Content Strategy for the Web (Voices That Matter)

If your website content is out of date, off-brand, and out of control, you're missing a huge opportunity to engage, convert, and retain customers online. Redesigning your home page won't help. Investing in a new content management system won't fix it, either. So, where do you start?

 

Without meaningful content, your website isn't worth much to your key audiences. But creating (and caring for) "meaningful" content is far more complicated than we're often willing to acknowledge. Content Strategy for the Web explains how to create and deliver useful, usable content for your online audiences, when and where they need it most. It also shares content best practices so you can get your next website redesign right, on time and on budget. For the first time, you'll:

 

• See content strategy (and its business value) explained in plain language

•  Find out why so many web projects implode in the content development phase ... and how to avoid the associated, unnecessary costs and delays  

• Learn how to audit and analyze your content

• Make smarter, achievable decisions about which content to create and how

• Find out how to maintain consistent, accurate, compelling content over time

• Get solid, practical advice on staffing for content-related roles and responsibilities

 

Companies and agencies spend months and millions of dollars on how they'll deliver content online, yet allocate very few resources toward planning for, creating, and governing the content itself. Content Strategy for the Web can help in delivering useful, usable content to online audiences, when and where they need it most. Focusing on the user experience as it relates to content strategy, this book defines content strategy, its business value, and why so many web projects implode in the content development phase. It provides simple ways to introduce content strategy into the user experience design process. Readers get solid, practical advice on staffing and resource allocation for content-related roles and responsibilities and learn about the easy-to-use tools that are necessary to plan for, create, and govern online content.

Kristina Halvorson is the founder and president of Brain Traffic, a nationally-renowned agency specializing in content strategy and writing for the web.

Widely recognized as one of the country’s leading content strategists, Kristina speaks regularly to audiences around the world about how to deliver useful, usable content online, where and when your customers need it most. She has led content projects for hundreds of websites across dozens of industries. Her presentations about web content are consistently given top ratings at conferences and by clients alike.

In 2009, Kristina curated the first Content Strategy Consortium to facilitate a national dialogue about this emerging discipline. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband and two children.

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION                            

LEARN

    SOLUTION                         

    PROBLEM  

    DISCIPLINE 

PLAN

    INPUT    

    STRATEGY 

    ARCHITECTURE 

CREATE

    WORKFLOW        

    WRITING

    PUBLISHING

GOVERN

    MEASUREMENT

     RESPONSE

    CULTURE

RESOURCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS