people to do it. That's where I think I get stuck, because if an organization just chooses to overlook this process, they're making a big mistake. (For more, read my article on the risks of not managing content.)

Well, I hope Gilbane conference attendees learn something from my talk.

content management system vs. page update tool?

2005-03-26T13:24:00.000-06:00

I was recently emailing with a former client, who told me that rather than buying a full-fledged CMS, they had purchased a smaller system they call a "page update tool." I'm a little surprised, I guess, but not entirely. And I imagine that the folks who will be using the tool might be pleased about it.

With a completely decentralized publishing model, this organization probably can't do more than enable folks to reuse their own content -- and even that might be in a future phase. If this tool gives the central IT group the time to think through the bigger-picture issues, it's money well spent.

does the world need another blog? maybe....

2005-03-26T13:03:00.000-06:00

This is my first real foray into the world of blogging. I've had this blogger account since 2001, but I couldn't really make it work. My first vision for using a blog was as a homepage for my synagogue's website, so that the synagogue administrator could post news as it occurred, then gather it into a newsletter at the end of the month. But the admin was intimidated by the idea of instantly posting information, or never had time to try it out -- not sure what the exact reasons were, but my idea went into a black hole.

I also planned on experimenting with this blog to discuss my thoughts on Web content, but I wasn't sure how to determine what to publish or not. I'm still not sure, but I'm more comfortable with that unsurety now.

Well, I definitely have a lot to say about online content, and people do seem to want to hear my opinions, so this seems a good way to share them.

That's it for now -- more soon!