Content Strategy that satisfies

Using plants as a metaphor for the stuff living on your site, let’s go over the basics of how to turn an overgrown mess into a beautiful, sustainable garden.

Pick a focus area

Find a place that means something to you and the people that come by. This is usually your front lawn (homepage), but doesn’t have to be. Focus on that area; it will teach you the basics without being overwhelming. The page you choose should be something you can get excited about improving over time.

Clean up what you have before piling on more

Be familiar with what you’ve got before making any big decisions. Get in there, dedicate some time, and get some dirt under your nails.

When you find some weeds or decaying clutter, edit, edit, edit. Don’t be shy.

Keeping up with the upkeep

Make sure the amount of content on your site is manageable. Set a schedule for reviewing, editing, deleting, and adding new things. Avoid overgrowth and overcomplicating it.

Know when to call the professionals

Some jobs are too big for one person. Just like an estate needs a landscape architect and a dedicated groundskeeper, your site may need an information architect and a dedicated content strategist. If you’re drowning in labyrinthine content, be sure to consult the professionals.

On that consumption thing

When it comes to content, “cultivation” interests me more than “consumption.” Curiosity does not equal hunger. I want to learn.

Tell me what you know. Show me something new or interesting. That’s how you get me involved.

My partner-in-UX-crime (Mike at web414) and I did a talk here in Milwaukee last night. We stressed how content strategy is the seed for creating good user experiences.

Someone in the audience asked if we’ve ever worked with copywriters. We haven’t. But we said that it’s a critical role that needs to be swept into the content strategy process along with larger, more fancy-sounding aspects like content inventories.

Too many organizations throw the job of copy creator to the marketing department. In the last minute of zero hour, they freak and say, “Dude! Get James to hammer this one out!”

Marketers are good at what they do. But writing strategically-sound, engaging, and good web copy ain’t it. Usually.

(I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spend “un-writing” and “webinizing” copy that marketers have created. Not to bash them. Just being honest.)

Here’s the thing: Copywriting must be strategic. Tone and style can’t be a flight of fancy. Everyone who creates copy for a site has to speak the same language. Have a vision and a plan for making that happen.

Without a distinct voice, there’s nothing to build a user experience on.

Think of the collusion of copy and UX as a baby. First it makes unintelligible noises, then gets context, then forms words, then sings lovely, profoundly-phrased songs. And we all like a nice song, don’t we?

Give me your douchey, your tired, your pathetic jargon longing to be unsucked:

• http://unsuck-it.com

You can also follow along on Twitter: @unsuckit.

Working on an inventory? Fred Leise offers eleven heuristics for analyzing content:

• Collocation
• Differentiation
• Completeness
• Information scent
• Bounded horizons
• Accessibility
• Multiple access paths
• Appropriate structure
• Consistency
• Audience-relevance
• Currency

See also: Use a Compass to Implement Taxonomy During Web Development.

I would really like to hear some arguments about how this differs from what we do:

Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development which is concerned with how media intermission such as printed, crafted, electronic media or presentations communicate with people. A communication design approach is not only concerned with developing the message aside from the aesthetics in media, but also with creating new media channels to ensure the message reaches the target audience.

Communication design seeks to attract, inspire, create desires and motivate the people to respond to messages, with a view to making a favorable impact to the bottom line of the commissioning body, which can be either to build a brand, move sales, or for humanitarian purposes. Its process involves strategic business thinking, utilizing market research, creativity, and problem-solving.