I’ve been working on a web transformation project with work for the last few months. I introduced using Gather Content for the content creation side of things and it’s worked out really well.
I wrote about it on LinkedIn.
From chaos to calm with content creation
From chaos to calm with content creation – 3 months later
The main problem I have with websites are the ones that are created and then not maintained.
Like the truck in this photo they might be used for a while but then put out to pasture without a maintenance plan. Too soon it’s passed its use-by date, gathered dirt and rust and without a major overhaul, no longer useful.
As I mentioned in a recent post, there are questions you must ask yourself when you create a website.
Maintenance must absolutely be a part of any website creation.
If you’ve got a small website then a quick read every couple of months should be okay.
If you’ve got a larger website, put the pages that need attending to in your editorial calendar. Is there a page that links to an annual report? Make a note to update it when your annual report is updated. Does your organisation have an annual calendar of events? This will impact the content on the website so make a note of that. Content updates could include changing sliders on the homepage and the content that it links to with further information like news and events.
Some content management systems have a system where content owners can be reminded by email to review their content. Use this if you have it.
If not, put a note or reminder in whatever diary system you use.
Make checking for broken links part of your content review. This is essential. Again, some content management systems have this built in. WordPress has a broken link checker plugin. I haven’t used this so I don’t know how effective it is.
I used to be an advocate for keeping website information going way back and sometimes this is useful, but think about whether you really need it or not? Do you need all the details of an annual conference you held ten years ago? Think of the search engine consequences of this for people searching for such and such a conference. It’s annoying to more easily find a conference from years ago than this year’s conference.
Don’t replicate contact details on many pages because if you have a person’s details across many pages and they leave you’ve got to update many pages. Put contact details on one page and link to that page then if someone leaves you’ve only got one page to update. Saves heaps of time.
You need to know who has ownership of the web content. This could be page by page, or for a whole website. It has to be recognised that this person or people need some time to put aside to check content. If I had ten dollars for every time someone said they didn’t have the time to review or contribute content I could retire now.
And who is responsible for updating the content on the website? This and the content owner may be the same person. And please, please, if this isn’t the sole responsibility for this person, please give them adequate training and time to do these updates. I don’t think responsibility for web updates should fall on someone’s shoulders who doesn’t have web experience or the desire to do it.
Would you add anything?
I went for a job interview over a year ago now. Actually it was an informal coffee chat about an opportunity but I like the informal and think there should be more of them. They’d found me on LinkedIn and been proactive about seeking new talent which I liked. Otherwise LinkedIn hasn’t really worked that well for me. But I digress.
One of the questions I was asked was what was my favourite things about digital? Without hesitation I said that it was the content. In retrospect I wish I’d elaborated upon it a bit more as the content is important but there’s more to it than that.
I wish I’d elaborated and said that while content is important, that the strategy around the content is even more important. Maybe I didn’t have the right words at the time to verbalise it but I certainly would now.
I’ve been saying for years and years that it’s no good having a website without it being maintained. Even now it drives me mad that people must have a website but have no thought for the rest of its life.
When you’re known among friends and family for being able to put together a website you get asked quite often to help them design a website. Usually design is the operative word. I’m not a designer so thank goodness for WordPress and themes that designers and developers have already put together.
I’ve often said no, or when I’ve said yes, things have stalled because they don’t have the content or any sort of strategy for their website. I said to one relative probably about a year ago that sure, I’d help build her website, but get the content to me first and we’ll go from there. Still nothing. As it would have been a sideline project for love I haven’t chased it up.
Part of my role as a content strategist is to educate people on what having a website entails. As I focus on the content and am not a designer see here for a web design questionnaire from a designers perspective.
What is the purpose of the website? Is to sell products or services, to provide information, to increase brand awareness. The purpose of your website should be aligned with your business goals.
Who is the intended website audience? Be specific and provide as accurate a breakdown as you can.
Have you got a domain name/web address?
Website owner: Who is ultimately responsible for the website and its content?
How will the website be built? If an existing company then they probably have a content management system, otherwise there’s solutions like WordPress.
What is the information architecture of your website? How is the site going to be structured and organised.
Have you got the content for the website?
If the content isn’t ready who will be providing the content?
Will images or video be used? Do you have these?
If the website is a brand new one how will users find it? Do you have a marketing campaign around the website?
Do any links to the website need to be added on other websites?
Is there any accompanying social media to help drive traffic to the website?
Will you install code to track visitors to your website, eg Google Analytics?
What is the planned lifecyle of the website?
Who will be maintaining the website?
This is the beginnings of a content strategy around your website and definitely worth considering before you start building one.
Is there anything you would add?
I want to share some useful and interesting reading I’ve come across this month. Note, some of the links are from further back but still relevant. There’s a strong content strategy theme here.
It takes a lot of effort to create great content so try to repurpose the content you do create. This article shows different methods of repurposing content, the process, and different content types.
Create Great Content? How to Get More From It Through Repurposing
There’s 652 steps in this ‘how to’ guide for creating a content strategy. Don’t let that put you off. It’s broken down into four major steps.
How to Create a Content Strategy (In Only 652 Steps)
Notes from a conference outlining seven key points to creating a content marketing strategy.
7 Tips and Tools to Craft a Killer Content Marketing Strategy #SESCHI
There are 26 tactics here to strengthen your social media content strategy and you could give each one of them a go one at a time so it’s not so overwhelming. There are some good tips here though. For example, replicating your brand across platforms.
26 Tips to Create a Strong Social Media Content Strategy
I would love to combine my love of fashion with a job in content strategy. Here’s how Modcloth have done it. I’ve bought from Modcloth and one of the things I like about their site is their user content. People buy their products and then go back to the site and review them, and some upload images of themselves wearing their purchases. User-created content. It seems to really work for Modcloth. I wonder if they’re opening up in Australia?
How Modcloth Tries to Be a Fashion Friend and (Amazingly) Succeeds
Have you got any useful links to share?
A colleague emailed me recently saying that she was overwhelmed with her task of updating their website. However, she kind of knew what she wanted and realised that what they currently have has become out of control and unfriendly to their users. She’d started by making a plan on paper but was a bit stuck. As hiring me wasn’t an option I gave her a few steps as a guide.
Making a plan is a great idea. Long gone are the days of just jumping into creating a webpage and adding content. This is how I begin. Know what you already have (do a content audit). You’ll then have to have an idea of how you want it to appear, and by that I mean the navigation and structure of the content.
This will help determine what can be removed and what needs updating or consolidating.
I usually do my plan on a Word document so I can rearrange things easily there before I get my hands on the content management system.
Who is the main audience of the website? There might be a couple of different audiences you need to cater for. If so, organise the information logically so people aren’t confused.
For example, their current website’s homepage had information for students and employers. It also had a list of services and programs available. This immediately confused me because if I’m a student, do I start with the information for students, or the services and programs. Therefore remove the ambiguity.
I still keep asking myself the question, what’s the website for? And what’s this page trying to achieve? Do you want the user to do something specific or is it strictly for information?
There’s usually an organisation that’s been there before you and as we’re in the higher education sector there’s plenty of university websites to look at. Some need work, but others will give you ideas. It’s a matter of trawling through them and checking them out and sparking ideas for what you can do on your website.
I only say this because unless you’re beginning a website from the very beginning, there will be templates available to use. Most websites are built using content management systems which only allow you to edit certain areas of a webpage. Yes, you can go crazy and use different font colours and styles, but it’s best not to. I found a page recently where ALL of the text was red. Yes, all of it. Hideous. Not only that, but it hadn’t been updated for over a year. The same website wasn’t consistent at all in their design elements plus they used lots of tables to lay out information that were unnecessary.
Following on from the above, not having to worry about the design leaves you to focus on the content. I gave my colleague a web writing guide I’ve been working but as I can’t share that here, there are others you can look at. This one by Website Criteria is pretty good. If writing for the web isn’t your strong suit, familiarise yourself with something like this.
Also, you need to think about what you want people to do after they’ve read a webpage? Maybe you need to include a call to action, eg call us, apply now, register here. Or is it just for information? Is the content easy to read and understand?
You can also use house style guides, and be consistent with them. A few things I picked up for my colleague with existing content, but apply to many websites I see, were:
Is there anything you would add?
In a recent web update project I worked with lots of different groups to update various sections of the organisation’s website. Two of those subsites were quite large and therefore a lot more complex than the other smaller, and mostly easier to update, subsites.
The two groups were quite similar in a few ways:
I started off by doing a content audit and then setup meetings with relevant staff.
Both websites should have taken about the same time to complete as they were similar in size but one took much longer to complete because the group had ‘other priorities’. They were described as hostile to me later on, and yes, they mostly were.
However, I completed both group’s updates and despite the difference in attitude from them the methods I employed worked for both groups.
Remember that I wasn’t co-located with either group and had large numbers of staff to deal with.
It became obvious that emailing and phoning people wasn’t going to work and I suggested to my manager that I go and join them to really focus on the work.
Finally I went and started working with the first group. I was lucky that I was in an office with a couple of people who were really cooperative and had lots of visitors. I started introducing myself to everyone who came into the office and if their name was familiar as someone I needed to consult I asked if they had a minute or if I could setup a meeting to discuss web updates.
Even though I was located with this group there were still people who made my work really difficult. I’d see one man in the hallway who kept putting me off and he’d laugh every time he saw me because he knew I was going to ask him for something. I knew that these people were busy but I still had to get my work done and project deadlines to meet.
I’m nothing if not persistent and when I finally went over this particular man’s head his boss walked him to my office and we spent two productive hours together going over web content.
This is what I was up against. But I couldn’t have done it if I wasn’t situated with them. There’s something to be said for popping into someone’s office to ask them how they’re going with my requests. It helped that the project was backed by senior management.
When I eventually finished this particular website I pumped my fists into the air and went home and collapsed. I felt ill so couldn’t even celebrate with a well-deserved drink.
When I finished with that group I was immediately placed with the other large group who were a lot more receptive to having me update the website. That made a lot of difference. The culture was completely different to the first group which really helped.
I’d already done quite a bit of work prior to my move – with the help of their communications people.
I was at the stage where I needed approvals from two very busy managers. From my experience with the previous group I knew that making meetings was the way to go. Emails get ignored if people are busy with other work, but if you make a meeting and sit with a person then they can’t ignore you.
I setup weekly meetings with the two managers at half an hour a time. You can get through a lot in half an hour.
I was always prepared with a list of questions I needed answering or draft content I needed approval for. We’d sit there together while they read through the content and update it on the spot. I’d write down answers to my questions and that would be enough to keep me going until the next time unless I had a quick question I could ask inbetween meetings.
Both managers said that this method suited them really well. Half an hour out of a busy day doing something a bit different for them is a good distraction and we always achieved things.
I updated the websites in record time and even stayed on for a couple of weeks to do some other out-of-scope work for them.
I’m working tone of voice guidelines as part of my job at the moment. I’d never written or used these before but now that I am I realise I’ve used tone of voice instinctively nonetheless.
Because the term it was fairly new to me I did a load of research on what tone of voice actually is and found quite a few examples which I’ll share here.
When you’re talking to someone face-to-face you use a certain tone of voice depending on who you are, and depending on the situation, and depending on who you’re talking to.
For example, you use a different tone of voice when you’re explaining something to your child as opposed to speaking to an interviewer for a job. You use a different register for a different audience and different language.
However, putting defining this for a brand and putting it into tone of voice guidelines to be used for digital communications is a different kettle of fish. It’s not what you say or write, but how it’s written. It’s recommended to use the same tone of voice across digital and all written communications for a brand, but mine will only be used for digital communications at this stage.
All the research I did said to define the brand’s personality first and think of this brand personality as the person you’re writing to.
Then you need to define how your tone should sound, for example, whether its formal or casual. It’s good to include examples of what your brand’s tone of voice should sound like using before and after examples to show what you mean.
A lot of it boils down to good writing principles like using plain English and not using loads of jargon that readers don’t understand, for example, but infusing the brand language at the same time.
It’s not a clear and easy process, but I can see how it’s useful if done, and implemented well. And by implemented there needs to be people who have the time to know how to write for digital platforms, which unfortunately, is often not the case.
One website where I think it’s done really well is Vinomofo, and this carries over onto the email communications as well. Using the ‘mofo’ in their name, and shortening it to ‘fo’ gives them licence to be quite cheeky and I’m sure this has helped increase sales. It certainly for has me anyway. From the homepage to the explanations of wines, the tone of voice is consistent and really adds to their brand. Here’s one example:
I don’t really get art, but I am a fan of a good doodle. It helps pass the time and gives me something to do with my hands when a glass is not within reach. Thankfully this one is.
Some of the guidelines are quite lengthy and some are very short. It really varies.
Voice, Tone and Style: The Whys, Wheres and Hows – a great practical guide on how to create your voice, tone and incorporate the style guide too.
Mailchimp voice and tone guidelines – an easy to follow how to for Mailchimp communications.
British Council tone of voice guidelines– includes what their tone of voice is and isn’t, talking as the brand, and writing for different channels.
Lloyds Brand Language guidelines (PDF) – includes what to do and examples of what they mean.
University of Wollongong tone of voice guidelines – not that much info and is part of the brand guidelines.
University of Leeds Tone of Voice Guidelines (PDF) – quite a comprehensive guide with lots of tips.
How to develop your website’s tone of voice by Six Revisions – defines tone and voice and how to work through the process to develop your own guidelines.
Wordtree – Working the Words blog – their tone of voice category with many day-to-day examples.
Finding your tone of voice by Smashing Magazine – takes you through how to find your tone of voice.
Tone of voice 101: How to write copy that people can connect with by Copyhackers – an explanation of what tone of voice is and some great examples.
I wonder how many organisations use tone of voice guidelines for their communications. And if you know of any other examples please add in the comments.
