How to integrate strategic content strategies into Web Design

　　

 

Note: For web designers, how to organize and plan content is a critical and headache. From the perspective of managers, this article tells readers how to adopt and implement correct content strategies in three stages: content planning, development, and maintenance. At the same time, it provides many practical methods and content planning tools, such as Basecamp, Trello, and GatherContent.

I encountered a big problem when creating my own digital organization: organizational content.

Content is a significant bottleneck for most of the projects we have encountered. It is difficult to collect content from customers, but it is more troublesome to manage infrastructure, workflows, publish technical details, and authenticate workflows.

Let's admit that content development is still a huge and frustrating process. The customer suddenly lost a 200-page Word document to you, sometimes with a CD filled with scattered images and just reaching a partial agreement. How much time can you spend on checking Word documents via email?

Based on my experience in managing and operating a 14-person studio and based on three different content development stages, I would like to share some experiences to help you tame this troublesome process:

• Content Planning: ask questions and obtain first-hand requirements. Create an information graph-information architecture.

• Content development: Get content from the customer, and keep an eye on the process of requirement changes and authentication.

• Content maintenance: Make the created information map more vivid and carry out reviews to ensure real-time demand and content accuracy.

The three steps above help us streamline our plans, manage and publish content, and make our relationships more harmonious with our customers.

Let's take a detailed look at the three content development steps.

　{1. Content Planning}

Content planning is the most important part of the entire process, and it is definitely worth as much time and effort as possible.

The more time you invest, the less time you need later. Investing as much manpower as possible in the early stage will reduce troubles and confusion, help you set the correct expectations, and help the entire team better understand your content strategy.

Pay attention to the following points when you plan the content. Now let's take a look at these considerations.

　Found

Discovery is about using known customer information to find out what they need.

Allowing customers to participate in 'discover' gives you valuable insights on what they really need-How do they think their content should be organized? Why should we organize it in this way?

Never forget that our customers are far more familiar than our customers.

Try the following method:

• Mind Map: Used to brainstorm what content you need and why you need it.

• Card method: an interesting way to test the availability of users and customers. Define how the content should be classified and organized.

• Whiteboard sketch: helps you examine the website structure in more detail.

These content organization tools and technologies are ideal for finding out what you need and how to organize the content, and allowing users to see the importance of their website content. The importance of making customers buy money is self-evident, which encourages users to discover how content is related to their business values. In this way, they will give you more careful consideration and provide the information more timely.

　Requirement

An important result of the discovery stage is that you should have a clear requirement on the content. Since these requirements are the basis of almost all design services, The sooner these findings are recorded, the better. Let everyone in the team know this can prevent future detours.

You can consider different types of requirements:

• Legal requirements: for example, in the UK, the transaction description of goods and services must be clear and accurate.

• Business identity/brand requirements: some enterprises have special guidelines and regulations on how to use their trademarks.

• Technical Requirements: for websites, for example, a maximum image size of 550 pixels is required.

Of course, it is important to keep each requirement simple, even if you have a long list of different requirements, you don't have to worry about it.

By adding rigorous rules in the early stages, you will encounter as few latency problems as possible, because the project has moved forward in this process.

　　Content Map

Now you have a clear understanding of the business goals of your website. You know that to achieve your goals, you will need the content and you have a set of basic rules for the content.

At this stage, your mind should have a rough outline of the basic structure of the website and the content on each page.

However, before you begin to create a webpage layout interaction draft, or even before determining a website map (the website map is usually changed to a separate webpage at the end, such as an apple website map) I suggest you take a moment to create a content map.

　　

 

Content maps can help you create a better website map, such as a website map of apple.

It takes only a few minutes to create a content map, which can be an excellent guide to website maps.

In addition to internal webpages, your content map should also contain content such as emails and news emails. Of course, it should also be counted as external blogs and videos. This will provide an overall view of content flow based on your website.

　　

 

You can use MindMeister to create a content map.

　Present your findings

Now you have a solid understanding of the content layout, and you can begin to map these to the website layout. To be exact, you can start designing.

Show designers the results of your research and they can start to build a home that truly optimizes your content.

　　Collect and edit content

When you need to schedule tasks for everyone, I find it useful to encourage cooperation and let everyone discuss and contribute. To achieve this, you need an online, content-based platform for discussion.

I'm sure you have heard of the following tools:

• Basecamp

• Trello

• GatherContent (a tool created by the original author)

Using these tools allows everyone to see a complete road map and clear what they should do.

If the line chart may cause delays and affect the progress of the entire project, the relevant owner will pay attention to and take the initiative to avoid these risks.

　{2. Development content}

You may think of the "development content" phase as this. Everyone will return to their seats and complete their personal deliverables.

What you need to plan is to set their goals for everyone, and now the rest is waiting for things to be done. In my experience, this is not the case.

Even with detailed content requirements, style guides, content maps, website maps, frameworks, deadlines, and surprising CMS (website content management system ), however, it would be crazy if we wanted everything to be combined naturally. This is like expecting two designers to create two completely free pages under the same grid structure, color matching, and image set.

With this in mind, I will encourage as many continuous communications, checks, and discussions as possible and link these steps throughout the entire production process.

Some suggestions:

• Continuous communication: Keep things consistent through early discussions of details

• Everyone is involved: users, content strategists, designers, developers, etc;

• Regular technical comments: avoid interruptions or do something shameful;

Let users participate in regular technical reviews, and also open up their flexible ideas to find agile and continuous content development methods. When you discuss with them about the process of maintaining and updating content, it makes things easier.

　{3. Maintenance content}

When the website is launched, consumers can use it normally and everything goes on as planned. At this time, can you consider going home and opening a bottle of ice beer to relax?

I don't think it's time to breathe, at least not now.

There are extremely few projects whose content will never expire. Strategies for updating and maintaining website content (as well as funding) are extremely important to keep the project fresh and relevant and satisfy your and customer interests.

It is very simple to develop a content maintenance strategy, which includes the following elements:

　　Keep content editable

You don't want to complete a website project, but are suddenly cut off the entrance to all content. By keeping your content open and organized, it is easier to locate and update individual modules.

In this way, the method of opening the version library may be different. If you do not want your content provider to directly access your CMS, you should consider Perch (Perch is a simple, lightweight and flexible CMS, details can be clicked Perch site: http://grabaperch.com/), GatherContent (https://www.gathercontent.com /), even a simple, shareable Dropbox folder (Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com /)

　Set an editing calendar

It is self-evident that your users and team members can understand their expectations (and they can reserve enough time for delivery)

　　Guided reviews on both sides

Content Review (sometimes referred to as Content summary) is the key to maintaining a well-running content strategy, and they are also recognized as a daunting task.

There is a tool that can help you review the process, is Page Trawler (http://www.pagetrawler.com/), which can automatically check most of your links.

　　

 

Most importantly, you should not only test user-oriented content, but also pay attention to the content hidden behind the scenes, such as testing your SEO (Search Engine Optimization ), content tag and link reliability.

Other common problems are inaccurate dates and prices, server availability, and website staff details.

　Analysis and Experiment

When maintaining and optimizing the content, the last thing to consider is how to analyze and test the quality and efficiency and get useful inspiration from the experiment.

Keep common analysis methods such as A/B testing in mind. By analyzing and experimenting with web page la S, you can improve the efficiency of your Web page content, (Here you can refer to A/B testing in Google's content analysis test for help: http://www.cardinalpath.com/ab-testing-with-google-analytics-content-experiments)

　{Summary}

In our opinion, the three phases of content development are:

• Content Planning: research content requirements, including user research, and help users understand the importance of their website or commercial content;

• Content development: Good work and cooperation with others. Follow the line chart to inspire everyone's enthusiasm for continuous work. GRASP regular discussions to make people aware of the larger goals of their website content.

• Content maintenance: strict editing calendars are introduced to keep the content fresh. During content review, technical background content should also be considered.

These steps seem a lot more, but the benefits are also obvious: by putting the content strategy back into your web design process, you can build a better website, which is less stressful, at the same time, you can spend time on more important things.

The content itself is not complex. Its delay and scarcity are simply a lack of planning (and Guiding Principles ).

I hope that through these suggestions, you can find more fun in project content management, and get rich reports on webpage design and content strategy integration.