Content strategy is concerned with the planning, organising, analysis, publishing and managing of website content. As we discussed in Understanding your purpose, values and vision your website must be clearly aligned with your business objectives. Content strategy helps companies and people achieve their objectives by maximising the impact of their website content.
Content strategy is a cyclical process throughout the life span of the web project. It encompasses ongoing publishing and content maintenance strategies. Kristina Halvorson from Brain Traffic suggests that content strategy covers many content related specialism:
- Editorial strategy defines the guidelines by which all online content is governed
- Web writing is the practice of writing useful, usable content specifically intended for online publication.
- Metadata strategy identifies the type and structure of metadata, also known as “data about data” (or content).
- Search engine optimisation is the process of editing and organising the content on a page or across a website (including metadata) to increase its potential relevance to specific search engine keywords.
- Content management strategy defines the technologies needed to capture, store, deliver, and preserve an organisation’s content.
- Content channel distribution strategy defines how and where content will be made available to users.
Source: The Discipline of Content Strategy
I’d be tempted to add information architecture into that mix too. Although an established field in itself, and one that straddles both design and content, if you only have budget for one content specialist, or a very small team, they will be responsible for all of these areas under the umbrella of content strategy. Unfortunately dispite the mission critical nature of website content it remains the most underfunded and overlooked aspect of most website development projects.
