Unravel the intricacies of content strategy, a discipline that marries creativity with analytics. Discover how strategic planning can elevate your content, engage your audience, and drive your business forward. Let's delve into the world of content strategy.
People who make websites talk about user experience, information architecture, content management systems, coding, metadata, visual design, user research, and all the other disciplines that facilitate our users’ abilities to find and consume content.
Weirdly, though, we haven’t been talking about the meat of the matter
- Content is the web, and it deserves our time and attention.
- That’s where content strategy comes in.
Take up the torch
David Campbell, the founder of Saks Fifth Avenue, said that discipline is remembering what you want
- Until we commit to treating content as a critical asset worthy of strategic planning and meaningful investment, we’ll continue to churn out worthless content in reaction to unmeasured requests
- Stop pretending content is somebody else’s problem and make it your problem
What is Content Strategy?
Plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content
- Defines which content will be published and why
- At its best, a content strategy defines: key themes and messages, recommended topics, content purpose, content gap analysis, metadata frameworks and related content attributes, search engine optimization, and implications of strategic recommendations
There are far too many “aspects of communication” for a solitary content strategist to claim deep expertise in all of them
Editorial strategy: guidelines by which all online content is governed
- Web writing: the practice of writing useful, usable content specifically intended for online publication
- Metadata strategy: the type and structure of metadata
- Search engine optimization: the process of editing and organizing the content on a page or across a website to increase its potential relevance to specific search engine keywords
- Content management strategy: technologies needed to capture, store, deliver, and preserve an organization’s content
- Channel distribution strategy: how and where content will be made available to users
