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Consider an upscale boutique for women's shoes in New York City. In order to attract the right clientele, the boutique needs to build a good reputation and provide a pleasant (or cool, or funky, or exclusive) shopping experience. Thousands of dollars may be spent on interior designers, stylists, and architects who will perfect the boutique's appearance. Thousands more may be spent on marketing and advertising to attract the crowds. After all this investment in the brand and the infrastructure, the most critical consideration remains. The shop must provide access to incredible shoes – shoes that cannot be found elsewhere. If the boutique does not have shoes the savvy shoppers are seeking, customers will leave empty handed. After all, the shoppers have no shortage of stores to visit and ways to spend their money.

Your website has a lot in common with this boutique. No matter the field, your market is fickle and online visitors have more options to choose from than time to spend at the computer. Chances are it is not the shade of blue in your banner or the icons you're using that are turning away potential customers. More likely, it is the content, or lack thereof, that causes website abandonment.

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What is Content Strategy?

Your online content must communicate with your users by unambiguously expressing your message and goals. Content must support the interactive experience you have worked hard to create, enticing users to take action (e.g., buy your product, get on your mailing list, donate money, etc.). Despite the clear connection between business goals and content, surprisingly little planning and effort are put into generating and maintaining online content.

Collectively, the tasks of planning for, obtaining, writing, editing, managing, and maintaining content may be termed "content strategy." Many site owners and managers hear the word "content" and immediately think "copywriting," but writing site copy is only one component of the strategy.

A content strategy:

• Tells you how much content should be on your site, where it will originate, and how often it will be updated;
• Sets the tone of your site by determining vocabulary and writing style; and
• Helps align the verbal messages on your site with the design and the organization created by the site's structure.

Perhaps most importantly, developing a content strategy forces site owners to make decisions about all of these issues and then assign responsibility for implementation to one or more individuals. The dismissive reflex, "content equals copy" overlooks the complexities inherent in a long-term content strategy and can have far reaching effects on the success of a site. Look deeper into several common misconceptions about content strategy and it quickly becomes clear why content strategy deserves more attention throughout a website's lifecycle.

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Common Misconceptions about Content Strategy

1. Content Strategy Costs More than It's Worth

Failing to see the connection between content and a website's return on investment, many site managers quickly strike content strategy from budget proposals in an attempt to keep costs down. Flashy graphic elements or interactive features might be easy to sell to upper management early on, but several months after the site launches, when traffic begins to fade, justifying your investment to that same management team won't be so easy. Don't get me wrong, a fresh look and innovative features are imperative for a website's success and can draw a big audience. But, up-to-date, meaningful, and useful content is what brings that audience back time and again. Which site would you rather be on?

• A terrific looking, easy to browse site with poorly written or dated content; or
• A site with dated graphics and Pulitzer-worthy content.

Good content turns site visitors into loyal patrons by building your online brand and reputation. More visits from more customers lead to more sales and a larger return on investment.

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2. We Can Deal with Content Strategy Later

Consultants love to tackle projects in phases. It allows more time to work through ideas, adapt solutions to reality, and react to challenges as they move through a project. Content strategy, however, is not something that works well as a secondary phase or afterthought. Consider the shoe boutique in the introduction once again. If the store were designed to stock Manolo Blahnik and Dior but the shop owners could only get their hands on Nine West and Hush Puppies, customers would be very disappointed. The success of a site depends on the site's elements (design, architecture, and content) supporting and reinforcing one another. The structure and presentation of a site is likely to be more effective when it is clear what will be said and how it will be delivered. As online experiences become more interactive and complex, content becomes even more intertwined with other elements of the site.

Imagine spending many months and tens of thousands of dollars designing and architecting an elegant site with a minimalist air meant to attract young, hip art-lovers to a well-known gallery's auction site. A few weeks before the launch, the gallery's copywriter is called to fill the site with content. This writer has been providing the gallery with scholarly descriptions of the artwork for years, which potential buyers study on paper prior to an auction. These long, intellectual pieces don't fit well with the site's new image (or its content management system) but the date for launch has been set and it is easier to reuse content than to write more. And so, the once beautifully streamlined pages are now filled with lengthy text that does not speak to the site's intended audience and is difficult to process online. The well-laid foundation and beautiful design now compete with the copy rather than gracefully delivering it.

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3. User Experience is All About Design and Architecture

Yes, page flows and imagery play a huge part in shaping the online user experience. Without clear navigation and a pleasing page layout, a user's experience could hardly be considered positive. But many site owners fail to see that content plays an equally important role to structure and design in this regard. As Julie Hayden tells us in her piece on A List Apart, language is the ultimate user interface. The tone of a site and the consistency of voice can make or break a user's impression. Language is a very flexible and adaptable tool that should be used to your advantage on your website.

Content consists of more than the articles posted on washingtonpost.com or Amazon's product descriptions. Content appears everywhere on a website: navigation labels, buttons, error messages, warnings, and page titles. These elements must work in concert with the more substantive content on the site and, in turn, must work well with the design and structure. A content strategy can ensure that all of these elements are consistent and complementary and define a tone and voice for the site.

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4. People Don't Actually Read on the Web

According to Pam Horan, president of the Online Publishers Association (OPA), over the past four years "the primary role of the Internet has shifted from communications to content." The Internet Activity Index (IAI) gauges people's use of e-commerce, communications, content, and search services over time. Prior to 2003, communication (mainly email) was the primary reason for Internet use. Since 2003, the importance of content has displaced communication. While some of this increase in content can be attributed to social networking sites and instant messaging (which the OPA considers to be content) the primary cause can be attributed to offline activities shifting to online tools, such as reading the newspaper, checking the weather, or getting driving directions.

Not only are users taking advantage of new, interactive ways to get content online but they are faced with many more websites to visit. Thus, the quality of content becomes increasingly important over time. Jakob Nielson has been telling us since 1997 that although reading online is difficult, users will scan concise, well-formed, text – if someone takes the time to write it. As the willingness of users to read on the web increases, it becomes even more critical that your content is easy to absorb.

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5. Our Staff Writers Can Fill Any Web Content Needs

Staff writers should certainly be able to write content for your site, but the question at hand is whether or not they can provide you with a content strategy. Remember that writing copy is only one small part of the task. Questions to ask yourself (and your staff) include:

• How comfortable/familiar are you with online technologies?
• How knowledgeable are you about writing for the Web?
• Will current workloads and job descriptions allow you (or your writers) to be closely involved with the development of the site's structure and content templates? Will the same be true six months or one year from now?
• Are you comfortable with your writers leading the charge to develop the strategy and then managing it over time?
• Do any of the writers on staff have the desire to take on this role?

The individual(s) creating your online content strategy must be familiar with online technologies and intimately involved in the design and architecture of your site. Attempting to create the content strategy in a vacuum, without access to the development team will decrease the effectiveness of the strategy and the site itself. The content strategist can become the caretaker or content manager of the site, but only if he is empowered by the organization (i.e., given time and authority) to do so.

Though formal training is not required, staff writers with library science, content management system, indexing, information architecture, or usability experience will be much more comfortable managing a full online content strategy.

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Conclusion

If you haven't given much thought to content strategy, it might be time to reconsider. A high-quality content strategy will be worth more than you spend on it and a site without one is less likely to help you achieve your business goals. If you are already building a site, now is a good time to think about content. The longer you wait, the more disjointed your content may feel. The content on your site is the user experience. Reading is as much a part of the online experience as clicking the search button. Make sure the experience is cohesive. People do read on the Web. In fact, they are reading more and more every day. Make sure you are providing content worth reading. Your staff writers may not be able to create your content strategy. You rely on experts to produce every other element on your site, why not the content?

Remember: Your website is a shoe store. Are you stocking the right shoes?

Resources and References

Lovinger, Rachel. Content Strategy: The Philosophy of Data (3/26/2007)
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/content-strategy-the

Hayden, Julia. Language: The Ultimate User Interface (4/14/2000)
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/ultimate

Usborn, Nick. A Fairy, a Low-Fat Bagel, and a Sack of Hammers (11/7/2003)
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/hammers

Cheng, Jacqui. Study: Primary role of the Internet shifting from communications to content (8/13/2007)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070813-study-primary-role-of-the-internet-shifting-from-communications-to-content.html

Nielsen, Jakob. Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)(3/15/1997)
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html

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