What is Content Strategy?
Content Strategy is a useful term to cover the planning, creation and management of digital content. At its most basic, this ensures users get the information they need in a format they like.
A Content Strategy is a plan to ensure that all your content is properly created and managed, that it is coherent and consistent, and that it constantly supports your business goals.
There’s more about how this practically helps your site here.
Why do you need a Content Strategy?
Every organisation is a publisher these days via their website. Most companies know their own business, but they don’t have publishing expertise and the advice they receive about websites has traditionally focused on design and technology, not on content.
Good design is important but good content is the heart of a good website. While it’s almost impossible to create and maintain appropriate content on an ad-hoc basis, it’s fairly easy with a practical, strategic plan.
What Content Strategy isn’t…
Content strategy isn’t about advising people to become large scale publishers when they don’t need to be. As often as not, it’s about cutting content rather than creating it, because users don’t like irrelevant content and it’s expensive to create and maintain.
Content Strategy is about making realistic plans and practical recommendations that will genuinely improve content and site performance.
How does it work?
Content Strategy looks at all aspects of content, from tone-of-voice to tagging, from publishing workflows to user measurement. It can cover all types of content, from instructional copy and automated responses, to blog posts and product details. It can look at the content on your own website as well as content you create on social media (like Facebook or Twitter) or send out by email.
How does it fit with web-design?
Content Strategists and Web Designers work hand in hand. Though there’s a lot of overlap in what they do, they approach your site differently. For example, if you want a blog on your site, a web-designer will build you one. But they won’t ask you why you want one or if you need one. Or who is going to write it; what it’s going to say; in what tone; how it reaches the audience; how it serves your business and how you’ll decide if it’s worth the resources put into it. If you can answer these questions before the designer starts building it, you’ll get your content and design to work together and end up with a much better end product.
